Hi. Thanks for reading. You can now find all the poems that were on here and others over at
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Dan
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Ellington Jameson Jenkins
Tight eyed in low light
the room bops the disc spins
the corners curl upward on parted lips
loose-necked the head swims
one hand, one wrist and one forearm held
at the height of the lowest true rib
you could trace a line from the elbow
to the middle finger tip
and call it
the only straight thing in the room
and everything's in shades of woodgrain
and you could scream from the pit of your lungs
but no cry of ill or of passion
can slide past the piano, the brass, the bass, the drums
and I'd only burble a reply if it did so tight eyed in low light
the body bops in ever decreasing circles and the trumpet warbles
'til the sunrise sends me to sleep.
Junkbox: Performing Poetry Workshop (Sept 16th 2010)
I... that is, me, see,
I feel the...
I feel the express need
To tell you, you
To tell you all about me, me
All be it, cryptically.
See, I...
It, it gives me great pleasure,
To confess, yes, pleasure,
To confess how much I enjoy tea,
Sexually, yes, tea.
I taunt it.
See, it...
It likes to be stirred
Yes it does, it does
It likes to be stirred till it's done
By plastic stick or by spoon or asbestos thumb
Yes it likes to be stirred till it's ready to come
to your lips and be held on the tounge.
So I don't. No, no I don't.
I dip. Yes, I dip.
Just the tip,
Just the tip so the milk doesn't mix
So the milk get's to split, get's to splinter and spread
Till I go in again, first the tip, then more,
The all the way in,
Spelling my name with broad strokes
The alphabet trick at work.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Junkbox: Bad Poetry Exercise
The wind came fast
Like bullets or Kenyans or men who are nervous
And was tasteless
Like mullets or minions or two-star room service
On a night that was cold
Like an old cold pole
Holding up something important
I squeezed your left hand
Like a grand hand band stand
And promised I'd see you in four months.
-------------------------------------------------
The Moon
The Moon
The Moon, The Moon, The Moon
It reminds me i'm going to be with you soon.
The Night
The Night
The Night, The Night, The Night
I find that it's glowing with twinkling lights.
The Stars
The Stars
The Stars, The Stars, The Stars
In time you'll be showing me your fantastic arse.
This Verse
This Verse
This Verse, This Verse, This Verse
A sublime piece of poem that couldn't get much worse.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Dissecting A Headline
You would have thought he’d never be given a chance
I am still none the wiser to his incarnation
I bounce between theories, no grounding in fact
That he bore from bad choice or misfortune
Perhaps just a stab
A dart on the door of a trade running thin on good names
Or, like the spider and bat before him
Nomenclature came, riding on the fallout of a brush with a pest
CHILD PORN MAN SHOULD NEVER HAVE WORKED WITH CHILDREN
And I agree. What special powers have they got?
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Winter's Roar
I was here, forgotten, when foot-fall waned
And rainfall peaked, yet still you came.
When Winter’s roar kept life at bay
My thousand naked arms remained
Straining under the heavy grey
The earth was hard, yet still you came.
And then, when Spring’s enforcing will
Broke from ‘neath my cold new skin
Gasped and quaffed the pelting rain
You came again and stayed within.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Decisive Action
When the invasion of Iraq
Was announced to the world and my Nan
Instantly reacting, calm and decided
Grampa Ken was sent out
To buy a tin-opener
In case the electric went off
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Dead: Two
Wind that catapult chord son
Wind that catapult chord so taught
And tight as God is dead
And check those numbers thrice boy
You get those angles right, so
With full respect to Newton’s laws
Send me to the night
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Dead: One
Harvest all that isn’t pickled, tarred and marred
From living
Have me
Over a bench
One last time
Limp and pale
I want to go
Over Pennard cliffs
A hurtling, plummeting rot
Ejected from a wheelbarrow
Just before we run out of grass
If you love me enough
To fly-tip deadweight
Get to work on those upper arms
I’ll buy the van
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Here at ‘Reflection’: The corner of Portrait and Bio
They go often, seldom meet
take souvenirs of worth
reflective, potent
with potential for growth, though
must suffer Hollywood
amnesic clouts of happenstance,
the bum’s rush victim
Self inflicted and operated
a back scratch turned collar snatched
Synergy of leap and hurl
Blow life's currency
swinging blindly inward to
the beat and strum
of self loathing and other
wankery trifes
Wield drills and spades and toothpicks
hack by blade or handle’s bludgeon
subject roped
supine on Excalibur’s sheath,
score with searing fountain nibs
The cracked blunt spines
of wizened tomes, bruise
but unearth no unknown.
Paw their scrapbook’s lemon juice script
stare blind
blind in deep, deep empty chests.
So assemble each other in sunlight and dust
embrace a foreigner filling a lover’s skin
stretched and ill-fitting
tailored by failure to find.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Your Friend
Your dear friend, and so clearly your friend,
spoke light, swift converse like
swallows' flight
soft and pointed, lay the words
"You love her."
I did well.
Backfoot pressed, I did not reel,
stayed vague, lied to neither of us
and did not resist.
Never resist. My friends to resist
is to cartwheel through no man's
and they will cut you down
with eyes and silence.
I did well.
Fell back, made light.
Ghosts of words who mill
as flocks or mobs,
trouble as your fear
of birds and people,
froze, preserved
to spare my evening...
and will thaw,
pour in and throughout
fall with the weight of the oceans' fingers
who rise and spread and rise and spread
then crack, dig and claw foundations
flush out roots to swallow your falling mass
or crash your outposts, any head or face
of rock you jutt against her swell
is weathered by parts over aeons
to the building grits
of glass and castles.
I did well, still,
damn your friend.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Spontaneity
He considers spontaneity.
Thinks about leaving.
When he does
He will take off his socks
Roll them in to balls and
Place them in his running shoes.
The contents of his tattered leather wallet
He will arrange on the bedside table
Unnecessary receipts
Old train tickets
Credit, debit and membership cards
A condom.
He will put the wallet in his left pocket.
On his phone
He will record a greeting to inform that he
“Can no longer be reached at this number”
Turn the phone off and place it on charge.
The shoes
He will place together
Heels to the step at the front door.
He will lock the door and post his key through the letter-box
Feel the world rise through his naked feet
Spread his toes
And go.
He thinks about leaving.
He considers spontaneity.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
We Met At The Breakfast Club
(for Mr Burton)
Toaster hands
can't bathe
or hold a knife
and will certainly not
be giving me a second
hand-job
but she has
a warm touch
a warm touch
and an easy-out
crumb tray
crumb tray
The Break In
Teabags
pile up in the bin
we huddle round
drawing hard
one armed hugs and
rubbing backs
waiting for the pigs
to come
and all they did
was scold the
girls
suggest insurance
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Late Night Shopping
Studied eyes are weighing up the poultry
This endless wait can cause a man such grief
Twenty minutes choosing chickens, and then
He turns to me and says he fancies beef
Needling bastard must do it on purpose
Blood near boiled, I clenched my fist and spat
Could’ve raised a cow and killed it by now
Just pick a meat and lets go home you twat!
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Then We Talked About It All Week
On a hill,
on a tunnel,
on a Sunday.
We were host to the end of the world.
We were young,
we were stoned,
we were hungry,
and the three of us watched it in awe.
And the air,
and the traffic,
and the dead,
hung and stared as the sun shrank to nought.
Hung and prayed,
hung and wailed,
hung and waited,
on a hill on a tunnel on a Sunday.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Table For One In A Curry House Window
Atop the stairs
Captain Tragic's naked dog
mopes, glass eyed
he spies 'master' resplendent
in comedy thong
applying the coat, thus
"creating the role",
then shivers alone.
Us, window sat. You, bloated,
fork rice in my wine blurting
"TREE...BUCKET!"
and know
I'm laughing inside.
Tragic leaps upon the road, screams
"I AM SQUIRELL KING, NOTICE MY PLIGHT"
sits and beats between his thighs,
a plastic acorn drum.
'Tree Bucket' outshone
You press your nose to pane, remark
"There's a man-squirrel beating
his nuts in the street. It's almost
poetic" So I snarl a refute and futilely,
remind you "It's trebuchet, love".
Tweeded doormen name Sneer and Snort
chalk out the tarmac ‘tween concrete
lips, wave flags, drop their knickers
and spin as 'His Complete Works' steals first,
the rest of the canon just chasing
to place and Tragic still drums
in the settling dust.
I pay. We step out in the echo.
You stuff your mitts deep
blow mist tipped back on heels
grin "look at that moon!" to
the same old fucking moon then turn
sweetly, smile, take my arm, sigh
"Oh you're just annoyed because
you haven't written anything lately."
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Ethereal Afternoon
when the speed of light slows
you watch from outside your own head
Scarlet O Hara drove me down to Bracelet Bay
to throw rocks at the sea for her dog
The lumbering hound pummels the sand
and her clattering rocks in the distance
She never looks down
I pinch fags from her purse
The cafe clamour traffics round us
Dog licks the window
her nails rap the table
I tap ash
Saw Thor stroll by outside
an ice cream in each hand
And she ignored him
From The Balcony Witnessed: A Smoke by Shore
They need not have known each other.
Your first bloke, solitary
showed only waiting.
Not impatiently, with destination.
Nor idle without direction.
Your second bloke
arrives and leaves without distinction.
More a suggestion, that this mood
accompanies all his travels.
And yet between, your fellows bob on land
The concrete swells where sea has stopped
transfixed, her daughters return o'er head.
World travelled, form-changed they fall
in shards on sand and stone, briefly
hold two men in shelter, attired
in shorts and sports vests sharing a light,
then pass.
Monday, February 22, 2010
In Which The Muse Pervades The Theme
That art of sound, of which you idly gave
as food for form by prompt of searching speech
in penance weak performance played,
is you.
Though left in dust your pick, your lucky tip,
a pachyderm now squats my neural sit
and rhythm, timbre, texture, pitch,
are you.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Please
Please
I do not love you
Enough (or at all)
Nor
Are you worth
A thing to this world
That this creature
Short of
Many Things
Should spend breath for whatever
Middle road damage
That makes you
You
So please
Not for me
And no, not
Not for you
For no benefit
Prize
Wage, worth or trophy
Just
For once
For Variety
Just don't.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Apathy
I saw him again at our cat's funeral.
Plucked out his eyes
and blue
tacked them to his fingers
taped his smile
upside down
on the back of his hand
then held his chin.
He wore this
till the plot was full.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Rain Check
It's just gone 9, as we leave down the path
Dog pulls stops then sniffs as I trundle on past
Down the street as I fiddle with gloves round the corner
adjusting my collar when...
Dusty awe, settles
on a slowing instant gaze
Lights
Street head flood big company signs
Like Embers in smoke or
'Close Encounters' on an old fuzzy screen
I know what they are but for now they are not
Just lights
But silent amber stars, resting
Nestled in a misty bedding
On clearer nights they hum as chorus
The denser parts buzz
Drops of cream on orange streets
With a painter's twitch of red or blue
Like discrete spills
Just for now, it is the valley's eternal slumber
The frosted glass of late-winter's night
Both a mask and its casket
Dog presses on
And so, do I
---
Ten coming to and full circle walked
We return at the hilltop
to jot pen to pad in my head
But gone is this spectacle promising rhyme
Now fog bogs the valley
The stars hang mute
And not in silence's melody
But the piercing ring of songs ended
Still, I smile
And knowing why
Look on
The whole dog wags and I
Consider a fleeting moment's joy, yet
Poetic as a walk can be
Dog stinks of wet, and jumps on me
So thought switches to you, my absent friend
And the rain check you took to stay home and dry
So to give me this evening to share with the valley
And knowing I might preserve it thus
It is kept forever, for both of us.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Junkbox Collaboration
Drawn down and further ever on you fell like deadweight
and sank way below most objects of the same shape
lost like a ship, beyond the great cape
BEYOND EARTH+SKY
there's a man with a shotgun, perched, waiting
trying to break out of Nietchze's Moustache
with wire cutters, semtex and an ounce of hash (for the nerves)
The nerves he'd suffered with since the day his father beat that dog without warning then had several helpings at dinner.
But nerves or not, what else could he do? Desperation would see him through.
BETWEEN THE THORNS AND TIME WAVY OR GREY
you can hear the silent screams of
a poem that has lost its muse
Dan, Richard, James, James, Kelly & Hugh
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Sand-eyed and Smiling
Just another flying Monday breakfast
half-packed, unwashed, in Friday's clothes.
Door slamming and sand-eyed, hot bread in hand
I began the hill
and remembered how your mother
would butter toast, tuck us in,
your father's merry, snoring head
tipped back and spent. The smoke thick air,
the cigar and liquor's dancing scent. Our tongues
and theories, sweetened, exhausted
slept well.
And remembered how your mother
would butter toast, kick us out
still young and years from hungover.
We'd breathe and smile in Saturday’s, Sunday's
morning light and frost, fulfilled.
Then learned, released
begin home.
Impolitely Blasting Sideways
She arrove in cartoon suddenness,
impolitely blasting sideways.
All shade and hope of dry was flung
from hand by soppering fiends,
my shield-stick cotton-jonny'ed,
gaily tossed from sight.
What really twast my tat was him,
hung there gurning lumine grin.
Shoes, mugged of shape and form the
cumulohoodlums
cheesed it. Leaving the starball mirthed,
hydrogen belching, worshipped,
dragging a fist of crayons
on his bedroom wall.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
We are sixteen and you are THE DEATH STAR
We are sixteen and
you are big, big as half a door frame
maybe more
and about as deadly as your lemon cake
isn't mediocre
Yet, you are ominous with a presence
that fills your home, as does the smell
of talc, but
you are more powerful than we are willing
to admit.
Round as a rake and twice short
A pillar of grey in marigold and flora
When Glen said you were evil he didn’t
mean it
We were just bummed at how you exploded
like a carcathyst
when you found all our blow
You are growly now because “old age don't
come alone”, yes
we get it and no we don't want to hear
about how you used to be a wonderful singer
Still,
you are AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH like
THE DEATH STAR
and we are more scared than willing
to admit.
The Argument For
Smoke!
It's cool.
Choose a brand.
Choose your brand.
Roll your own.
Roll a friend's.
It's like wrapping a present
- and setting it on fire.
You'll die.
You’ll die thin.
mint.
It was brain sleep
Beautiful dreamless repair
But woke
not where my head had lain
nor (where had) the remainder of my being.
I surveyed. The room still on its side
Said nothing.
Stood and so reminded to breath
Inwards rushed the elements unseen
As backdraught thick and stripping, outs.
Furniture, fittings, walls and their cousins
Uprighted violent then tauntingly
Paused .
My pins trollyed.
The dresser inched forever forward
Over his shoulder, the mirror offered no answers
Fewer compliments
And with subtlety,
mocked my forehead's fabric branding.
Behind me and slowly, the door
Slid his hand in mine but betrayed by his hinges
announced a guest
And on my way down
I noticed
a crab sandwich had been looking at me sideways.
Monday, February 08, 2010
George
"Bye then" I shrug at first at least
from the step, looking out at the street,
nothing new. Same street as before
except for the cat,
the one from next door.
He was old though. We’d leave him things
but spurned from our bins said
he wouldn’t come again. So
from one box to another
Six years in one with atom, vial and hammer
now forever the other
Well, forever till worm-shit.
At the table then, late
sauced and in view of a flame I wagging
to ceiling said “this round’s on you,
all in on your name!” She dances
her shoulders, in eyelids and lips
then I echo her smile when she’s counting
my chips, “Guess you are as you were George”
and chuckle relief. “If you’d bailed me out now...”
I might have to grieve.
Tuesday Evening On Cromwell
I am comfortable as man here.
It could not be decided who had
un-shirted last or first but the
acts were individual and genuine.
A summer-storm passed, humidity
seemed an acceptable scapegoat.
But to me, Mr. Lee Roth's presence
above the screen is disconcerting,
and I picture us permed,
sat on the floor with our pasta
and Die Hard.
Mike vs. 700 (a dream)
From what I remember
it started just
past your house
after I walked you home
I was shedding cheese
and feathers as I span
so fast trying
to impress your friends
you hadn't met/then
under day-lit canvas
in joined tents those
friends debate us bluntly,
mine laugh small
encouraging
|I hope they will be bored
when I leave
there will be stories|
you tussle my mane dark
red your boyfriend just
stares/
I was coming back in curiosity
of what I had left
but stepped out on the sand
and forgot/
we chose our trucks, green
named one passenger
recorded his dialogue
turned back and saw me talking
to my fingers/it was film-set sun
high tan I stumbled
at the sea dodging tides
of popular culture until Tyson
hooked me in path
of a speeding Honda
then it was calm for a while/
I smashed up a gift shop
with an old friend still
in his school jumper snapping
pencils as they kicked us
out so I started punching
a pig tied to a post
hearing "open your eyes dickhead"
saw a sign for the pie shop and
my inked knuckles
I was hungry but
the butcher had seen
the whole thing/
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Sea Kittens
"You wouldn't hurt a sea-kitten" they said.
"Fucking try me" I thought. Though
I wouldn't know where to begin
because, the classics are out.
It would be redundant to hurl one
in a canal. But,
I could wait in lay all snorkelled up
and as they go about their lives
clap the unsuspecting tails and burst the surface,
over-arming in twos to land
may reach the same effect. But,
not being adept to catch in hand
the dry or wet. I'd rather sit
line's length away and bait
with shiny jangly hook, then
when snared, yank with expert wrist-flicking
(I assume. I know nothing of fishing.)
Steal from the brine a sodden ball of fur
and claws, panicked flailing and tracing an arc
then spinning and slowing, hung-dangled
from a fibreglass pole like a Christmas bauble,
then
when fades its final sighing mew,
I'd meet in glance those tiny giant's eyes...
Tie myself in sacks of bricks
and roll unto my drowning!
Alright you bastards!
I don't think I could hurt a sea kitten but,
I promise you this...
I would never stroke a land-salmon!
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