Omens, but they are only photographs

OMENS, BUT THEY ARE ONLY PHOTOGRAPHS

…to be remembered as the local soak
was the only achievement; should I die now

lenin’s preference for a cafe & gift shop called come the revolution
would be all that remains; leaves in shrinking china,

mao, nixon; getting better at ping-pong diplomacy waiting
for lamplighters, scalphunters, manuals

diagnosing depression in groups of three: this is the absolute truth
about pythagoras. Oh darling, what on earth am I going to do with this thing?

I’m drying my socks in this green trombone: blow, blow
while those canny cognoscenti in the know

recite a crowd flowed over london bridge, so many, i had not thought death…:
there’s a low turnout in this slow, circular snow.

Please don’t look at the trombones; it only encourages them to crow.
I went to the doctor & guess what he told me, guess what he told me:

make your way to prozac jack for a dose of post-valentines-ventriloquy:
but no trombones please: the urinals are full of people like you -

the sweet desperate for the ascerbic
to rescue the sour, the tatterdemalion & burdock; omens,

but they are only photographs darling; not quite shamans;
look closely & observe a string of dactyls: murderous readers of poetry

may be surprised: all this space in church?
& with its insistence on the visual; the circumstantial

out of breath,
screaming oh darling please believe me

without even being tactile.

Make a Poem

MAKE A POEM

She said art makes life
feel guilty, unforgiving she would screw me
into her next poem; it will take thirty minutes max,
like a good crucifixion: show me
words in the wrong order, grammar bunnies
for malcontents & a trip to the Emily Dickinson theme park…
As you wish. I love a dash
of vodka, or lime in my lager, slip
in a malapropism for good measure. Why don’t you?
The truth is in the cliche. Ask Kay Ryan, now you’re talking.
Why not bulk up for the show, it’s a crucifixion, smile
for the camera, do something less interesting,
call it, even if you are a first time flyer
with a horrendous snore
for a laugh.
Look at those snowballs
aiming towards that glass blower. Someone should
put a stop to that, wear helmets. Or grease
the chain. It’s like school where you live, pure infliction, paradise
in the brochures, Bali
before the bombshell, if you take away the swimming pool.
I was so miserable back then, even you died
laughing at such a strange method
of shirking. It’s true, being drunk makes this poem charming.

Weight Loss

WEIGHT LOSS

The delinquent,
The sublimated auctioneer;
the saint pails, I can’t
spell god to save my LIFE gold star, olympic medal, will they go ahead, no, no.
Oh no, no, no.
What do you mean there are horses
in Greenwich park, that has always been
the case.
Ask me again & die
laughing. Ok. I’ll deal at 99 Noel. It’s almost aladdins lamp.
I want to work until I’m really old, don’t call
unless I can kill
half a stone in weight. There is an emergency, you know
the programme, you like,
living in Llanelli (of all places this is nice, no-one likes it) even the fly
fishing is deaf. Yes, fly – someone said it was a John Donne love poem -
fishing – I can’t do that tonight. Sorry.

Tell Tale

TELL TALE

nothing could stop millions talking out loud, like paranoia
or skin, most of my polite company does stick
thin; you
are convinced they are all
behind it, the ill
eased: healthy body, mind, the missionary
position, the gap.
If you do something quickly,
all you get is quickness…
I forget the Latin; this shouldn’t happen
in a poem, but I am on the tube, if not who i am, everybody
writes like this – judges & look I know
we can’t say: remember
the hand written letters, telling us to conform. Gladly.
After all I can’t protest, somebody will tell & what must be
contended with is what I must be content with.

Making Tracks

MAKING TRACKS

The humdrum has no meaning, that is like the humdrum
it is if I feel close to, it cannot get me;
fear not, the caterpillar
comes here, stretching like that bent: me & not me; severed childhood games, ahead
but I can’t look out
from the fingernail smitten
window, the ceiling,
you are there; before me
there was someone else on this train.

There’s More To Life Than Originality

THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN ORIGINALITY

A concentrated weirdness:
how unbelievable Shiraz is, reading these trees,

tarot, spilt on the floor next to L’etranger, by the lion, the brave,
no longer sure who came. How could you talk to Freud like that?

The weather was good. Can you dwell on such atrocities
when people are looking. It’s not time, is it?

The End of The World

THE END OF THE WORLD

Don’t use the taps.
How will you wash your hands after grace?

And what does it mean to be flounced anyway?
When the wind tortures the glue holding

me to these promises, how boring you are with titles.
The Buddha is playing Martin Scorsese in rain, no reference.

She is silent like you wouldn’t be
doing an expression of who I was in short,

carnation bursts, would you?
They were just names.

You’re not really called that.
You surely won’t come a cropper the way

most people believe
in something monstrous; god

how boring you are
even to be thinking that sort of thing

about this poem, about being
boring. What’s the use? Come on, bring in the pet

shop boys; there’s nothing normal
about the blue budgerigar, the albino. You said so

in the telephone box,
the disused railway timetables,

shirking past caring – home? home?

It’s only a diary; frank &
using a bidet. Leave it out. How can you read that

now this has happened
to you, her breath the only one to

hold in this weather, the schedule of rings
to be distributed on the wall. Sshhh!

You first. Me second.
Now let’s play hangman or Wagner

& forget loose for a while; you know
this is an absolute disaster, for punishment, for what we know,

so hang on, not so tight.

And I Suppose Authenticity

AND I SUPPOSE AUTHENTICITY

And I suppose authenticity
doesn’t exist,
like tardy ants desperate to avoid screeching.
The nature you can catch
up on, if you choose virgin, or check jumpers;
desperate like juniper berries,
longing to fall.
Did he hang?
Remind me of how the emperor
penguins reach ice?
Am I the daddy in putty, or just a computer
seizing all your property?
Most travellers assume the worst kind of fling in summer.
Especially when playing with walkouts, choosing carpets, or acne
makeovers on chipboard questionnaires.
How proud Proust must have felt to know himself at all.
I’ve asked all my friends & nobody will say a word.
It’s all true.
Especially the exaggerated trombone solo for Mark Twain lookalikes.
The conventions let me wrestle with the zip.
Flag it up! New moons blushing radiation in starch green light. Am I alienated yet, human ball?
Save the light for later, the last cornet player has just been executed Hong Kong style.
It’s all in the movies -
as if the Chinese were playing with their
taramasalata at dinner again. I reach for my Haiku, the mild mannered cigar -
rush like the leaves, cool & stupid unless you sing
like an angel lurking in the burnt out church with the gargoholics;
blowing the same Wurlitzer, the pipes they use
on devizes like strictly come dice with me. But war is nothing to Gods &amp Homer.
What is Ross Kemp? An actor
compared to getting the right chord, or fluffy keyring?
This is pandemonium.
I should try the new open microphone down the road, opposites Maggie’s Farm;
or a poetry night where we all clap or slam
along like before this newfangled stuff shouted run, run, bomb.
But then to say that is borderline conservative. Eroticism in the National Bibliotheque.
Nice here isn’t it?
Listen to those sirens. It’s coming. But I’m running
out of film. And when do you think it started? Was it you behind the blinds, the shower curtain?
I even shaved off my beard for charity &
donated a silver schaeffer pen.
Shucks. It’s a definition of breath.
Who has signed this fading questionnaire about Proust.
Get undressed.
The police are here.
Did he hang? We’re knocking on the door with an inquest
of everybody sane, or insane, with legs crossed
or uncrossed; of everybody who has signed
the petition, put your hands together.

The Clamour

THE CLAMOUR

You know when you’ve arrived.
We are in the age of the hotel concourse,
the lobby, scandal over soil & another airport to boost flagging
childhood fantasies while we wait for the angry young men
& the trepidation console,
unless training to be a martyr was your vocation. Wear slippers.
Pass by without incident.
“Darling, the shopping is too heavy”. It’s leaking
to reveal those famous lines in public – look,
the mouse got there first, tortured.
I take pains; cubism is dandy for the defunct
gymnasium horse. Do a headstand: preach to the diverted;
it gives us a sense of the terrain, the trophy
cat swallowing litter will testify & nobody is stealing
your hot water bottle, or springing.
Anyway, those drugs always rust in this weather.

Silent Type

SILENT TYPE

People have a horrible knack of liking me,
that’s hard to take,
whether I’m old, battered,
flawed, tattered or just
taking off my coat when they
least expect, as if I was going
to stay for a while, leafing
through poems, leaving
tea stains on the best bits,
imitating the mask
of anarchy, or being a witness
to a massacre; more & more life-
sized tasks waiting, a worldliness
to acquire, when I wish
there was much less world &
more invisibility & we didn’t have to
clean the oil painting, the birds
or the flowers, or find hope in the awkward silences.