I’m so gorgeous
a band of candy-scented unicorns
canter over with heart-shaped stickers on their horns
sweet thing / love bug / be mine
(it’s fine
they do it all the time)
I’m so gorgeous
the gauzy ghost of Rudolph Valentino vapes into shot
asks me what my secret is and for any advice I’ve got
I put my arm into the air where his shoulders should be
and share my regime confidentially
I’m so gorgeous
invertebrates prate
reptiles unravel
amphibians create
mammals babble
I’m so gorgeous
the very stars in heaven, singing in their crystalline spheres of ice
break free their shackles & hurl themselves in flaming legions at my feet (which is nice)
I’m so gorgeous
Helen of Troy
lazing on a bouffant borzoi
reading about me in Tatlers
coquettishly sucking her pearly rattlers
suddenly jumps off her ‘aris
flips her ol’ man paris
a richly be-ringed bird
rushes outside without another word
leaps on her chariot
texts me to meet her in some seedy Marriott
(she’s okay, Helen, despite the hype
but not really what you’d call my type)
I’m so gorgeous
the Egyptian god Horus
leads an apocalyptic chorus
scorches the sky with a terrifying sound
tearing the sea, ripping the burned ground
commanding all existence to do as I bid
& asks where I’d like my pyramid
(I thank him for the fealty
graciously decline the realty)
I’m so gorgeous
I spend many happy hours in the contemplation
of the perfection of my own reflection
although – at the risk of sounding vain –
this whole gorgeousness thing can be a pain
and I think to myself, God, what I wouldn’t give
for the life the rest of you losers live
poems
I’m so ugly
I’m so ugly
The King & Queen of Dreadful sent me an official letter
requesting the pleasure of my company to make them look better
I’m so ugly
The Royal College of Aberration threatened to eject my sorry ass
unless I agreed to sign a formal declaration and wear a mask
I’m so ugly
I had a potato named after me
(quickly renamed after an outcry from the PMB
who said I was dragging spuds
through the muds)
I’m so ugly
a hideous dragon sobbed when it saw me advance
snorting ‘Sheesh! I wondered why you weren’t carrying a lance…’
I’m so ugly
When I look in the mirror it flips
& when I sit down to draw my face the paper rips
bawls, hurls itself into the bin
rather than bear the agony of that vile profile again
I’m so ugly
I teach Ungainliness & Abhorrence
At the Royal Academy for Awfulness & Aesthetic Sinning in Florence
I’m so ugly
I get handsomely paid to sit on the front rows
of all the best squawk, talk and funny walk shows
where the producers prize
my floundery eyes
my sense of funk
my squalid junk
my scabrous trunk
my sick sense
my leathery vents
I’m so ugly
YOU hurt
I’m so ugly
you curtsy
because as far as you can see
anyone touched by such monstrosity
must surely be some kind of royalty
*sigh*
I like my hands though
my week
Monday started out not too bad
like a teacup ride, to be fair
gigantic, plastic, embarrassingly slow
me with an expression like a hook-a-duck
gliding around with badly painted eyes
in a haze of burned sugar and bad language
Tuesday I hung for a while
a cheap, flammable lemur with velcro paws
waiting for a darted card in the freezing rain
whilst the pandas and the purple elephants
swung smug, happily asphyxiating in bags
Wednesday was like a ghost train
woohs & oh gods and waaah-ha-haaas
bent mirrors, skeletons in rocking chairs
and then, at a jarring tuck of the rail
someone bored in a claw
leaning out to scraggle my hair
Thursday was horrifying, a pendulum cage
a scream, a grimace, a scattering of vomit
like floss flavoured incense flung from a censer
Friday was classic. Friday was the waltzers
hurled into the trough of a wave
by a bandit prince with a fag in his grin
vaulting pole to pole, making it worse
whilst the waltzer king watched with doomed approval
from his hub of bulbs and mirrors
Saturday was bumper cars
fucking pointless if you ask me
Sunday I stayed in
yep shit all in all
an emotional rollercoaster
my first book of revelations
1.
it’s a buckling of stanchions / a veto / a vox / it’s a germ in a jumpsuit / a jack-in-a-box / it’s a plague on all your horses / your trusted sources / strategic forces / five star courses / your messy European divorces / the cutie with the spruce cuticles in the suit / so super sweet he toots / in permanent cahoots / with the truth benders not defenders / think Christopher Waltz as the Great Pretender / Mueller v the Russians / and other tactical discussions / Destiny on Ice / Don’t Look Now, Don’t Think Twice …
2.
it’s the Cat in the Hazmat / the gun in the bag / it’s Last Night of the Proles / it’s Achilles in drag / it’s Heavenly Burgers from Sacred Cows / it’s Bert and Ernie in Apocalypse Now / it’s the bulls-eyed windshield / the inoperative vent / it’s the urgent message that never got sent / about the shield that got bent / in the scorching descent / from Tashkent to the Levant / it’s fear of the other / the black sheep brother / who moved to the country way too late / hung a red painted sign on a five barred gate …
3.
it’s a fox on fentanyl / a pumpkin patch / a can of kerosene and a strike-anywhere match / it’s Buttons, the Twenty, Putin Boots / a riot shield mounted GoPro shoot / it’s a seance for fleance / nuanced but nice / a basket of crayons / sugar paper to play on / and so on / a cautionary tale for the non-compliant / it’s batman rolling a robin reliant / or a hole in the wi-fi leaking bitcoins / the dream that shrivels the chancellor’s loins / that, and a more particular fright / forgetting to close the bank at night …
4.
it’s a pig in a baby-gro / the lady in the lake / the unreasonable treason / the calculated mistake / it’s the colonel’s journal / the annotated truth / the flaming cross on the motel roof / it’s the business of certainty / the handshake of success / it’s the jackdaw cawing on a glittering nest / it’s the wall at the border / the warden in his garden / preaching lawn order / and other horticultural disorders / it’s a furtive levering of locks / moonlight on a drop / of Novichok / dabbed on the bird in the cuckoo clock / it’s the glad handing / of the operative on the landing / the back-slapping laughter / the sweet hereafter …
5.
it’s the legend of the leaving / the creature / the crux / it’s Donald T. Rump in a wipe-clean tux / it’s a zombie walk-through / a Ts and Cs putsch / it’s the awkward questions you don’t ask much / the Ps and Qs, the FAQs / the political lobbyists’ luxury cruise / with a special incentive for early adopters / cashback, swans & helicopters / a diamante sippy cup / the PM as Elvis All Shook Up / and for the rest of the demographic sediment / if any person present / knows of any lawful impediment / keep it to yourself / look after your health / before something comes along and wrecks it / then make your way to the nearest exit …
when do i get to vote
I’m down and out / crawling about / okay? / c’est vrai / at the end of the day / I’m just a schleich sheepdog in a margarine manger of hay / I should be better than this / I’m l’artiste sans piss / I’m all like gimme this / I’m the polar opposite of stoked / I’m croaked & choked / licence revoked / I’m the loser geezer in the blazer / with the dodgy tazer / I’m a look-a-like martin sheen / in a manky martin sheen machine / I’m lady debrett and her avatar annette / I’m bernard the barbarian / haggling with some scurfy antiquarian / over a dodgy old sword / we both know I can’t afford / I’m a fag flick / at the no-go promo pic / I’m ten good reasons to get out quick / I’m pete the dragon’s younger brother dave / who never made it out the cave / but hid safely out back / living on chilli cheetos & other fiery snacks / but hey / anyway / who’s to say what success is? / I’ve seen way bigger messes / and since when did they put you in charge of facts? / just relax / max / the clams of contentment are down in the ooze / filter feeding on fake news / and other random effluvia / I’ve got nothin to prove ta ya / just take a ticket and get in line / I’ll make it over when I got the time
a cool blue laminated lanyard
swipe right on a mountain of skulls / picked over by gulls / and rats / and souvenir hunters armed with sticks and bats / the whole thing as efficiently organised / as any of the best, most highly-rated genocides / all the wages promptly paid / promotional posters displayed / boots & buttons neatly polished / international banking norms acknowledged / shining lines of communication / cutlery, pots & ammunition / and twirling happily at your chest / the thing that marks you out from the rest / that bulletproof badge of the beautiful vanguard
a cool blue laminated lanyard
or this
a nondescript detention centre / smeared with blood & dried placenta / loose & lazy lines of police outside / arms-folded on armour-plated rides / bagels & babyccinos on the side / and the only thing YOU have to decide / is how in hell you’ll make it out alive / now the King of the Cocks / has cancelled your passport and changed the locks / and doctored clips of you and a fox / and cleared your flat and DNA’d your socks / and cleaned from your numerous offshore accounts / all those improbably sized amounts / you thought would see you safely through / to that country pile in that country purlieu / but the cruelest blow of all / the thing you absolutely cannot deal with at all / the thing that leaves you scared & scarred
the taking of your cool blue laminated lanyard
because
there was nothing you could not do / with your laminated lanyard swinging in full view / no queue you could not jump / no deal trump / or waste dump / no vote you could not turn or policy gazump / it was your Get Out of Moral Responsibility Free card / your Access All Areas for the Die-Hard / your personal, interplanetary-limit platinum card / your Golden Pass to the stars and tsars sipping cocktails in the coolest bars at the sharpest, tippiest top of the London Shard – the loss of which you now lament so VERY hard
your cool blue laminated lanyard
the proposition
when you’re dead, you’re dead / with one definitive snip of the thread / away you float / head first down eternity’s capacious throat / or / maybe death is just a door / maybe you die and you go somewhere else / your consciousness melts / and you get sucked into another realm / Valhalla, maybe, with Odin posing at the helm / or Nirvana / Jannah, Trāyastriṃśa / Aukumea / variations on the idea of the holy layer / domes & levels / supervised by countless angels & devils / where finally you might get rewarded / for all those good deeds you meticulously hoarded / or punished for those you forgot / and pitched headfirst to somewhere hot / where all the tormented entities / gargle lava & prod each other with horrible utilities / like long-handled toasting forks / (according to the most reliable reports)
fact is / no-one understands it / as Shakespeare rightly pointed out in Hamlet / death is an undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns / or blogs about their concerns / no pics on Flickr / Instagram or Twitter / or anything that might shed light on the guff / behind all that Life Ever After stuff / which is probably why these myths are so persistent / with so many contradictory versions co-existent
anyway / at the end of the day / it’ll probably just be like before I was born / people shopping and mowing the lawn / or things a little more obnoxious / with me, happily unconscious / circling the earth in a random atomic cook-up / just waiting for my mum & dad to hook-up
