Author: jim clayton

Instawar

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

vapes of grape, lemonade ice / the army’s hitting town tonight / for bougie selfies, TikTok shorts / a derelict house and a blurry corpse

the war will be sponsored by Apple and Coke / with well-placed cans while you shoot the folk / who queue for bread and wave the flags / and splash their blood on shopping bags

Starbucks, Costa, Burger King, Wendy / everything quick-bite, media-friendly / it’s all about likes at the end of the day / is that to die-in or drag away?

a visionary tactic, cash or plastic / hospitals burn but look fantastic / pass the scope I’m a hit dispenser / a stone cold, five-star influencer

so like for more and scroll for kicks / drones & tanks & fighting ships / you love this bullshit, why deny it / you made your bed now cry in it

blue fish

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

niece Rose was arguing
with someone on the phone
I walked in the kitchen
and set my rucksack down

Richenza was sitting
she seemed a little blank
watching blue fish swimming
around a bubbling tank

I said hello and sat
I watched the blue fish too
Rose waved as if to say
she was just about through

Richenza suddenly
shivered and turned to me:
‘I was safe in my mother’s belly’
she said
when I travelled across the sea’

‘Sorry! Sorry!’ blushed Rose
‘Not anything for months
But that’s the way life goes
I suppose
Everything all at once’

flipchart

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

allow me to explain
(any questions, speak up)
and I’ll write in nice big crayon
so you losers gotta chance to keep up

this is YOU…and this – is – your stoopid HAIR
and this is the military-industrial complex sitting over there

okay… SO – these are serious guys
they sell a lotta shit
and they’re big on toys that make some noise
approved by government scientists

bombs, boats, planes – you name it
a trillion dollars n’cents
and there’s absolutely no shame in it
cos everyone need defence

it’s all perfectly legal
maps with lines n’borders
and it needs a ton a’people
to satisfy the orders

I know what your thinkin’
all we are saying is give peace a chance
yeah well thank you mr lennon
but flowers don’t fund no power plants

the 100% real-world facts are
you don’t really have a choice
you’re like – chickens in an abattoir
squawkin’ in one voice

sure – the system’s unsatisfactory
but everyone’s gotta go through it
from hatchery to factory
relax my friends, just do it

it’s a bougie little pumpkin patch
everyone’s ahead
well – sorry – awks – not you, natch
you’ll most likely be dead

then after the last big shootin’ show
when all the planet’s bust
and everything’s brown and nothing grows
on Earth’s burned pizza crust

the last few humans to exist
buried in their lairs
are a handful of heavy industrialists
a coupla big tech billionaires

evolved into bug like creatures
waving antennae wide
to scout for recognisable features
before they crawl outside

they’ll scuttle up to wipe their faces
stretch after a nice long sleep
buff their carapaces
finally king of the heap

a few useful German compounds

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Schadenfreude
when you’re hotter than Freud on the Costa del Sol
psychoanalysing under a parasol

Kühlschrank
when you strip to your speedos and try to look cool
by jumping in an icy pool

Zungenbrecher
that hopeless feeling you sometimes get
when the cruise ship sinks and your toast gets wet

Drachenfutter
when you’ve gone too long without cutting your nails
and your feet have grown feathers, claws and scales

Verschlimmbessern
when you starve yourself and put on weight
but your best friend doesn’t and still looks great

Pechvogel
when you crow about lunch like a foodie nerd
but end up binning about a third

Zeitgeist
when you’re asked the time on your way out the door
and you shrug and say about half past four

urinal survival

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’m blushing
it’s embarrassing
to admit this
but these days when I piss
at a public urinal
to encourage the flow’s eventual arrival
I have to make clicking noises like the Predator
which makes people turn to look, but – whatever
I mean sure – I could probably learn something better
like When Love Takes Over by David Guetta
which would still be odd but not so dramatic
and make my life less traumatic

but there you are – I’m just an average bloke
with a prostate and invisibility cloak

the dolorous birthday party of t s eliot

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

the suited journeyman sits
and mournfully fits
his penchant for the mordaunt
into the fondant
of a store-bought cake

oh arise and awake!
the artisan who baked
mistaking
one poet for another
come see how the wish-less suffer
slightly asthmatic without their puffer

Sovegna vos al temps de mon dolor
I requested icing of a different colour

and now my drunken suitors recline
on Ercol chairs of meagre design
while doomy, Bloomsbury shadows climb
the bunting-strewn colonnades of ancient time
and the candles blaze low
as I sit here quietly and wheezily blow
(chain-smoking Dunhills doesn’t help I know)
but look here dammit
I’ve just about had it
today’s not the day one kicks the habit
not with these reprobates scattered around
and this bullshit card from Ezra Pound

a debate about religion with a friend conveniently called Kevin

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

when an atheist dies
that’s all folks
one day alive
the next day croaks

when a priest dies
they think it’s a bridge
to harps n’wings
from a mortuary fridge

so (to summarise):

on the one hand, NOTHING
on the other, SOMETHING
(NOTHING being a lack of TO and FRO
hard to imagine but there you go)

but here’s the thing about NOTHING or HEAVEN:
maybe they’re the same thing, Kevin

if it’s heaven – great – you get to float
play with God and generally gloat

it it’s nothing – you don’t know a thing about it
and you don’t get a chance to crow about it

in other words

you die – wow – a heavenly show
or you die – there’s nothing – but you don’t know
so you wouldn’t know there WASN’T a heaven
– is any of this making sense to you, Kevin?

does that mean you should hedge your bets
cross yourself and genuflect?
when you see a church door, should you go through it?
nope – sorry, mate – still can’t do it