Author: jim clayton

my bucket list

~ jim clayton ~ 1 Comment
  1. Not to feel the chill breath
    of death
    prickling on my shoulder
    every time I joke about getting older
  2. And not to FEAR Death
    but see it in a wider, more holistic context
    everything that lives must die
    ours is not to reason why
    (but exercise and early nights
    are probably still good advice)
  3. To finally see
    life’s definitely
    not all about me
    (I mean – in the history of this planet
    goddammit
    roughly 117 billion people
    started out foetal
    which is the best way to understand
    roughly where I stand
    on the whole, bucket list phenomenon
    and why I’m not a bit more forthcomenon)
  4. I wouldn’t mind seeing the pyramids, though

Jimmy Mcquaide – flower detective in The Bunch Connection

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Detective Jimmy ‘The Florist’ McQuaide
sits in his fuschia pink chevrolet
sipping a batch roast cafe au lait
as he watches the offloading underway
at the dockside flower shop Botanica Francais

It’s a month long undercover surveillance
trailing a gang of Venezuelans
counterfeiting lilies, pansies, impatiens
spraying their leaves and plastic stamens
sacks of poppy seeds as payments

He grimaces as he suddenly observes
the bulky handles of secateurs
showing through the lines of their black suit curves
as they slap the backs of the proprietors
who’ve come out to greet les visiteurs

Suddenly he feels the press of cold steel
and a voice says ‘put your hands on the wheel’
then calls out ‘Vincent! Luis! Odile!
I’ve caught me an aphid – let’s squish him till he squeals’
then orders him out of the car to kneel

‘Easy man, easy!’ says McQuaide
taking off his groovy purple shades
getting out slowly, options weighed
as the other three perps with cutters displayed
saunter out from the shopping arcade

‘So – a new recruit to the bouquet mafia!’
snarls Odile, tying his hands with raffia
‘Is there anyone else we should know coming after ya?’
‘Just me’ says McQuaide, ‘Does that make you happier?’
‘Sure! And maybe your autographia?’

They drag him into a floral repository
piled to the roof with contraband floristry
sit him on a poppy seed depository
then the others leave Odile oddly solitary
so he can get all handily plotline expository

‘Let me tell you about our world’
smiles Odile, giving his cutters a twirl
‘how this whole magnificent bloom unfurls,
the cars, the seeds, the blooms, the girls…’
McQuaide’s moustachioed top lip curls

Suddenly he jumps with both hands free
grabs a vase of peonies
swipes Odile aggressively
who crashes back dramatically
into a zinnia display catastrophically

The whole place creaks and groans and shudders
McQuaide dives headfirst through the shutters
just as the ceiling shrieks and gutters
falling in with a storm of colours
‘Now THAT’S a flower press’ he mutters

Back at the precinct McQuaide sees the Cap’n
who wants to know what the hell just happ’n
under what authority he thought he was actin’
all the regrettable press he’s attractin’
he’s supposed to be arrestin’, not compactin’

McQuaide shakes his head quite bitterly
‘The flower bunch are no longer at liberty
but if you’re dead-heading, Cap’n, please consider me’
‘McQuaide? You handle yourself quite brilliantly
but the top brass say you’re a liability’

‘I’m sorry McQuaide,’ says desk Sarge Madge
as he hands her his bug gun, his gloves, his badge
‘You’re a maverick, man – but you sure make a splash’
McQuaide smiles, sticks a rose in her hatch
says they’ll find another gardener to work the patch

Outside he stops by a pink hydrangea
maybe this job was a real game changer
out of work but out of danger
feeling free but also stranger
maybe get work as a flower arranger

the last, great breakfast

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the climate degrades at increasing pace
the sea moves in and obliterates
vast tracts of land at alarming rates
as famine and war proliferates
and billionaires hide in city states
with their private militia at the gates
but suddenly there’s nowhere left to escape
this one last cataclysmic shake
and there’s just one billionaire left to take
a soft boiled egg with the bread they’ve baked
but there’s no one left to articulate
the beautiful light on the burning estate
and realising mankind’s mistake too late
he blows out his brains on his breakfast plate

new boots

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it was a study
in mud
the effect
you’d expect
after a biblical flood
when you’d parked
your ark
in an inundated neighbourhood

bloody muddy
as a matter of fact
dry ground it completely lacked
the absolute opposite of terra firma
but if you’re selling mud runs a nice little earner

if someone said Hey Bud!
Ya call this MUD?
The swamp I’m from we’d say it’s a dud
I’d say Don’t be judgy
I just think it’s sludgy
I don’t understand why you’re being so touchy

but I’m past caring
I’m finally wearing
my bougie new boots
perfectly designed for muddy pursuits

you are old, father tory

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(with apologies to Lewis Carroll..)

You are old, Father Tory, said the boy with severity
And your fingers have become very light
And yet you incessantly preach austerity
Do you think at this time it is right?

In my youth, Father Tory replied to the boy
I feared it might stifle growth
but now that I’m free of the hoi-polloi
I follow a more lucrative oath

You are old, said the youth, as I mentioned before
And have grown most uncommonly fat
Yet you sneak people in the back door
Pray, what is the reason for that?

In my youth, said the sage, as he shook out his wallet
I kept all my earnings quite simple
By the use of my contacts or whatever you call it
I’ve become quite an affluent symbol

You are old, said the youth, and your laws are too weak
For policing abuses of office
Yet you stand in the commons and continue to speak
Without revealing your profits

In my youth said his father I studied at Eton
And learned how corruption was rife
How Bullingdon chums will never be beaten
And it’s lasted me all through my life

You are old, said the youth, one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever
Yet you balance the economy on the end of your nose –
What made you so awfully clever?

I have borne all your questions, the lies you’re spreading
said his father – whose country d’you think this is?
Your constant inquiries are doing my head in
Be off and mind your own business!

status update XXXVII

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I’m phantom, pixie, banshee, daemon / chasing sticks in the holiday season

I’m Rip Van Winkle, Dick Van Dyke / Doris Trump on a square-wheeled bike / wobbling off to Capitol Hill / to steal hot pies from the windowsill

I’m Death Wish starring Boris Bronson / pistolled-up and acting wanton / gurning when the perps turn round / waving his hands till his pants fall down

I’m a no-good, drunken, deadbeat dancer / staggering on and releasing his partner / who flies off into the orchestra pit / then sues my ass for quite a bit

I’m a dumbo Colombo, examinin’ the shenanigans / between Kif and Leela, Fry and Brannigan

I’m a Bullingdon-born nod of approval / sanctioning banks for the immediate removal / of any principled, government advisors / so we can syphon funds and you’re none the wiser

so now it’s 2023?
never shake thy gory locks at me
use head & shoulders, then we’ll see

protodad

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first there was dad
then me
although obviously
that’s mad
because dad had a dad
his dad a dad before that
in fact
a shit load of dads going back and back
to – WHAT, exactly?
something slimy n’straggly
finning with a screech
ever so slowly up the beach
overcome with emotion
at this unexpected locomotion
sometime around the Cambrian explosion
without the least notion
what made it think to leave the ocean
and what the fuck it was doing there
wheezing in the sultry air
bug-eyed and staring
in the brutal sunlight glaring
wondering what the hell it was facing
in the bushes bordering the river basin

and let’s say you were cruising
in that bougie time machine you’ve been using
and your cameras all zoomed in
there’d be no disputing
between the scientists in attendance
an unmistakable family resemblance

grandpa rapper

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I’m a grandpa rapper / a crap rapscallion / safety cap and medic alert medallion / when sorrows come, they come not in single rhymes, but battalions / digging so deep I beat the Grand Canyon

I’m a secondhand man, a used methuselah / trying not to lose what time’s busy bruising / pleasantly confused but somehow cruising / altitudes of attitude in between snoozing

I’m a hand model for cannulas / decades older than Dracula / rhyming my time in dodgy vernacular / less Cardi B more cardiovascular / a tottering, tea-time travelling ambassador / for the dusty but lusty, rap-battling amateur / bending his endings in dodgy parameters

I’m old father rhyme / emptying the floor in four-four time / ready to go when he’s only just arrived / boney n’broken / outspoken in a cloak / a try-hard, blowhard, droney old bloke / specialising in hip hop embarrassment / rhymes so bad it’s tantamount to harassment / ancient and arrogant / blatant, irrelevant / an exiled, senile, X Files experiment

I’m a slow-crime, lunch time, delusional dreamer / drivin’ my four wheeled walker like a beemer / lithe as a lemur with a fractured neck of femur

I’m a one-time rhymer whose tunes aren’t wack / braces not belts cos my pants are slack / tenacity I lack / not hitting the clubs, hitting the sack / snacks my crack / fifteen Murder She Wrotes back to back

I’ve got bandanas on the shopping list / vitamin pills, Bloods n’Crips / zimmer frames my game and sticks ma’ whips / easy-on gats with velcro grips / my rhymes don’t shine but they sure don’t slip / when I bust a move I bust a hip