Objectify

(I actually wrote and performed this for a feature slot for one of Kevin Reinhardt's poetry events, then never did it again. It wasn't the intention to abandon it so swiftly, but its Vonnegut-apeing quirkiness probably didn't seem quite as clever to me later on as it did the morning after writing it.  These things happen.

I can't remember how I handled the "insert your own…" aspects of the piece. Pointed to the page, I think. That should be bloody high on the list of things you really shouldn't do in front of a live audience.)

We have all, at one point, fantasized about “being” with celebrities.

Don’t try to deny it.

Don’t sneer at me.  Don’t pretend you’ve never been

captivated by shallow glitz.

Insert your own fantasy here    ---------------------------------------------------------------

Insert your own poem here:

I cannot do it for you.

Eventually these dreams become tiresome.

Once the admiration of your friends

wears off and turns to jealousy so you

have no friends, you are left alone.

Your lover talks to Dazed and Confused

about the tragedy of war and a

new fragrance she has launched, and

you are merely a vampire in a hall of mirrors.

For today, however, I am

imagining getting together with the

woman on the late news programme who is

researching corruption in the American Military.

She sits, stuttering slightly, wearing

more make-up than she’s clearly used to,

trapped inside a television against her will.

I know how things would run.

I would meet her at a party.

One of those crap London dos full of

rich kids talking loudly and

confidently about subjects they know 

nothing about.

She would be fascinating and approachable.

Her angular nose would bump against

mine when we tried to kiss, but it

wouldn’t spoil the moment.  We’d laugh, and

the pressure, and eventually her clothes,

would be off.

Her busy work talking to people she

hates and trying to extract the

truth would make her lonely, and so

she would need the slow pleasure of warmth,

would not see it as restricting or

suffocating, just liberating.

Maybe weeks, possibly months down the line,

her single-minded passion, her

interest in the world, her beliefs would

make her enviable company.  If I

didn’t love her by this point,

I’d at least feel something approaching it.

But I have a life of my own, and I wonder:

How would I feel when, for the seventh

morning in a row, a tin soldier from her

war model kit, commonly used as a demonstration

tool on broadcasts, got stuck in a bloody

trench in my foot?  How would I take it

when she left me after

six months to do research in Kyrygstan?

There are always these doubts.

I know.

I have been married nearly a thousand times to

different women, all for a few moments.

I quickly turn my attention to the PA on the

sixth floor downstairs, the woman in

vintage clothing who lives on the

tenth floor of a run-down tower block,

the lady in the silent home film I have

found in the local junk store.

It always ends the same,

and I do about it what I do in real life.

I sigh and do nothing.

You Must Have Noticed

(One more from the file of very old poems. This crept into a self-published pamphlet called "The Blues For Dummies" I only ever made about twenty copies of ten years ago.  It was a horribly designed, flimsy xeroxed effort which was supposed to have generated extra revenue from gig bookings, but in the end only used to earn me a few quid a night - perhaps because it looked so unpromising.

 Possibly in a bid to confuse my future self, there was also a poem called "The Blues For Dummies", but that never made the final cut for some reason.  Maybe I should try to find that somewhere among my piles of paper…)

Check “Last Ten Calls” on your mobile and

watch the jagged, dot matrix

parade of names of

cumbersome, beer gutted,

list loving single males

flick past your eyes.

Make a note of them.

This is your army.

Her name isn’t there.

“1471” the land line,

listen to the lilting female voice, the

only one you’ve heard

crackling down the line in a

fortnight, slide from sleepy

vocal ballet to eighties

Numanoid robo-jerk as she read off

your parent’s number.

Her number isn’t there.

Consider last conversations,

the chew of clicking chat,

innocent innuendo expanding,

remarks on new men she’d met

clattering like sharpened

flints of secrets from her

pocket which she toyfully

hid with her foot, protesting

their platonic status.

Your mind wasn’t there.

You’ve had your last warning.

She’s sick of waiting for you to decide.

She knows if it were up to you

you’d spend your whole life

waiting for the right time to surrender.

Before I Die

Hello.

Just to let you all know that I'll be performing at a new poetry night "Before I Die" on the 6th November - details on the left.  "Before I Die" is the name of the poetry night, incidentally, hence the quotes. I'm not actually planning to kill myself afterwards, though I'm trying to decide what to include in the set as we speak, and I've found some ancient old howlers on my hard drive which might make someone else want to kill me if I read them.  But I won't.

So expect good material, some new material, a whole lot of open mic opportunities, some killer poems from Tom Bland and Sunshine Faggio, and the start of what will hopefully be a regular night on London's poetry circuit.

The Facebook event page, for those of you who do Facebook, is here.

The "I'm sick of poets plugging their work online, who do they think they are?" whiners group, on the other hand, can be found somewhere off the edge of Beachy Head.  

London

(Sorry for the long break between blog entries - I moved house at the beginning of September and BT were supposed to connect me back to the internet within a couple of weeks of the move date, but in reality didn't happen until a few days ago. 

Let's not go on and on about that, though, or talk about how naive I was to actually try staying with them.  Let's put a poem up, shall we?  Yes).

As the man in the Bell Pub

with grey octopus hair

tried to tell me, there is

poetry in this city –

you can find it (son)

in the warm vanilla ice

cream light of night

time terraced houses, the

hilltop display of Christmas

lights strung out

across midnight wires of

roads, the sight of

Canary Wharf, viewed

like a quiet, gently

humming generator from afar.

Try to see it (he said)

in the Heathrow Planes

morsing signals of

life to us down below,

winking that there is

even more life and love

above, and try to

understand that

every scuff your feet

leave on the pavement is

another line on the

city’s Pollock painting.

Your problem (he sneered) is

just that it always continues,

with or without you, and

you cannot see it all at once.

It cannot be fixed, defined,

badged with single

metaphors, and soft

signs of easy requited love.

It writes itself, and will

continue to do so,

even when you’re gone.

“How do you like that?” he

asked, leaning back in

his chair, killing me off

with the point of a single

stinking, righteous finger.

About Time

After you remember the

missing pieces of a 2001

alcohol blackout, and

ring your friends to

apologise, know this –

there are other bits

missing up the hoover too,

bagpiping a dischordant dirge of

protest at every attempt to

spring clean your life.

So write “sorry” on the banners

in bold, definite letters,

cover every window in

explanations, and replace the

feathers in your pillows

with chicken necks. 

Hang on, let no light in,

and sleep little –

get practice in for

whatever else will

inevitably transpire

when you’ve decided

you can live with yourself.