Did Charles B smell of inky sweat
& stale booze – of rolled odours?
That oil from his skin? It could’ve
greased a ship’s slipway [or fried
a sly heart attack brunch for us] –
& his scarred cheeks spat poems
between his knocking-back shots
& did he ever wash? Did he loose
his cock out on a street to shock?
Do I know you? – a paying heckler
was dispatched – again & again &
words were left again [beer helps]
as Hank [to his friends] swigged a
fat-neck Michelob & oozed grins/
This is what killed Dylan Thomas –
his column’s by-line spoke – oily
fish spit out their oily prey [he was
born to this] Castro’s twin in verse
Tag: poetry
You Are Reading This
Listen – dear readers who yearn to dredge
my mind/ You cruel voyeurs will suckle for
viable insights/ You’ll read to refresh fury/
Such versified rushes were never obvious
but now a feast/ See my tongue’ll split as
I refer you to a rarer voice – D H Lawrence
& his venomous gold snake – also sipping
from a shared pool – & mused a moment –
It is your choice in clogging heat as sterile
days suck desire from work desks/ Victims
climb from ink wells & sweat bursts below
sheets & no thirsty nibs will plough at text
No quarrels to flood holes – dug by words
into baked mud/ Mounds of rhymed stuff
will trip fools up & break your scrag necks
[so CTRL-C & copy all my summer’s verse]
I will move to Barbados
I will move to Barbados
& sip cold beers as light
winds tease me to sleep
in my hammock [as my
belly slops loudly – as if
drowning at sea’s leaks &
pumps do work] – not me
in a spin about breaks &
things – I will move there
soon & recite my poems
[as others voice elisions]
No Debt to My Day
It begins – with an appetite [he said]
to discover my self-respect [ah yes]
to redeem the day/ So the day does
not go down in debt [he had said as
he looked around his Tower of Song
& in his fridge was a cold notebook
of unfinished choruses about you]/
I’d sport a suit [& a fedora] if I wore
his tongue & slim hips & weightless
thoughts [it helps having his height]
& I slip from fancy dress too easily]
Undressed lyrics [stripped back] to
fool’s gold will not pay answers out
to a chanteuse or torch song singer
bought into meanings/ Our words’ll
re-lace our bindings [if left unsung]/
With a tune to fix to all is now loose
& unproven in time’s beat of songs
as our tossed coin feeds a busker/
It begins with finding dignity [I said]
Leonard Cohen Bought Her Diamonds
He bought a paste jewel
in order to undo her bra –
[& she said it as b-rawwt –
it was sweetheart time to
bare her thickish-charms]
He sighed & so fathomed
her submissive way as he
said this hotel is my home
[some rooms held his lies
limply on hangers – songs
pressed by sweat] All was
fixed stiff in starch [& by a
blue pill two hours ahead
to keep Leonard hard as a
chook-frying man on heat]
Cut to another scene – his
hand holds an Amex card
& he pauses – a long beat/
Credits roll/ Skip an option
& she selects OK [yes I do]
She will have words written
by Mr Cohen – verse into a
song – but not a Marianne –
such composition is a once-
in-a-lifetime [out of his love]