poems

The Apocalyptic Waltz

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

MC:
Citizens of the World!
Industrialists! Capitalists! Boys and Girls!
Philosophers! Ecologists!
Fossil fuel apologists!
Government Committees!
Villages and Cities!
Sample if you dare the End of the World phantasies
of Dr Doom Scroll’s Cabaret of Catastrophes!
And remember!
you can always call our dedicated number
Oh Nein! Oh Nein! Six Six Six!
Or go online for TikTok clips
Talk to our team of Emeritus Professors
Tenured in Trauma, Nightmares & Terror!
They’ll fill ya with horror
The Day After Tommor
It’s really NO trouble at all….
but first!
I beg you – PLEASE!
enough with your eco-teasing!
your idiotic, zoonotic sneezing!
your endless questions and answers!
take your medication and take your partners
for the Mega Trending, Soon-to-be-Ending, Fully Syndicated, Sinfully Syncopated, the One, the Only: The Apocalyptic Waltz…!

CHORUS:
so it’s a hey ho and here we go
fire in the sky and nothing below
it’s places please
for humanity’s
Apocalyptic Waltz

VERSE:
selfies on a nuclear beach
factor fifty and gun within reach
the view’s fantastic
an ocean of plastic
gannets & turtles tied up in elastic
you close your eyes
but it’s no surprise
Apocalyptic Waltz

[…. endless versions of the same until you run out of clean water, food, the ballroom’s inundated / burned out, whatever…]

ghosts are contractually obliged to be mysterious

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

ghosts are contractually obliged to be mysterious
I’m serious
they can’t just sit down
politely ask you to gather round
a family table at Burger King
or something
and after making a lame joke about onion rings
(it’s not easy being a ghost, it’s true
you tend to slip right through your food)
then segueing neatly
into the thing they discreetly
want to communicate to you
which is the tragic murder of you-know-who
and what they’d like you to do
about that
roughing out a crude but informative map
on the back of a napkin
that kind of thing

no – uh-uh – I’m sorry
they haven’t just lost their corporal body
but every last shred of common sense
they gotta draw things out and make it tense
like steam writing on mirrors
or giving you the shivers
by blowing out a candle
or swiping a picture from a mantel
or playing the piano
when you and I KNOW
there’s no one in the music room
in atmospheres of gloomy doom
jump scares
everywhere
until you just can’t bear it
and you dig out a crucifix and wear it
and you go see a priest
who’s sympathetic at least
even though they only see you at Christmas
but this must
be forgiven
if you’re not to be driven
completely insane
by the ghost that’s dropping hints again
that a great injustice has been wrought
and a certain murderer must be caught
(my money’s on the priest;
he seems quite sweet
but think of the havoc
you can cause in a cassock)

rather than calmly & sensibly
with a sharpie, quite legibly
writing down everything that happened that night
with all the details you need to indict

ghosts are the most annoying thing
into just about everything
and if you’ve got a problem – my advice?
sell the house and don’t think twice

the terror below the kitchen lino

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes Grandma would stay over
sleeping on a Zed bed behind the sofa
(obviously the bed was called a Zed
because when you folded it foot to head
it had the look of that jagged letter
but I liked Grandma’s explanation better
which was when she lay down and the lights went out
you’d see a line of Zeds coming out of her mouth)

Grandma had her struggles
her routines and rituals
but my favourite one involved an apple

Every morning she’d take a knife and saucer
place them on the table with an apple in front of her
and challenge me to peel it in one unbroken strip
but warned me if I slipped
and the apple skin broke
a terrible evil I’d provoke
just as happened to Uncle Arthur she said
when a great disaster fell on his head
how she saw the lino ripped asunder
revealing just a few fathoms under
a horrible nest of goblins and sprites
looking up in cruel delight
barking and squealing
at the boy in the kitchen who’d failed the peeling
and flew like bats up from the abyss…
and she’d demonstrate this
by cackling, and flexing her claws
at yours
truly
who actually wasn’t unduly
worried by the hideous display
because she did the same thing every day
and I’d peel the apple in one long strip
and she’d say thank you Jimmy now quarter it

the cat in the flak jacket

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

(with apologies to Dr Seuss)


the alarms did not ring
it was too late to run
so we hid in the classroom
from the sound of the gun

I hid there with Sally
we hid there, we too
and I said how I wish
the shooting was through

but all we could do was to
hide
hide
hide
and we did not like it
with a shooter outside

and then something went POP!
how that pop made us stop!
we looked
then we saw him
step in with a Glock!
we looked
and we saw him
the cat in the flak jacket
and he said to us
‘Why do you all hide there like that?
I know it is scary
and the odds are quite stacked
but we can have lots of good fun, that’s a fact
I know some good games we could play’
said the cat
‘thanks to the folk of the NRA’

and Sally and I
did not know what to say
as our blood ran out in the classroom that day

Reworked funeral poem

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Death is nothing at all
it does not count
it’s just nature’s way
of putting the empties out

Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I (dead)
and you are you,
(playing the kazoo
or whatever the hell it is you do
to pass the time when I’m all through)

Call me by the old familiar name
(but if it’s all the same
as embarrassing names go
I’d rather you kept it on the down low)

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed of late.
(but not at the graveside because it doesn’t look great)
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
(And if creditors come calling, pay for me.)
Let my name be the household curse it ever was
(Me more than anyone sorry for your loss)

Life means all that it ever meant.
A life well lived now a life well spent
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
(except for that business with the phoney annuity)

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
(I’m still around but I look a fright)
and if I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
think of me more root vegetable than mineral

All is well (for you)
Nothing is hurt (except you-know-who)
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
(just try not to scream when I knock on the door)

rap stanley

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

uh uh
uh uh
yeah
a tisket a tasket
we gonna need a bigger basket
if you gotta question why’nt you ask it
the times they are a changin’
an’ it may seem strange
but I ain’t complainin’
all you gotta do is hang on n’ wait
it gives us time to set a few things straight
these paws are sore n’this tail ain’t great
an’ if you a rescue too I’m sure you relate
I served my time in the county pound
on the ground
while all around
the lost n’found
jump up n’down
barkin’ on about
the shit they shot
the christmas ribbon that time forgot
some poor lil’ street pooch
stuck in a handbag by an insta douche
hey – you want some a’this tripe stick?
I use it a lot, man – it’s pretty good shit
uh uh
yeah
what can I say?
it’s like eminem and dr dre
in a note they wrote to the RSPCA
it say
yo Stanley
you and me man we’re family
we gonna bust you out outstandingly
single-handedly
you hearing me?
while the pugs go woof
and the power chihuahuas all lift the roof
but me I lie low an’ I suck a bad toof
cos’ I’m sick n’tired of feelin’ the truth
it’s like that ol’ poodle say
damned right tomorrow’s another dog day
they’s only so much kibble
a street dog can nibble
‘fore he barks his trouble
out across the land
out of paw n’ out of hand
so whaddya say about that?
uh uh uh
yeah
at the risk of soundin’ sloppy
I ‘ain’t no lil’ puppy
I cut my teeth on the streets
I lost my bark in san francisco
y’know?
that ‘ain’t how this sorry lil’ rescue goes
in my line o’ work it’s paws not toes
it’s winter through the bars and yer claws half froze
full disclosure:
I’m not the lurcher gonna hurcher
so come rub these ribs
you’ll see why I’m always lickin’ yoghurt lids
so c’mon – take me down
I’ll follow you round town
‘cos you saved my tail from the city pound
hell – I’m your biggest fan
I’ll be the baddest boy in the Clay-Ton Clan
uh huh
thas’ right
I wanna sleep safe on yo sofa tonight
I wanna eat nuff kibble
to stay outta trouble
and keep my limbs nice n’supple
wi’ the Omega 3
you gotta fork that bad boy in for me
to make my fur pure luxury
so yo’ – go ahead – take a picture
this lurcher’ll let ya
I’ll never forget ya
I’m Stanley – yo – how d’you do
now fetch me a tripe stick ‘fore I gnaw YOU

jimmy v the ghost

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I think I was nine, maybe ten
going through a phase
especially on school days
of phantom stomach pains back then

I’d been prodded and probed
and Doctor Hornet (what can I say)
asked if everything at home was okay
I said yes so the case was closed

but all the troubles were hid
which of course I didn’t show because
the plain truth was
I was a vague and generally clueless kid

so one school day it was the usual scene
mum had gone out somewhere
leaving me alone in an armchair
flicking through my sister’s Jackie magazine

when suddenly I heard a sound
from up in the attic
sneaky and erratic
the noise a ghost would make coming down

I wedged chairs against the doors
then with a rising sense of doom
ran around the living room
tipping out all the drawers

there was so little it was frightening:
paperbacks, souvenirs, photos, plants
in desperation I took my chance
with an Airfix model of an Electric Lightning

(a fighter jet from the 60s and 70s
from my brother’s wargames kit
he was into all that military shit
planes being one of his specialties)

it was less of a weapon and more of a crutch
ghosts are dead and don’t feel pain
so hitting them with a model plane
probably wouldn’t bother them overmuch

I waited in the armchair
holding the plane by the cone like a club
waiting for the terrifying ghost to show up
and when Mum came home I was still there

what she said to me I’ve no idea
memories of that time have faded
but eventually the stomach pains abated
and I saw out the rest of the year

if I could skip time and visit
myself shivering in that armchair
I’d say put the plane down, Jimmy, don’t be scared
let the ghost in, talk to it

reincarnation

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

brains
notoriously difficult to explain
funny-looking, spongy contraptions
buzzing with neuro-chemical interactions
like there’s something galactic
fizzing in the attic

quite what all this means I don’t know
I mean do YOU know where memories go?
when you’re alive it’s weird enough
your head filled with echoey stuff
but what about when you’re dead?
do the memories go somewhere else instead?

maybe they go into everything else
when you’re laid to rest and your brain slowly melts
it might explain the other day
when I went to visit dad’s grave
carnations singing invitingly
frank sinatra: come fly with me

calling time

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

There was derelict ground at the end of our street
where the print works social club used to be
its pavilion fallen in, everything decayed
all the best stuff robbed away
but we managed to salvage an umpire’s chair
for some reason still standing there
rusting by the tangled nets
like the last of the sunny afternoon sets
ended a hundred years ago
and now only rain passed to and fro
and the only umpiring left to make
was which kind of weed would be next to break
up through the broken tarmac surface
while the developers slowly completed their purchase

Dad put the chair at the back of our house
so when he was digging he could take time out
sit with a tea, survey his work
the vegetable kingdom of the printer’s clerk

twenty years later, mum’s gone, too
and there’s an awful lot of clearing to do
at the end of the garden I find the chair
the woodwork gone, the ironwork bare
and I see Dad sitting on it, sipping his tea
quietly scrutinising me
and I wondered whether he’d approve or not
all those years of digging – for what?
a realm of brambles, nettles, shrubs
his son in a hat with croppers and gloves

but all things pass – gardens, courts
the Fens were reed beds once of course
and before that – dinosaurs called to each other
across the shining river delta
and further back, before this world,
before the formless pattern of chaos unfurled

and in my mind Dad is there
watching it all from his umpire’s chair

I stand for a while, the garden stripped
then toss the bones of the chair in a skip