Larry Gammons - Human by the Sea

1.

As wide as it will possibly go, I lost any claim to warranty.
This was a couple of tumours fighting for the marrow,
kissing on the street. Exhibitionism in its commonest gown

Mr Kumar was flummoxed. The geometry of circles no one
got. There was all that arse in his hands. And me though
struggling, evidently lacking, swapped.

Dropped forthwith the gentle strokes of deadpan. I threw
everything I had at the canvas. Pots, pans, Cherokee
doll. I went.

Keeping firm that eye vigilant. Seeing in her tongue up my
top nostril twice - we’d only just met see. Peering out the
farmed salmon . A window in the honk & cheer of a cab

2.

They had bought back guns from opium wars
and small porcelain potties - just plain kinky.
They could build fences and nestle, & war was
his mother, war was our mother. Hot butter run
over a dead wife. Slamming his boot against
the brake, ‘if the colonel don’t pay us etc.’
There was a tight pinch in the groin & it caused
follicles to throw him. They blew his dandelion.
Clunk, done. Human by the sea

3. An enemy of the loud mouth poetic bore.

You’re a whale [good on you Iceland]
playing a whale bassoon. The stool you sit on
is called Dorothy & Julian owns a watercolour.

Honking at the eulogies. Too much coriander,
too much nana, too many lapels, no distortion

This postman hates your telegrams,
& ‘bad-taste’ isn’t something a little fatty should
spread. The inscription reads ‘good hall’

4.

There is 67 foot of idiot in this room.
One could be you. 67 could be you
Swim backwards if you wish

I get up from the table
I fart gravestones under the stairs
I return with the long way round

5.

I have Lansdown Rd on my neck. Through my stomach the
Orange Order went. A pretty woman talks to me, I tell her I
got troubles - the weight of thrice by thrice. She pumps my
foot. She jabbed me with her summer pencil. I was not a
professional dingy. I played records about the Downs.

6.

I think Britain is faking. I think Britain has
woken up July 7 & drank too much coffee. I
think banning-smoking is the best relationship
Britain has ever had. I won’t mention what you
did when you went to France. I’ll keep quiet
about Dublin and its B.O. For now you just do
what the little woman says. We’ll be in touch,
& stop looking so anxious around that white
settee.

7.

(I) can’t go to Clapham picture house
tonight because it’s an average knife
but a fucking hot furnace ‘& have to
draw too quickly ‘bid’ on his chest’
‘bId’ ‘BiD’ ‘bID’ then home.

8.

Dear Bob, about the gig in Hyde park, sorry mate, but
I’m not gonna be able to make it. Crowds only make me
paranoid, and foreigners give me the willies. Did I mention
that I was once followed by a homosexual for over 3 hours
in Venice, anyway, if you’re interested the bloke next
door’s got a van going cheap. It’s taxed till April, and he
said he’d knock a little off for cash. Let me know. I’m sure
one of your little fellas could make use of it. Regards.

9.

Her nature is erudite & France, one of two sisters.
A cloud in a porn movie, posh but quirky, the family
own Beethoven’s egg-cup. Looking straight at auburn
you don’t arrive at audacious, you open (try to) the
broom-cupboard at the Tate. I joke her, did she know
the rich-crucified had the nails driven into the armpits
as to hide the join? A good old slap I get - not for
insolence. It’s my posture - ballet in the blood see, &
‘means it’ slouch! These two - her sister is preoccupied -
are Egyptian freaks. There are jokes in Egypt that just
aren’t funny, remember that. The sister is afraid a curse
may own her heat. ‘Nibby’ the pet turtle bit her this
morning. Though you reason with these gods apparently,
and harmony is restored. Only very slightly or maybe,
or not at all, because of.

10. Two sides of the same coin

One brother, the missionary
travelled Africa converting the black to Jesus
The other, the mercenary, shot them
They were a right pair, they were

11.

Why not connect that sparkling toe ring
by Mercedes
to your naval, and call it
the Princess Di.

12.

1. The grinning sailor looks around intoxicated
for a place to dump the cardboard. Anywhere
but the battleship

2. I type all-nude and peel my bits from my thighs
I peer into aunties sandwiches, before next-door
slams the phone down.

3. The magpie stole a tiara the thief did steal. The
hook hurt the fish very much. A small village
school award brings the weather

13.

I share a cigarette with the graveyard.
The graveyard is a pre-op transsexual.
Out of his tights fall a few deads he forgot about.

The graveyard hands me his genitals. They
are truly three shaved lambs. There are tight
blue biro dashes for collars.

It begins to drizzle and I can smell levers.
I suggest we cross the road to the Kings Head.
The graveyard checks his fusilier for change

14.

I crash into Belgium.
The sinks are full of babies.

15. Amsterdam 93.’

The bar (clue in: the wooden thing) stops the bicycles
falling over the cliffs, without wood Amsterdam would
find its knees. the mayoral gardens (delights of being
high my lord) is a multi-gym of the upper-register, and
I am not yet horse (voice & beast) but isn’t that guy
(tearful ‘joy’ there) combing his beer?

There is an expansive crooked lounge adjoining hells-
kitchen. It swings a bell in each hand tirelessly looking
for Elsie, Elsie I explain to a Japanese student, is the
Jackaroo, & the Jackaroo is the woman that always only
just left.

Dear London (I begin) I have a great idea for a game
show. It’s like blind-date, but the 2 guys that don’t get
the girl get chemically castrated p.s. get your arse over
here (it’s Anne Frank on the front) the spring rolls are
great (card never sent).

The longest kiss was for over 17 hours and forty-three
minutes fact. I feel my penis for luck (it’s that ivory neon
that does it) As I read the horseshoe back to front. I did
later ask what the inscription said, and just got handed a
brandy, over and over.

Hashish, removes material, levels ground and spreads
acerbic hindsight (chuckle you do too) It slaps the nape
of the neck, it is a rhino into a haystack. I can feel the
soot at the back of my throat climb into the spinal shoot,
and the love grandma gave in her cake-spoon bursts up
‘em.

16.

1. You don’t have to have your arms
all the way around the shuttle to walk
home humming aloud how you hugged
the space ship

2. It’s man that puts the labels in the wrong
place

17.

No-one, not even old man Reilly, leaves them doors open
anymore, cos it’s a big sexual innuendo. Doors, hatches,
windows and flaps, we close them. The telephone even
closes them.

18.

I peel the leaning tower, heart to haemorrhoids to
16windows at once. I’m invisible but loud poor
in Pizza. Mad, taking inches of the one leg, out here.
Draining the milk I recognise them curtains from the
test-centre. Them strides to the car were surely fake

19.

As the children rammed popsicles
into yellowed china emphysema
drew their smiles. Nelly being a
catholic, was not mummified

20. Beautiful mind ruined with beautiful drug.

A landscape in the mouth of a shepherd is either dull or
telling dependent on oats. It runs, he garbles, ‘from
right over there to right over here,’ and if you want detail
‘a bit of green and a church somewhere off down that way’

I must pick up that blouse. I swap the microphone for the
lamb. ‘the phone box has melted’

The shepherd walks off feeling barbed-wire in his water
‘can I have some barbed wire?’ [come back, I chase, I
need him to sign my sheet]

Stock-cube.

21.

I lay out in the dark.
one Ivan in fishnets, one
Ivan in the jazz. Midnight,
at the counters of seeping perforation.
I bring my knees to my chest and cycle

22.

I didn’t see the problem
The cuffs really went with the torch
that said goodnight
to trains

23. Communal house share

‘your girlfriend has left half her minge on my towel’
‘see’, ‘minge’, he sniffs it, ‘that’s not minge’, ‘that’s
monkey’, ‘and anyway, who ate my onion?’, ‘what
onion?’, ‘this onion’ ,‘that’s not onion, that’s minge’
‘minge?!’ ,‘yes minge’, ‘how did that get there?!’
‘well we must have minge in the flat’, ‘it’s all those
girlfriends you leave on the floor’, ‘what do we do?’
‘put down some monkey and catch the minge’, ‘but
i don’t want to kill minge’, ‘monkeys don’t kill minge,
onions do’

24. From the other room.

Our accident prone neighbour, death just can’t
finish her crossword, has me jumped, followed
by the tool box emptying out its contents crash.

She is never to explode, bang, & have me running
She skirts live rails often. She never goes all the
way and so I can be of use. Always on call, never
called for.

Her executioner is frustrated, I'm tense, & here
she is again, dripping in loose gun shot at my door,
asking if I could help her wax her bomb, so to
resemble ‘truth’, (tomorrow ?) ok.

25.

1. Every Friday night I travel the inch along the ‘great-wall’
(necessary) to keep my hand-in, never an inch closer, but
never an inch further away (& I don’t remember who put
it so eloquently). Friday is the evening of recalibration (for
me (it’s) a painting of a hyena. Add another whisker, a little
shadow surrounding the claw) Tickets for this parade, I’m
afraid are not available (as everyone is at in their own way)

2. How can anyone dress so incredibly wrong (was what
she first said as I walked up to her) She was lunging over
at some partisan official, a creditor (the triangle has some-
how an extra edge) (& consistency in colour and cloth &
size of garments to her, was personal) I saw nothing
outrageously mismatched. What’s with the cloth? She dry
heaved

3. (now chatting to the woman I wish I were out with,
sort of) (staying within radar at least) ‘fish’ people I live
without, she bangs on (by fish I think she means ‘feed
them and they rise to the bait’) It must be exhausting
heeding these calls (I add: to nature) (she isn’t quite sure
how I mean ‘nature’) (nature thrown in to any sentence
is unnerving) She sees these ‘fish as distracted souls (I’ll
quote) ‘when you can’t see ‘one interviewer one couch’
one goal, you’ll be at odds’ (id prefer, puppies nipping
at ankles (and it’s only ankles because they’re 6 inches tall)
but not that I believe in what she’s on about anyhow)

26.

I’m very feared by woman. Mostly those unavailable
to eye-liner. There’s an odd entity. There’s also the worst
of rhymes.

Borstal preens the convicts of the future, he counts with
‘em - it says, turn the page. It says, ‘touch but don’t turn
round’.

If only I could build on this, stay cool - manage the crook.
Instead of ruining my infamy by begging them for sex.
Instead of crying.

27.

This is supposedly good, god & evil, devil, take a seat
or move over. Him, deranged, enjoys sub-sets, not
misanthropic. Wears big purple velvet boots. Long
industrious rubber spikes out the soles. How do I know?
They bend, he stands on them. They are pot-marked.
‘I’m dancing darling, dancing dandy, and aint you pretty
fine looker sugar sweet heart’. She’s real, sipping soda.
She’s gingham epoch. ‘Got to keep them devils down’.
She sways her hips, encouraged, tooling with the showboat
tunes. He preaches casual superstitious garb. He sweats
into his kettle. The devil rats are drilling up for oxides,
‘so the good man god above put us spikes on our soles’
She has most of the straw in her mouth. These ‘nosey
devils, trying pull some air from our lungs and switch
our woman for snakes’ This clown is catching. There is
a circular crowd only because the barn is square.

28.

1. the birds get in the winds eyes
2. simple sallow farm folk embrace the telephone

29. Diary of a ball sucker

Ball sucker
Ball sucker
Ball sucker
Two weeks off getting balls sucked
Ball sucker

30.

I took my time savouring the suet homes. I carved
into them puddings with detection. I removed all
the lips first. I worked the rim as Airfix ™.

Refugees from Beckton reported symptoms of head
Ibiza. Radium was twisting their disco. Chlorine is
no match for the proton-heavy slag.

It was a magazine aimed at the hot-rod enthusiast.
wheels, chrome & spaghetti. Heinz spaghetti splashed
where heart-burn met glamour. It was a birthday issue

31.

I just made one
as the ceiling split
and out poured
liquid Hammond organ.

32.

Do you remember O’Flannigans bar. The postcard of the
mariachi above the paper promotional trophy ‘just first
prize’. I stood a pint in there, or some.

A day in the fields & that idiot screaming, ‘you should be
able to erect a fence, didn’t you work on a farm?’ Barley
yes, tonnage, not cattle.

And in we’d trudge, red where it wasn’t white. Beneath
our nails, what we’d done. 14% dead insects on our boots,
the land of Ireland, the flag, the song, the prayer.

I’ll always remember Micky Flynn. b. somewhere, d. the
next room. His one milky-blue eye (grit). His fiddle.
When cabbage wasn’t boiling hankies were.

33.

Cheers the bar where everyone knows your name.
The bar where everyone knows the name you give them.
The bar where you are named twice on arrival
& have three months to decide.
The bar where names are so very important it hurts.
The bar where names are given Mondays off
And everyone just sits quiet, still and winded

34.

Dunkirk was a great landing, but lets
be honest – they’ve done nothing since

35.

the corners of new soap hurt in mention.
‘so what would you like for dinner?’

36.

I can smell the petrol on her little cranial engine.
She leaves a seafood muscle on her plate. I conduct.

It is a gauntlet from the North sea. I ask her how
they transfer kidneys? I ask her the shape of her
village?

Later that day and nearly died. Emma gets
shy around me see. Her glasses fell-off. I munch the
pine-party cold.

37.

I have two troubles (see) bottom and breath.
& when our lighthouse crumbles I’ll take
both Simons to the rocks and grate my woes

38.

I have one hand on the bed-board. I gripped the stock-
car. I broke into a showgirl. I went on a 70 year tour
speckled in silver. I'm allergic to Naples. I got the hotel-
illness in my back. Breakfast is liver. Tea is liver-sausage
There are lots of showers. I'm mainly bugle and punch.

39.

You can only both stand upon a spike when ones holding
the other in the others arms. There’s a town clutching itself
by itself, with itself. Hesitation I say mats the tendrils, and
the longer we delay, the greasier we become’d.

40.

‘Juggler boy, last night, set fire to the kitchen.
The kettle melted.’ I thought of your daughters horse.

There I was, all in denim. She’d spotted the machetes
in a clay oven pot. He juggles, fire eats. Kids parties,
between courses, when pissed in Marrakech.

& I hid how much it hurt falling off the unicycle.
I landed on my throat. I hid it with, ‘will you marry me?’

41.

Sipping his very very very small beer, his Cadillac
waving to everyone

42.

Enjoy life late morning. This fine Rioja is exquisite.
Recommended by the silent movie motion flick of
such name, ‘it copes fantastic in heels over cobbles’

& I’m thinking export gratitude. Alcoholic acts of
kindness, give. ‘bathe swans in melted ripe
extraneous planet.’ I rose off my chair hamlet style.

Pig, it was whispered, in my ear, when I was young,
when I cut my sausage into 8 pieces, tastes all that
better for an orchard jaunting. O I have not brushed

My teeth, I do not shave! And this tongue did once
kiss a cousin. A 300 pound suit and he went straight
for the brawn, the bride wasn’t happy. I would journey

to meet – shake hands – with the barrel, send a crate
of something fine to the sun in that part of Spain, &
on the small card write, ‘I have no underpants on
(it’s choice) hallelujah. I hang out my washing,
cheers’. O in this mood I play with the noisome idea

of inviting over those I haven’t stopped loving, and
back to when I was at school now: walking into the
revenant sounds of an empty gymnasium - dust
rising in a room filled with perfumed light

43.

Half man half horse walks into a doctors surgery
‘I think the man next door is trying to steal my wife’
‘Really (do you get) any fevers, pains down your left side?’
‘No, but it takes a bag a sand on my back before I can
even think about climbing the fence.’

44.

Only touch me if I’m dead (when) if you find my finger in
something it shouldn’t, but don’t break my wrist to remove
it, hacksaw whatever it’s in; my finger I need in heavens
phone-box

And if my cough hasn’t stopped, I give you permission to
reach in and drain my lungs, but care not to make me too
schoolboy; I want to be at the back of the choir understand

I hope to be clothed, but if I’m not clothed, you’ll find
clothes, till then think of me ‘think clothes’ Industrial
denim & welders caps; looking to play cards in the boiler
room

45.

I drew lengths. I plotted a nautical mile with a biro,
with several biros. I drew over everything. I raised the
Pharaoh. I fought that horrid rabbit disease with a balcony.
I valet’ed his bedsit room.

46.

She passed-out loathing men and landmarks, clothed
for a funeral, ascending high in mouth of giant bird.
Drunk on mushrooms, daisies & liquor. Sprawled there,
life-and-labourer, across my new iron bed. Her adult
nipple, her left my right perched between my teeth.
My finger in her vagina parked.

I quoted mishap and great thunderous irony very
similar to our man Samson. I gargled on the impish
delights, cracking the obvious one liners to me and snails.
I appealed to the great gall of comedy, now let me now in,
where is my medal?

Ready to receive at the podium, the zenith stroked
I did so fall out and off of her, imbued with the hysteria
of charity, in the ensuing natural roll of sleep, which
followed her left my right

47.

He got punched with a triangle, the
colour of margarine (and went down
down down) in the flower beds bums
(tramps) plant, by just walking down
streets

48.

was it the moon?
chap at the dairy?

a soft seat i agree.

my landlady
a 7 inch saucer.
No. I sat on gloves for a year

49.

Saw some of the boat race today (the middle bit)
It’s a two horse race watched by people with
more than two horses

I then met an Australian. He told me, where he’s
from it’s 19 miles to the nearest shop

‘Why don’t you just open your own shop then?’,
‘buy the food off of yourself.’ Service your little
crevice

He looked at me like I was crazy, ‘you’re kidding
me mate aint ya’. And called his mate over who
lived in a shared house

50.

Gravities arsehole, Alan Sugars fingers (yum)

51.

First, in the beginning, it was just a bath of beans.
I mean, you were free, to just bean about, do like
beans do. roll. break, squidge, orgy yourself, kill
who you liked, take anyone else’s wheelbarrow.
‘If you got a problem with that’, and no one spoke
so wordy but it was, just like, I’m taking this and
if you’re gonna stop me, fight me. And with no rules,
contracts, or highlights, you won the wheelbarrow –
say he won it – fair and square, just say that, but he
wouldn’t stop at your wheelbarrow, he’d have your
down-pipe, your woman, the better kids, your spear
and so on. see, it wouldn’t end at your wheelbarrow.
It’s a lake of beans, back then. All smoozy and
undefined, and that went on for, so long., then guys
got in gangs, villages and teams. This is our stream
they’d say, no fucker is having it, and of course
another group, would see it, say ‘we’re having
that, be ready at 6 tonight’ basically there’d be
a fight, and as before who won the fight won
the whole caboodle, huts, stream, stream artefacts,
bronze and a recipe for soup.
500 –750 years later, everyone’s going nuts, I
mean crazy, everyone’s got teams and teams
in teams, and things in the earth, not just things
over ground worth something, things jewels in
the earth, and that team likes that team because,
they do this for them and that team hates them,
and they can’t get on even though they’re the same.
And that’s basically how it went

52.

If you were alive to see where they buried you, you
would not be smiling, it is cramped, and don’t be upset
but the guy next door was a raving communist
I guess all you get is space for a headstone and an urn
and I would visit more but that trek up the hill leaves me
dry. Did you know Bill’s carp bred this year?

53.

2 ladies discussed ‘lady exams’. I waved the
Portuguese embassy. ‘If I had known,’ she said
‘I would have been more sympathetic’, ‘you
poor thing.’ They both (then) looked at my
muddled solstice. I am moored just around the
bay.

54.

Hoxton is full of the new wide boy,
the media market stall holder is out
in the sun with friends, and I so wish
that upturned skateboard meant, large
truck hit-and-run knocked them all dead

55.

1. I keep hitting ice-
It’s one way of wiping my face
2. It’s up onto the wall
To get there
3. Along the top of the wall
4. Through breath, ugly throats (smell).
5. I hit ice, wondering why I hit ice
6. I keep hitting ice
7. This is a fit (isn’t it, what I’m describing, a fit)

56.

I am the last man on earth and I choose the crane. I want
the mobile pick-things-up & drop-things-down machine.
He bought posh white handkerchiefs for a wedding later
that day. He rooted around in the houses along Glendale
Avenue. He searched for jewellery and found a rabbit
hutch. There were spade marks in the oven. I hadn’t seen
an advert for oak furniture in 3-4 months. I blacked
my face with burnt cork and drove.

57.

I guess it’s politically incorrect to
say you want to cum over kylies
tits since they’re all full of cancer
and that there probably shows my
ignorance, ‘cos tits aint full off
cancer, cancers some how just in
it, like ghosts, or piracy, triathlon

58.

‘Our kisses should really nail something in. Our advances
should do more. We don’t do enough me and you.’
I feel it’s time for her suicide. I think she should cut the
grass. We walk around the zoo. You get pregnant again
I re-read the instructions. The small claims court is a pun.

59.

What is it like to live in my veins? It is like
ire and blood and fist kebabs twisting, turning
in tunnels dark and sugared. Dancing without
knees & working at a campsite. You eat my
bread; you confiscate my wine; you fry in with
my liver; you smell of this icky gas.
Poolside beneath the drooping banner, you
dip your toes and stir this ear infection. I got
lumbago on a bed of damp.

60.

I point my gun-slinger fingers. The vault is your
anus. I walk into HMV and demand quiet. I will
live for 2.5 seconds. I’ll take you down with my
TASAR. I’ll just nip into the Notting Hill carnival
for a piss. I’ll do finger-puppets for the kids. & at
sundown we’ll swim to the lice-y piano near pop-
off town.

61. Every ones shitting – just another Friday night.

‘reg. is lee there?’, ‘hang on mate, i think he’s
on the throne’,‘lee. lee. leee??’, ‘jel. hes on the
throne, i’ll get him to call you back’, ‘okay’

‘hello, julia’, ‘who’s this’, ‘it’s jel’, ‘jel?’, ‘jeremy’
‘o’, ‘could i be cheeky and ask you too see if phils
upstairs’,‘sure. hang on….’, ‘jel’, ‘yes’, ‘he’s on
the toilet. he said he’ll see you there’

‘jel’, ‘yes’, ‘did you just try calling my land line?’
‘yes’, ‘i was having a shit, are you still on for tonight’
‘sure, just gonna have a shit and brush my teeth, &
i’ll be out’,‘okay’

‘i know he’s in. the lights are on’, ‘paul. paul.
paul’ ‘give him a call’, ‘hes probably having a
shit or something’, ‘paul, where are you?’, ‘hes
coming down, he was just having a shit’,
‘thought so’

62.

I drank whisky. She could sing. She had no songs
though. I’d missed the middle episode. It arrived.
I wasn’t quite sure what it was. It was a very small
compact breakfast sandwich. I couldn’t stand there
in the wings. I couldn’t applaud with thunder. I was
buying pistachio ice cream when I worked out I
was touring Caerphilly with a bulb of twat.

63.

She was the face on the napkin missing from action.
the bow. The overlaid festive drum around the peach
trough. & being from texas had sand under her bonnet
and freckles for nesting freckles

She is bronze Tapas. The waitress with a wisp of
Virginia in her mouth. & when she gets giddy it went
kinky, and I had a symptom.

Now, 23 can’t be scored with one dart, though it’s a
unique place to get a stilt stuck. & me, I do not have
23 anymore. I recall vaguely paraffin by the gallon
do you have a heart, a liver. can you feel a back? at 23?

Her Daddy senior was a baseball star once 3 seasons long
before the introduction of electric light, a shift in playing
times stole his god sent eye. Fuck off I said, but it’s on the
mark, true.

Her mother makes pies. She delivers on time too.
From door to doorstep it’s all best wishes, and always
is extremely surprised for when you call, even if
you’ve Satan in your handbag. Lettuce is yellow.
And tomatoes are red.

64.

‘fate’ i wander back to
wouldn’t i just rather bleed?

65.

Against garlic stone white humble square
home, draped in clay black loose shawl.
Woman you are old, scratched. Breathing
delirium. Body of rutted grooves and
speckled miss mash. Growing ever more
clear on where death is. The mountain is
aching! And between twiddling your
fingers, a goat with bell also chews

66.

Ghandis dead, half the worlds starving. I just want some
big ones before I go. There’s glass in the baby food, a bored
polar bear at the zoo. Big ones, you know? Eventually the
universe will do something. maybe explode, maybe pack
up and fuck off (who cares) a few pints and some big ones,
that’s all I want. Statistics could prove the rise of the
biscuit, against the decline in stockings. I miss stockings,
but I’m willing to miss stockings for some big ones

67.

What ever happened to the small cock? You don’t see
it any more. The scribble, the doodle, the ejection
of fluid out the end. Once they were everywhere, books,
desks, doors, trains, walls, phone boxes, occasionally
accompanied by a large set of tits, with huge nipples,
and milk. It was really the only way to get over it, lots
of them everywhere cycling to the coast, it helped

68.

1. no jason p king, didn’t forget the s
so it’s war, big deal, i relax.

2. what war i say? (&) no im not getting up, not yet
don’t talk to me – anyway - im a general, a mastermind
fucker. stay away from me – i pull shots

3. rainbows would meet if i pulled that shot
i could snidely do both. missiles and rainbows
over berlin, fireworks blew mighty loud.

4. yes. ok. im an antagonist. a quiet antagonist thorn.
i did it. i admit. now go, this is my warm pie
im sucking on

69.

I went another way to hell this year, by china-canoe up
through the liver. I drunk. Memoirs of travel, vague, the
glitter didn’t stick. I woke a world cup later, what a
stomach I’d drawn in screeches

70.

I was there behind the terrace. I was the lager.
Young Jim squandered his opportunity. I drove
into his guts. I re-labelled everything the Odeon.
I made his girlfriend kiss his nipples too much

71.

I’m going to stalk you with my rhino, hunt you down to
that restaurant of your choice. Stand there at the window
like orphans in our ceremonial headdress I made both of
us. ‘look there’s a rhino’, ‘fuck the rhino’, ‘it’s him’.

I’m going to drag my rhino down to canary wharf,
overpower the guard with flights of fancy, buy time with
my good looks. Take the lift up to the 67th floor
‘sandwiches’, i’ll cry ‘sandwiches’, whilst the rhino looks
for your handbag. Cos there’s a feather I want you to have

I’m going to take my rhino up the oxo tower, by bus,
rotate around & around. Stand on my rhino, with a knife
between my teeth singing a song from the jungle book
The one where the jungles getting too much. The one
where the jungle demands your young

72.

‘would look lovely next to wooden panelling, in an oxford
bar.’ adding ‘waiting on silver of some sort.’ adding again
‘while her flatmate was hunting through the isles, for tom-
orrows croissant’, additions over

73.

When I get to work they
asked me what I did on
my holiday and I say ‘I
took a 94 hour bath’ and
what they say, ‘you didn’t
go away’, ‘no. I took a 94
hour bath and read a maga-
zine’ really you never left
the house ‘no I took a 94
hour bath’, and imagined
small shrimps swimming
around my undercarriage
biting my aura. Well some-
times it’s good to just stay
at home, ‘yes. in the bath
for 94 hours playing Bach.’

74.

i escaped an echo.
yes me.

one of my flaps is velvet
and one is gold

okay. they look odd
but they shimmy jimmy

and the forces dish
out platitudes.

& the rod in my back
is choppy

75.

I got a blow job on the steps of London bridge
It’s the only time I’ve really looked at architecture.
I lay back, under the starry sky thinking of all those
cats on ships, getting stepped on by sailors in storms.
Now I don’t know what we traded with the Turks
or why knots never took off,
but this intricate iron work
and the all encompassing perspective aint bad
It aint bad at all, 8 out of ten I’d say,
nine if there were flags

76.

I had to run another earth, get Gideon a new bible, find
Jonah another whale. The picture consisting of a graphic
image of a person or thing I renamed night, and buried
plans for a love generator

77.

I had to run another earth II
to the woman
outside the coffee shop
‘your knees are burning’

78.

I have this condition. I have this opportunity.
I have death and a nice cup of tea.
I want my loins out of the mouth of spikes.
I want my face out of the corner, my nose not
pressing up against the rotting cheese.
I would pray but my arms are tied and the punch-
lines are poor, and these bare boards are crippling.
I’d scream run mad savage into the road but the
label on my underpants chaffs my liver.
I cannot love an idiot. I cannot love nelson mandela.
I cannot find the words to open a tin of beans.
I am being strangled around the waist.
I have a penis that just wants the salad.
I am dripping blood because all my washers are gold
I am more inspiring than any of the disciples.
I have lived an eternity in a small caravan on fruit.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel I know, it’s
the gifted one bending over throwing me a salute.
I have an opportunity. I have this damned condition.
I have death and a nice cup of tea.

79.

landscapes on roller-skates
scooted by, SHUT heaven!, they screamed
julie garland –
she told that to me?
(just before she) stood up – moved oz – and i was
no longer in it.

80. I want her - I want lots of the same coin.

1.
and they raise their bowlers, or
twist with guitars, in unison, that’s showbiz

2.
and they, at the snap of my fingers, shoot like bacteria
and form pretty patterns, flowers, or polygons.

3.
and they wax and wane, curve and spiral, like
a staircase, through and among the axis, and
still hint reed as in haiku

4.
and for after dinner, jump, head to toe, edge to edge
to baroque piano chamber music, and what delight
we clap.

81.

I was leaning out my window, smoking. Neil Young was
on loud. Two fine ladies walked past. I straightened my
hairs. One nudged the other one, ‘look at him’. Neil Young
wasn’t happy but was trapped behind a glass-like UN-
sanctioned can’t crack it - it wouldn’t be right in my
position type of thing thing place

82. I will not describe Anna, Anna will describe me.

6 wallets back, previous to atrophic dreamland,
I believed in love. Notes, coins and photos were
complete packaged agents.

I drawled over saintly vestal bride, did up her
dainty boots and sucked the liquorice fantasy.
No one likes to see their labours cut into chunks
said Isaac, I drove a blue car, and spent hours
under the consequence.

I have done bare-chested, & the long walk home
Past those also on the long walk home. I once, I
did, ‘adjusted to an opposing opinion’, & it was
not contagious, or some other soft material. It was
something that served as a guide, but it’s not the
central stone in this arch.

The frequent screech of brakes, the psychobabble,
the intermix of garnish and garrotte, plumage
all fading to levers, turned me sour. I declare, I
wanted to belong, serve, sail. I did not want to
inhabit a hive.

Tinsel spends most of the year in a box. It is the
electricity in the gas chamber, this, meeting family
locked into a chicken meal. I perpetually misdial,
I fuck up, I fail, I have no readership here in masonry.
I get my coat, and leave the nook i grew out of

83.

I could say it was my first annex. I had heard
of lipo-suction the same week. There was in the
garden reflective twinkles. I took out the suede.

84.

Waking up on the floor of a bus drunk, a Chinese
woman poking me with a walking stick. ‘Get up you
man, get up you man,’ she was screaming, ‘this is
your stop.’ Well it wasn’t, she just wanted me off, so
I scissor-kicked her in the knees, and she got off.
My dad told me that it probably wasn’t wise to piss off
that lot, as they are on their way up. Back in the sixties
you could go down the docks and really have a go, but
these days it’s different. It’s a problem, it is

85.

I’ll give you mercy, I’ll give you it.
Mercy, bicycles, mercy, bicycles,
headless bodiless bicycles & mercy
loads of them. Bicycles in formation –
chopping bicycle, changing bicycles
Side by side riding bicycles
& I have the lane that runs wide enough
besides a farm of crops

86.

If the lion does not roar, does he not concede?
Does his mane vanish? And his crown welter?
Is the jungle less of a place? Or, the world for that matter
bigger or smaller? Can we be, on just what we say, or do?

A story:- an Irish, of red hair, said, ‘oi you black pig, pick
up that shovel & get to work, you're not in the fucking
Congo now, understand!?’

I rattled with fear, sunken and hurt, he went on, I heard
him, ‘Shamus, what's with the darkie? he's a fucking statue,
where did you find that coon?’

These words ripped out my lion's teeth, they pulled
claws; I was young then, the day, I lay down, with a
gunshot in the side, and the land rover drives off

87.

1.a
Shaving small white fluffy hairs

2.a
On a hill on a bend
with a hanging sign that indicates that.

88.

There’s a woman I just got to get too. She’s got a trough in
her back yard, it’s empty now and there’s no plug. But I
know exactly what I’d fill that with. Her loft isn’t boarded
over and her sheds collapsed. ok. Okay. I say. I haven’t got
much to store. Plus. I’m not staying. The bus goes to the top
of her road. It’s then a little walk alone the lane. I won’t go
in winter. Not because of the snow. But because her old
papa isn’t dead yet. I’ve heard the apples on the trees just
wont fall. but the rhubarb does very well. There’s lavender.
There’s a wheelbarrow and a tractor. I don’t really like eggs.
for dinner though she dances. She sings. She paints. Not that
well though, pretty bad actually. She had an exhibition at
the library. The mayor didn’t show because he was ill

89. phone message

‘I’m reading here an article’
‘it’s published by, who’s it published by…’
‘it doesn’t say…but its by helen ’
‘it’s the definitive guide to optimum health’
‘it seems to explain your bowels’
‘your legs’
‘your face, skin’
‘i reckon you got a deficiency’
‘minerals… it makes sense’
‘okay then, that’s it..’
‘bye’

90.

I went into one of those gentlemen outfitters in Mayfair
I said, ‘there’s no price tag on that piano’
He said, ‘no sir, after anal sex what else is there?’

91. In the garden of St Paul’s Covent Garden

Two young boys, brothers, dressed alike, scream
and chase pigeons, clapping their hands and running.
The place is full, it’s lunchtime, the sun is shinning.
I want them to shut up. The two boys are very ginger.
The secretaries are looking at them, then looking at
me. They probably think I am thinking about being
their age, I’m not, I’m massaging my bladder, just
where it meets the pelvis

92.

I hid the lapse fire & safety regulations with beautiful
people. I drunk cider. I spun them on continual replay.
I fooled security monitors. I tricked the wise-guy paying
public. I emptied the tills of stained glass windows.
I raised their heads of hair as if it were my own. I was
not strawberry blonde. I was not ginger out of a crate.
I pulled the biggest heist in copper-knobs ever known.

93.

Liverpool is an empty shin
Morris was a dirty lamppost
& at the bottom of a supple
heaven, the legs of the boy
you never spoke to at school

94.

I went to the doctors the other day, well, I say doctors, it
was candyfloss and gorgonzola, and behind that worked
people with degrees. ‘I'm here to see the doctor’ (there I
said it) ‘which one’, ‘I don’t know’, ‘what’s your name?’
‘quinn. q u i nn’, ‘okay take a seat’. ‘So what’s his name?’
‘next’, ‘dr next’, ‘no him’. Behind me was a woman so old
& why do these oldies get so close, it’s a queue not a shelf
On the couch were small tiny kids pulling scabs out of fire
engines, and wiping snot on the left of things. Never one to
waste a minute, I had a tug at a few errant pubes I knew,
caught up behind the helmet. I just had the second by the
tail when I spotted the cctv, & fuck the next bit, it’s rubbish.
So I knocked on the door and went in. There was a broom
and a mop and a copy of Sharon, behind the desk was a
man made of shins. Behind him on the wall was a pic
of his two girls, they both had wrong eyes, one going Paris
one going Gateshead (you know what I say) ‘What can we
do for you?’, he said swallowing the rest of his biscuit,
‘I’ve got stabbing pains in the anus, sir’, ‘I think I’ve got a
pile’, ‘have you got a pile?’, ‘I don’t know?’, ‘have you
had a look?’, ‘I don’t know what I’m looking for, and plus,
the only mirrors we got go on the walls’, ‘can you feel a
lump?’, ‘where?’, ‘on your anus’, ‘no’, ‘would you like me
to take a look?’ He got up tweaked his nips, wet his fingers
and read a little Lorce, ‘why not, I said, while I’m here’,
‘okay if you can pull down your bottom half, get up on the
couch and bring your knees to your chest’. I thought about
what he said, I thought too hard, my anus moaned gypsy
with long dirty finger nails. Sat there looking at a green
wall I felt the snap of glove, and after that life just got
better. ‘This may hurt, I’ve run out of lubricant, I’m
afraid’, ‘okay sir, no problem, I’ve worked in factories’
Pulling apart my cheeks like he was looking for the other
shoe. ‘Christ’, he shouted, ‘your anus is torn to shreds’,
‘this is…I’ve never… okay get down of the couch’, ‘what
have you been doing?’ (& it was nothing like that) ‘have
you put anything up there?’, ‘a carrot, but that was about
ten years ago’, ‘I’ve still got it I think’, ‘your whole ring is
filled with tiny cuts’, and on the back of a fag-packet he
drew me what he saw. ‘so what is it?’ I said nailing that
second pube, ‘I don’t know’, ‘but I’ve got just the thing’ It
was a small book called ‘theres no sharp edges on coffins.’
(decent sort)

95.

The more aussies we allow
into Britain, the more hair
down our plug holes, and I
don’t know about you, but
I like to feel my piss hits the
Thames like a bullet thru a
brothel, not a sardine covered
in sellotape

96.

It was bad. I was real bad. I shit splinters. I had
to buy a beer on the way out. I stood in the way-
out. I stood in Chelsea–supporters court. Big fat
shinny mice couldn’t lift the gabble. The French
were on fire. I parried with the sinus’ of hate. I
took a bike ride of the premierships. Happy,
sort-of in cortisones.

97.

The medicine man must be in town. This place had
changed. The bar was stormed. All us men going bald

Then I spot the ‘in’.
Single white female. Her ‘back-of-head’, separate
from the scarred crowns.

‘Would you be so sweet as to get me half a star?’
‘Sure,’ she said.

& of course it was no smoking at the bar.
‘He’s upset with you’, ‘him and a few others’
He wouldn’t get smoke in his eyes
if he moved a bit quicker.

‘It’s a lovely shaped glass,’ a swan swallowing a pebble
‘It is,’ and I made her drink some of it
‘I work in a health club’, ‘you too’
Enter the muscled man

98.

I did my work-experience in a polystyrene whore. I was the
three degrees. I glued the fur to the letter-head. I untangled
the cat-walk when the electrosis went doo-wap. I did it
until I got flu

99.

I looked in the Wolf magazine for inspiration.
and all I found was James’s phone number.
(everywhere)

100.

Have you received an invite
to breath holes into newly
weds, create thunder above
the sodden ground, draw ka-
pow in red and yellow flashes,
& scratch faces in silhouettes
in black? I took off home. I
replicated the lion. All attempts
at the Trans-Am were agonising.
I’ll keep on the drip. Pardon.

101.

Touch and you touch, and brush
and you brush, but never sting or
slap. On springs, tongues, lips. A
decathlon of manoeuvres, limbs.
Intricate patterns but very basic
appetite. Solid ground, we made
complete outright noiseless
number #1 (in the charts) din

102.

Paschmina this is Bingo
Wait for it.
Now fuck off

103.

My brother had this thing with shitting himself, especially
at Sainsbury’s in Hornchurch. The Singh’s next door took
him to a fair and he shit himself there too. One of the elder
girls had to wipe him down behind a bush close to the
cricket pavilion. He got real upset too, calling them ‘pakis’
‘cause they wouldn’t let him hold his pants, even though
they were in a plastic bag

104.

What’s the secret to poetry?
‘I killed a dysentery then bought it back to life’

105.

It’s very easy to get lost in hospitals, arteries, based on the
heart. That’s why the bigger bands prefer Abbey Road. Cous Cous?

106.

I funeral.
It’s a last black nectarine
Billy now gone, laziness
& we agreed, no betting on yourself.
The games you play.
His nephew weeps from the wonky eye
I wrote a dirty Bohemian Rhapsody

107.

Madam Mo spoke hiding indigestion. Just getting upon a
horse brings up the acid. An accident by the brook? A
throw, a fall. Did she see my head upon a silver platter?
Eyes enjoying death? Did she freak – and pull the reigns
hard- & get thrown sideways? off? Was that Madam Mo
left stranded in her dream? Frantic, searching for her horse,
running hard to escape my eyes upon that platter?

Madam Mo wants to know, ‘have you done what I asked
you too?’ She is peptic, agitated. ‘I have but,’ Madam Mo
cuts me off. This is just no good. She shakes her crop.

Madam Mo asked me back to share her parlour a few days
previous, and I said no. Madam Mo is insulted. Apparent,
at my side more than usually often, today. Un-eased at my
day-glow livery. Rubbishing my beard.

108.

Then rub them as if marble were always greasy (what have
I got to do, get up and show you?)

109.

We loved the dolphins. We chomped on vanilla. I
swallowed a scab. I said insert, nepotism grew
in my belly. We were sharing a Minder by spring.
I am the press & the galleries are bible basins.

110.

The devils-advocate tried his own mustard gas. It was
an RD Laing initiative. It is the last time he preached on
the heath. I tried to set light to an old oak out of respect
I couldn’t. He must have washed his hair that morning
All we could manage were a few kicks in the legs.

111.

I want Bob Marley to say one thing
Bob, will you say plopsy?

112. Stargazing in hostel Venice

The night outside is mixed with other reindeer, tipping
trays, fooling, and a laugh just sailed cordially past
(put curtain back) There has been two something male
shaves in cracked hand basins seconds apart. With tap,
every razor tap, I gun finger a shot down star.
The yanks bedding next to me tell all in cries and wails.
These are garish nightmares: child bombs, toys & batons
Offence & defence sieve the finds of prodding a lunatic far
from home, and, but I am in Venice, Venice. Hearing cotton
socks being washed and June derailing the national grid.
The cot I’m bunked on is a colony of backsides and foreign
tail – previous signatures in the guest book at madam I
forget whom? because the card over the bell was grimed
illegible italic scrawl, but her hostel fiend, ‘vampire girl’ is
a starved niece with a curtain in front of her face. And a
small German accordion for medleys in the bath.
There are heated roses handed out at the romantic soirée,
below, as student jazz equivalent to student pasta stokes its
pitch. At my window pennies latch onto their new owners
caps and what should I do so, about starving as I've no love
hex shouting gold.

113.

Chicken is a common meal. It’s a decent sized brick
building. The Nhs is moored in clay and perks. Choo
choo trains leave marks. I put up a fence. I pick the
gnats out of my children. I fucking resent oregano
cold-calling. Who says Britain can’t wind-surf?

114. Living very close together

I can hear his neurosis (next door) re-adjusting
sweeping out crochets, milling for life-and-death.
insulin drips out of her pancreas, stalagmites and
stalactites form, there are jewels there in that cavern
fester is believing in condoms, his dream has him
wear a condom. The clientele at the Philippino
tattoo parlour bay a rooster locked in the mud

115.

‘It’s because of the way I look, my face, my hair?’
‘Have you never heard of Myra Hindley?’ (it was so)
‘Well at least no ones ever pissed up your anus?’
‘What do you mean?’, ‘Huntly. He pissed up what’s
her names anus’, ‘and killed kids as well’. ‘Come on.
I've got a spade in the van’, ‘I got to get a shot of this’

116. Looking for sidney fingers

. . .reached in to grab the
nightclub by its emergency
exit, then pulled the place
inside-out. ‘can you s e e
him? is he in there?’, look-
ing for sidney fingers on
we went, ‘that place looked
kinda like an intestinal bouncy
castle don’t it?’, and i hold
your hand big giant, and i
skipped, ‘lets go on to the
cinema, see them all fall off
their seats into mayhem?’

117.

The equators gone wiggly, some mastery undid its knots
Whose side you on snow? Whose bit you with, winds,
rains? Where are you Calcutta? (shouts) That middle
stretch of earth lost its borders, jumps back and forth like
new recruits (undecided) and nothings settled yet. No
places really exist and, wont stop readjusting till someone
huge large gets home

118.

Can I ever forget Mary O'Callaghan? Could man forget fire
and hay? Her sisters were as pretty so, but not yet of that
age. O Mary do you still blame me? But it was your father
who fed the dogs vitamin deficient food, that’s why there
was a white-turd hanging off my pitch fork? Which I slung
over my shoulder on my way to war, and it broke your
nose.

119. Plain and simple mental illness

Whatever happened to plain old simple mental illness.
without diagnosis, without a name. Where’s the head-
case without a bookcase and a self-help book upon it?
I’m thankful I did my time when it meant something,
when policemen had it in for me, and milk was delivered
by a man who put poison into it with a very fine needle
and a syringe

120.

Wind player, sand maker, divisible by yourself
and no other. Speak real names. Answer animals
across motorways

121.

sticky
thumb prints
on the jars of fingers
marked
‘spare’ ‘long’
‘buy pianos’
are you german?
y
because
combined exposure
will cost you less

122.

‘my spell over her is strong
my spell killed the last uncle
of what we call today the
cabbage. my spell is old. . .’
Jason Ringwold is the cop
on the trail of humid violins
supping the cummy yarrow.
haven’t we seen this else-
where? could be missed. PQ

123. May 12th 2005

Three secretaries sit on the steps outside
the church eating out of plastic, I ask my
soul what she really really wants, ‘a wicker
laundry basket,’ she says, which is quite
reasonable I think. It’s nice here

124.

I first met miss clare across a burp of consciousness,
a vomiting, loud, raucous, stride of nonsense,
from here to here and there it went. Wagon train,
wagon train, hours till it passed

125.

‘kebab hits linoleum’
The sound of Brent council
sleeping on a quarter
of a single mattress

126.

Why don’t Lonely Planet get real, why don’t time out shut
its fucking mouth. If it weren’t for Hitler and his stupidity -
declaring war on America - we wouldn’t have the taste for
going anywhere and, while we’re on the subject, all the
phone numbers for hostels in Vietnam are post boxes next
to walls

127.

paraffin is a clear odourless liquid
with a ph of 4.5. no use for greasing
door handles, but can prevent eggs
of certain birds from hatching, suitable
containers equal small buckets and wide
mouthed jars. for more information
on the greylag goose get ladder, thru
april

128.

i take your
white wine
drink
off the coffee
(glass)
table.

the cross
beam
stage lights
don’t follow.

i am not
Hollywood
ginger
maracas.

129.

I don’t care to get back in touch with my
toes. & Pakistan slept with Pakistan.

130.

How can you be added to the more
Lovely Christian lady pages? If you
Are a Christian and have a web page
That would pretty much qualify you
[found somewhere, I don’t remember where]

131.

My cv may be written with my knuckles. There is gold
out back courtesy of irrelevance. 1000’s of divvy bobble
hats cling to the glass. I praise the naked government. I
hitch-hike behind a breed of large-lipped psychotics. Put
a tab behind the bar & let the areola find its capital

132.

My aunt is disabled. Her tongue is Al
Pachino. He comes out for pruning. I
wouldn’t let it get cold. Bourbon?

133. Never meet your hero drunk..

I saw Jackson Pollock in Venice, and I slept.
I saw Pollock on film explained. His wife cried,
friends cried, hats cried – I slept.
I walked among Pollock’s visions, and got bored being
told, ‘art, visions’ fucking visions..’
I have seen the last of Jackson Pollock.
I have seen the last of Jackson Pollock & his long way
round

134.

1.
back pain demands more hands than i have (not-
hallelujah!)

2.
the air is ruinous, not fit for dinning, the light - for
surgery - inadequate.

3.
flat, lifeless, an hour between stations counting wood..
i did never really unpack.

4.
i drink out of the eyes of this, throw a blanket over the
budgie, and cry lips, lips, and retch over played space.

135.

She told friends they had a study, they didn’t -
It was just a bang on the wall

136.

Fuck dreams and woken by large counters. I’ve
got cows in the top-field. I’ve got Ringo Starr as
the milkman. This isn’t a French novel. There are
headlamps for wallpaper. A mysterious force draws
me to Hull. Could the texture of a cantaloupe deny
mange?

137.

A night of erections I did have.
I slept badly on the steps of a bowling trophy.
I did what kittens do to their mummy
I sent pushes,
Roof tiles litter the lawn

138.

An anchor
Draped in plats..
The Thames is gone. So very gone

139.

older woman asks me round to look over poems,
should i go? should i take her call? or rain sick, dog blue,
tell her i have barking linoleum, syphilitic blossom, up to
the eyebrows in gudgeon me, ‘the kitchens full of pink
syphilitic blossom and i just can’t leave the only fox down
our road’, will she see bolt through that ridiculous ambit?
expose my indigestion? (her mid-life amphitheatre could
have proved a sell-out, fruit once again may have got fat on
her tree) damn such gardens and gudgeon.

then so, i should send an accomplice, dress him in my hood
and cloak, wash him in ivory soap, have a laugh (he hee) at
my own expense. lace his sandals with dynamite, fill his
satchel with itchy baths and an empty bottle of inky
turpentine, he can take that little red bus up to that rabbit
hutch in the clouds (the barbican) and in his brown wide
tie, knock knock, and say ‘frankly. poems are the mouths
of whores. goodnight’.

yes, that is an option, but what if those bows on them
knickers know the man will bells on his trousers, and the
man with bells on his manioc trousers knows, a fiend with
a pound of good hen trampolines, yes. i could take the
palomino, she needs airing. ride through Streatham, gallop
through Brixton, declare the ticks in my feather just dots on
the horizon, push aside other men at the door of the woman
with bows on her knickers, & with gravity and manky
corduroy for gifts, declare in turds, ‘this is icky jim
carrying an ideograph and 6 brand new words’

‘woman older than I, with bows on her knickers, your
teacher is here’, knock knock, i have bought, ‘abborjupum’
and ‘tresmording’, plus other jewels in my Hessian sack, ‘i
see you are only wearing a see-thru gown, i see how the
breast goes well with the possessive captain who once
mishandled you near to an iceberg’. bring me more of your
verse, and a cup of hot hinny, as i sit here looking austere
in an armchair, gazing out over poor london’s poor, and
maybe soon i will let you pat my mandolin, and show you
the puddle that never knows peace

140.

I’ve got animals. I’ve got pens. I'm three fifths
Virginia Wolfe. I do my laces up very tight. I
do the winkle-picker wobble. & her best song
was ‘going underground’ by the Jam. In every
shade of faded black the funeral taught us to
take care of our fibre tips.

141.

I preferred Ron as he had nothing robotic about him. I
loved the burnt sheen on his goggles. He fought techn-
ology by keeping the lights off. Hansen was spotted in
the town centre handing out leaflets. His predecessor
had received a turd in a mailite. I had no time for bamboo.
I saw the rise of karate in schools. Trapping Perspex in
vices Mellows smashed lefties. He opened the door in
a white vest. There was tuna but it wasn’t the case it is
now.

142.

I knew someone had died by the way the phone rang.
I picked it up, my father said, ‘your uncles dead’, just
like that. Really I said, I knew that. Really tho, I thought
it would be my nan, but it’s the same thing isn’t it. I’ve
bunked fares.

143.

1. the comedian we have enlisted refuses to co-operate,
our expectations of him are outlandish! he cannot say such
things on stage, a standstill is reached

2. the actual fact is, our jokes are funny, his girlfriend finds
us funny, the man that (then, there) tries to break into his
flat is funnier, he is still defiant – no (& calls the police)

3. hours later we have finally coerced him into at least
trying one, he will consider trying one – from a group of
several - this is actually a defeat, since we have several
thousand, at least an hour of material

4. ‘we were right’ I relay the gig over the phone
‘he was buzzing’, ‘he had them in his hand’

5. the following week we are back where we started. I managed
to tread a boiled sweat into the carpet, my partner managed to
sit in bubble-gum, it was extremely funny – he didn’t agree

144.

I watched Cassius Clay versus Mohammed Ali. Should
gay couples adopt? I saw a man implode. There was
trellis around that switch. Both parents met in the CIA.
I was a leading comedy actor. I mentioned my father in
an interview. The screen-play is obvious. I have a small
voltage / my partner has a large current. We would like
to open our home to a clock radio & build into a child.
We can quote an American Indian if we have to.

145.

Adeline asked me if I would be a seashell. I could be a
nuclear power plant. I could make all the little children’s
legs go green.

Did I mind if Adeline used her vibrator on herself? She
didn’t see anything she liked on tap, so I was now in
charge of snacks.

‘I had to be half past two. I was a man out walking his dog.
I caught her with 6 other guys. They were all black.’

In 1984 industrial white-finger brought the Irishman to
Whitehall. I’ll never play KaPlunk again.

146.

I kissed the Mars Bar. I chopped the parsley. There
were advances before the main course. We furnished
with no time to decorate. The chicken was now mould.

I didn’t have any of the well-known hungers. It was
all streams of brickwork. I lit a cigarette and thought
about Paul Simon.

This was where little girls sold matches. I was a durex
yuppy in one room of a converted mill. Below on the
canal ducks drunk catapults.

147.

How British is the British channel? Can it improve
on the bookmakers toilet. I don’t see any trousers
tied round the top of lampposts. I think it’s a cross
between a stamp-collector and a postman. Plonk
down your marrow and let me wallpaper over it.

148.

Tania coke is from the world of triangles. I'm a
tortoise. We’re in café with a patio. I was taken
in four moves at a chess showdown in Thurrock.
I was distracted by the bold use of sugar-paper.
She uses acorn halves to denote the WC and
wash basin. I hadn’t seen graph paper in 15 years.
The leaves feel as Larry Adler died.

149.

The Beatles are to blame for (the) Japanese students.
Camden’s ruined, Little Martin’s lane’s a no go (take
Charing cross rd) ‘Hi, Mr Red, call me Terri’, ‘I
fucking won’t, I’ll call you table face, dolls hair, or
son of cruel. Here’s your skateboard, now fuck off’

150.

Miss Pope’s light grey knickers were the mix of ham
and howls, slight of hand, aimless aid. Dropped on
the bald coke spot there in the corner via her leaving
me for good. & I never moved them for Wednesdays,
at least 3 Shatner’s or 9 prods with Madison Square
Garden. Pumpernickel?

151.

It’s the bits that hang out the clacker, the earlobes, you
can suck on them all day and it don’t make the slightest
fucking difference, they’re not connected to the brain, or
the rest of the cunt, they’re just islands. Franks where there
should be no Franks

152.

devout about large animals, rhinos, and elephants,
the high is parking them, watching them being parked,
keepers parking animals, into spots, rows of animals,
and keepers in peaked caps, parking animals.
acres of catalogued allotments, ready for a neat ice age

153.

The song finished. The crowd went wild. The
crowd waited in anticipation. Smallish, intimate
venue. ‘Play a better one’, I shouted from the
back, heads turned. Boo, shouted a few, poor
taste indeed. ‘You fucking cunt’, said Ed Harcourt.
‘Go on then. Glass me’, he wailed. Throwing up
his hands. Carl Barat looked pensive. Scared. I
winked. ‘Maybe. Was that rude?’ And Ed leant
across and kissed me on the cheek. And all the
girls were looking on and Carl Barat just kept
looking at me. Shrugging his shoulders. Graham
Coxon began his next song.

154.

Will Smith plays the gay black president.
Ottis Reading plays the gay part.
Ted Danson plays the pier
I look up into the great big bus-driver in the skies,
‘Looks like nuclear holocaust by Hovis.’ It’s all an
apocryphal dream.
I’m Rachel Welsh with a testicle under her nail.

155.

The flame of my heart if only, it would flicker. Turgid,
still, upright, the railing that encages itself. Does this
white man know no wind? Does this chamber whistle
no song? Who and why and what do I salute? This
orange soldier, on parade murmuring, he must have
something? to say on what passes before his dawn. Let
all other men taste my African queen, I say! If I do not,
let them celebrate, and jump, let them run, with dust
between their toes, and hope in song, and I will be night-
fall. I will be landscape, flat, endlessly deep. Available.
I will be there for them all. Look deep within and find us

156.

The insane and the deaf break the best wind
It cuts like trollop, and dies like magnet

157.

I had the complete freedom of jeopardy. I had a set of
commando pants. I lined up the pebbles. I hunched over
the massive clap of the coconut. The trains were quarter
past, half past, quarter to & on the hour. The trains were
every 15 minutes. The trains were every railway 15. The
trains were interpreted. The mission was dropped when
I found out where it was from. The blackberry grew wild

158.

I am the holocaust. I am telling you I only took
the ugly ones. I am certain of it. If you look closely
at the lampshades in John Lewis’. If you go to
level two you’ll see the egg within the scotch. I
watched as he inhaled his asthma medicine. I heard
how he forgot his pump.

159.

Turn my handle uncle Jel – turn my handle
and so i did – and what came out – more
crayons more pencils more books.

160.

The lady across the street always leaves
with an overnight bag, which is fine, but
I wish she wouldn’t use the Albert Hall as
a cloak, I can’t see the jets, the wonderful
jets

161.

The one that sends the meteors is a crap thrower. Maybe
these are just the balls that bounce of the cushion and head
to earth as the commentator shrieks, ‘fuck me the meteors
going in – he wont like that john?’. ‘No – it was a careless
shot – and I don’t see why at this stage of the universe he
played a shot like that’, ‘that’s right john – he had the
option with the rings. off the black hole, up around the
cosmos and back safely into Pluto’s armpit – at this level
of life and matter you can’t play on your opponent will
miss’, ‘ no. that’s right Alf – I feel a little nerves are
creeping in – we’re all a little tired – its been a long game.
twice runner up here to the big man god before’. ‘This if he
keeps his head could be our year’.

162.

I'm a pickle man. I got legionnaires disease. ‘Give
me one of them,’ he said. Liverpool street was busy.
It was the Friday before the Friday before the Friday.
I kept him awake on the tube. I woke him when I hit
the chair against his door frame. The immersion heater
sucked on his gristle needed doing.

163.

Bought a cucumber and a pound of apples
sat them down
and said
one of you gentlemen isn’t playing this week

164.

There’s a lot of wind at bus stops outside hospitals
Wind, burps, belching, bruises, stitches and bile
Occasionally there’s sick, syrupy sick, long sick
Sick through the nose of a sobbing infant. Of course
tears, where would we be without tears? Tears of
regret, tears of death., tears and cancer. Cancer of
the legs, cancer up the old mans A-hole, cancer in
the babies brains, cancer in the necks. It’s worse
than French VD, or meningitis, you could diagnosed
on Tuesday and be dead Tuesday week

165.

There are two basic openings, dying
alone, and not dying alone.
I have never seen Hull looking so sad.

166.

There are no little men in my pecker. That is my
matchstick-man picture of Salford. A plume of
smoke beguiling a peptic clerk. Oranges handed
to children who smash them.

I just can’t raise this weeks protection money
My bar is removed by tablet eraser. Men with
exhausts stemming from their necks do it. I
throw abortions into quayside growling industry.

167. There was just no getting rid of her.

‘I only live round the corner, it’s the second only place
I’ve lived, I used to live in shoreditch, then I moved here..’
blah blah fucking blah.. ‘Where do you live?’, ‘I live in
Streatham’, ‘Do you like it?’, ‘No,’ ‘Well I don’t really
like my place, I might move’, ‘Can you recommend
anywhere?’, ‘No’, she snapped my cigarette and started
smoking it. ‘It’s my friend who’s running this. I just love
it. Its just so free. It’s like the old days’, ‘Old days? How fucking old are you?’, ‘Have a guess?’ Her face was very
wide. Her dad must have been a plate. ‘I don’t know. 27
inches?’, ‘Higher’, ‘28’ ,‘no. 30’, ‘And how old are you?’
‘31’ , ‘I’m 31 soon.’ ‘This reminds me of Glastonbury, it’s
so free. I took so many e’s, and drunk so much, and
couldn’t stop crying about torture to animals. This hippy
had to hold me’, ‘I don’t really like people. I don’t like
festivals. I hate tents.’, ‘That’s a shame’, ‘See her, she’s
my friend. And her, I don’t see them so often, they’re
married, I’m thinking maybe its time to settle down.
What do you reckon?’, ‘I don’t know’, ‘I just spend all
my money on clothes and drugs’, ‘How much do you
earn?’, ‘20, 25, 30. how much?’, ’35, I work in pr. fash-
ion., have you ever heard of Reece?’, ‘No’ , ‘No!’, ‘Where
do you shop?’, ‘Charity’, ‘It’s a shame’, ‘What job do
you do?’, ‘I don’t.’ ‘You don’t?’, ‘Ever since the accident’,
‘What accident?’, ‘Chernobyl’ , ‘In Russia?’, ‘Yeah. After
that I couldn’t face the shovel.’

168.

I had nothing else left. I began dating policewoman,
drinking straight out of fountains. I began telling lies,
began telling tales, began making up stories.
‘I see one bloke carrying a can of petrol’,
‘and another had some matches’, ‘it was at 0816 hours’.
I needed the affectionate hard-line of a burly stout woman
with small simple studs. I wanted the panty-pad eclipse
all for myself

169.

‘What about my cousin, and her vibrator,
they’ll never get in that drawer’ Ikea is
shot dead.

170.

There’s an odd prime-minister that lives opposite, in his 3
bedroom house. He don’t play guitar. He don’t call me
chancellor. He don’t give me the salute when he sees me
hanging out the window. He’s a rubbish patriot. With his
silver jeep and slick 2 door car. He just flexes his muscles
and carries a folder. What a load of rubbish this land is

171.

I have climbed dead mother hill, with me
I take the Isle of Wight as paracetamol

172. Threesome

I pinned you to the mattress in cobwebs, with knees
on your hands. Better you cup than scratch I remarked,
my cheeks spread about your un-lit thigh , cooling my
spine, and so, you had no elbows (now). You whimpered
silent as for a dentist’s mercy, go easy, but us, two,
were no doctors, where would we send you? What
could we treat you for? Half-mindedness? And so you
had no excuses. Clarice - a pet name - the face I see on
her tattooed pubis, our other friend emerges behind
your head, hello! I laugh saddling your face, her fingers
run across the frame combing your jaw line for ridges
or breaks, or nests and eggs. And so, massaged to
restraint, you could not swallow. Julia began quickly,
gasping strands, her breaths added to make bigger breaths.
And larger gasps, sanctioned, smaller echoes (we were)
sending her there, she was sending apparent signal back
& so now deep in, you had no return (with her out of sight)
and us here, I reach for the wine. Her eyes were closed,
they were the skin on fruit. It was dear, the silence you
need to begin a letter. And so, as the only man, bottle in
hand, I drew umbrella over this tired counsel (&) we made
love. We made love again. One meant three. We gave
birthmarks names, them accents over foreign letters. The
kisses I added to your forehead, we made love at mine. We
found our sense of humour, fought off cramp. Rose with
the weekend

173.

My mother died & now the potatoes
I looked at a potato & got a cold.
The little cupboard under-the-stairs ate the polish
The sewing basket never returned
The garden lost all its colour
The washing just stayed as washing
And we all took turns staring into an empty freezer
That hummed cowards, cowards, occasionally gristle.

174. Waterloo

I took out my cock, the end of the condom was
missing. I said it looks like the ends blown off.
Don’t worry she said, like it happened every day,
I’ve just had my period. She then fell into a heap
and blew off very viciously. I didn’t know where
to look. I had nervous exhaustion. I had heart-burn
in my hearts.

175.

I was older than the older woman. I had a part
in a Guardian editorial. I played the 24 cm
stainless steal stockpot with see-through lid. I
could go my whole life reporting misery, or I
could brake the official secrets act. I erected a
shed made from dementia. I pretended I was
dying 5 years before I actually was asked to.

176. woman: put that skirt on..

professor once said in italics, ‘this is my diary. it’s a bell
ringers’ pocket sized’ decoratively covered embossed gate-
way to Britain’s dongs and dings, but i never wrapped candy
with the academic uncle deep down in the quadrangle below
sooked up generators of ice sulphur and gloopy physics
whinging money. i whistled snide punching fraught my inners
trying to get in, coughed loud petulantly dislocated the cables
and ties, walked quick quick through the foray of equation &
lattice notice board and door numbers, leaving nuclear reve-
lation and research funded arbitraries, digging deep down into
the pockets for cigarettes and a fluff cocktail i emptied in the
bin besides the technicians baby. i whistled out, overtook a few
dandies lugging textbooks and hype on wheels from lecture to
bicycle to mark, a man they met outside the chapel grooming a
career in the constabulary. i heard the words saw the blue
pictures and waved havoc to the 18 foot high marbled
knight statue in the mini foyer, i proposed once should be
drilled bowls into at the base and switched to multi-tasking
eye ball kick and ashtray. i headed knuckles and toes dry
mouthed empty and mobilised plaid sincerity for a beer & a
song & another beer and was told so & such by a marigold
moustached guvnor no feet upon the stools. no drawing on
the mats for the glasses bottoms & definitely no picking the
wallpaper by the telephone on the wall marooned on bore-
doms clouds, waiting on the man with the connection, goof-
ing out on brown paper comb shanties and the threat of
tonight among chatty mortals. no paved four wall ceiling-
less orifice with hemisphere and universe for holidays and
lateral contemplation in gardens of observatory would have
me temped dabbling conviviality’s with rich long toothed
dull idiocrats debating the electrons caravan & the box they
broke to find the axe. the moon is the only carried flower
and how sorry i made shit eyes at him. his tumour in its cot
grew a pop one millimetre right there on that dotted line.
really the guy was just grey and fishing close to the edge.


spinning among slippers and pipe smoke perched to undo
the nuts on his pension plan. burning him with hot speared
intensity as i penned out, aggravating his suede socks
dripping in nitrous flames, all my gourd i recanted, eyeing
caught pointing to the family sunday platter with a brides-
maid daughter times two in a frame upon his desk next to a
calendar from makers of bombs. your chalked worn hand
even rescued my summer ounce weight coat from a dust
floor smattered in drippings from scientific gazette and
possible accolade begging me to reconsider. what lapel
badge did i wear then? was it black with a cross and a
feather? i was no there helping inroads burrow my future.
for sure shit academia is feet driven. feet up loafered feet.
feet for rioja wine sipped. feet for footnotes worth of rec-
ognition in 10 wide journals upon the gnostic shelves. i
cannot graze with mother-in-law reckoning ease. point full
dedication and masticated splutters. you’re dribbling man,
science has bent your arm like pi's tail. if i were a you i
would have whipped these 6 foot of riveted dreamboat with
the doorknob and a kettle cord. what the fuck is this door-
knob doing in my office you would exclaim as dean willis
appeared for cynical chat on weather. i will not open a pocket
watch that reeks of shandy manners. i see a smallish tear
inside the lining of your jacket and with strings. i am ripping
free not sowing up. no. i have seen the skirt to boot. i were
glancing marble concourses travelling to heaven a garment
of so so length. sweeping angles shapes in breath-in breath-
out names yet not believed. this is a new morning sir.
federal and post in the middle of nowhere but planted &
deep and i will strike a match this morn sir, birds explode.
not sing sweet thrush whimsies or diet on lice in bought
time. i have never been here sir. i have never voted either. i
am picking woman in heat and bashing them long wards
against the side of my skull. my ambitions want your bells.
i want buckets of bells. i am student number 457689; saliva
and torso flapping flag ship and stretching rope by the naval
once again