poems

and so to bed

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

We don’t abide by your pettifogging rules / in any of the ancient, most honourable schools / we’re too busy flogging in the vestibules / acquiring the emotional and spiritual tools / to perpetuate the Divine Right of Fools

I’m sorry, old chap, I don’t mean to lecture / but in the exalted realm of the executive director / we follow a much more dynamic vector / wealth creation, privilege protector / morality’s just philosophical conjecture / wholly confined to the public sector

So forgive me if I seem obtuse / but you’re really such a silly goose / surely you see there’s just no use / in asking us to introduce / measures to rein-in our abuse?

It’s the natural order, ad infinitum / I know all the terms and can easily recite ‘em / or fetch me some parchment and I’ll happily write ‘em / at a ceremony in the city to awe and excite ‘em / if you have rich friends be sure to invite ‘em

So pray to your maker and drop to your knees / stick pins in your cute little effigies / you working class nonentities / please! / if you’re hungry I’m sure there are charities / to keep you in cake and crudites

Honestly! / All this moaning about disparity / is a cause for lordly hilarity / certainly not humanity / just settle down please and enjoy your austerity / do you think it’s easy living in prosperity?

And so forth, and so on

Remember what nanny used to sing?

early to bed
early to rise
makes a slave
behave

or what was that other one…

night night
sleep curled
don’t let the bed bugs
rule the world

big dog

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

there was major alarm
down on the farm
someone ratted the animals out
the pigs all squealed
while the chickens appealed
fussing and flapping their wings about

the sheep muttered privately
the donkeys stood quietly
a crow looked down from the roof
the ducks on the pond
peeped out from the fronds
while the old horse stamped its hoof

save big dog!
cried an elderly hog
he doesn’t deserve this fate!
it wasn’t his plan
when you all overran
and kicked a hole in the gate

big dog was silent
watchful, defiant
he’d find out who sounded the warning
for now he’d sit tight
sleep through the night
tear out their throats in the morning

incident at the 7/11

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

a man ran in for a banana
he was wearing a banana print bandana
banana slippers and banana pyjamas
but anybody could tell
from the fella’s yelling & generally hyper manner
he was ‘bout three wigs shy of the full Hannah Montana
so anyways – he takes said banana
hurries outside to the smokers’ cabana
and gobbles it down in one helluva alarming manner
with this weird kinda side-chew, like a crazy llama
but anyways – whatever
pax humana, man
pax humana
no worries & no drama
yours – officer Roxana Fontana

ep. 1: the paper crane killer

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’m an edgy killer
in a dark modern thriller
and I wear me some fancy boots
my calling card’s an origami bird
that I fold real cold whistling Mahler’s third
then drop on the floor
as I stroll out the door
saying ‘thanks for a stimulatin’ evening, Clem
give my respects to St Peter when you see ‘em’
or some such shit
then stroll back to my shack and shoot crack for a bit

I’m a flawed detective
drunk but still effective
and I got me some fancy angst
I live in a condo with my lizard Belmondo
that I saved from a shootout in Ol’ Colorado
I think like the perps
but deep down I hurts
now the force want me back on the paper crane case
so I stand at the mirror and study my face
the lamp at an angle
then sigh and tie a small Glock to my ankle

welcome to the anthropocene

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

the universe is big and pretty intense
filled with cataclysmic events
black holes busy tossing back planets
like squirrels in a tree of pomegranates
the whole thing such a source of strife
you’d never think it supported life

but when that asteroid struck catastrophically
the dinosaurs didn’t take any of it personally
they could see it was just a hunk of granite
as it wiped their asses off the planet
which is why they’d have thought it so unfair
that humans supposedly so smart and aware
they could see themselves in the reaches of space
were clueless they were trashing the place
frankly – to the embarrassing extent
they’d be calling us the next extinction event

raj rage

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

but we gave them so much
schools, sanitation and such
I mean – good heavens!
look at the evidence!
from a few steaming elephants
to forty gleaming regiments!
boxes of quinine! stacks of clerks!
public buildings! shady parks!
and much, MUCH more than that
more than a lord in a feathery hat
more than tiffin, and the rules of cricket
more than flags and a steam train ticket
more than hunts and royal visits
no – something more patriotically exquisite
the honour of sending us their cotton and tea
branded East India Company
so – I beg you – enough with the hate
India helped make Britain great
and raise our worldwide profile higher
but if you want to enquire
a little more about this stuff
tough
all of the documents that tended to show otherwise
were carefully burned when we abandoned the enterprise

the prosecution rests

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

members of the jury
I put it to you
that it is perfectly
and incontrovertibly
true
that a certain scruffy you-know-who
namely Stanley
did fully and most fervently
evidence with the utmost opposite of urgently
dappy ears divergently
snoot sonorous and snoringly
tail end unnaturally flatulently
twitching and glitching improbably
worryingly white-eyed and zombily
smiling enigmatically
wonkily orthodontically
as I say – the very INSTANT the defendant landed horizontally
he did deign to demonstrate demonstrably
most mongrelly and monstrously
that he would somewhat implausibly
cause himself to pitch all-four pawsibly
into a perfectly innocent and instantaneous snooze
the SECOND you sat down to watch the news

all that evolution for THIS?

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Five hundred and fifty five million years ago
(which really is one helluva long time ago you know)
lived a worm the size of a grain of rice
the first of its kind with a mouth that bites
and a butt that squeezed out all the waste
from the endless snacks it ate with its mates
its name?
Ikaria wariootia
(which may or may not be new to ya)

my point is
this cute little joint is
our earliest common ancestor
(according to scientists at the research centre)
and from this worryingly wormy beginning
you get Attenborough
and a plethora
of fauna
swimming and flying
running and diving
leaving and arriving
jumping
or humping
or just slumping
in front of the TV
like me
and Stanley
stretched out in a food coma
on the sitting room sofa
two distinct species but arguably one loafer
as sedentary as any fossil you’d knock
from a sedimentary Australian rock

twenty twenty whoo-hoo

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

about half past three
there was a buzz on the buzzer
I thought it was the postie
or someone or other

so imagine my surprise
when I found instead
my dad outside
after many years dead

the biggest shock to me
wasn’t the ghostly visitation
it’s just that normally
it’s a showier presentation

‘I know! I know!’ he said
shaking out his cloak
picking a hair-like worm from his head
(he was an image conscious bloke)

‘I’m done with all that theatrical shit
it gets a spirit down
when all you want is to get out for a bit
you go CRAZY underground’

he carefully wiped his calcaneum
on the welcome mat
then stomped across the linoleum
to sit and have a chat

‘How are things?’ I said
and gave a wincy grimace
c’mon! the guy was ten years dead
I should probably act more serious

he shrugged a little
which was quite a relief
‘better than in hospital’
and smiled with all his teeth

‘Jim? This is the last of my spectral visits
sorry to sound so doomy
but I need to know why the hell is it
you’ve been acting glum and gloomy’

‘It’s true’ I said, ‘I can’t deny it
I’m struggling to see my way clear
and it’s always a job to hide it
around this time of year’

‘I totally understand,’ he said
‘The Winter months can be hard
especially when the earth’s your bed
and you lie there counting stars’

‘The thing is, Jim, you worry too much
live a little before you die
and try not to use your phone as a crutch
you’re getting RSI’

‘I wish we could chat in reality’
I said – cradling his cold phalanges
‘instead of in dumb ass poetry
that’s longer than the Ganges’

‘C’mon!’ he said. ‘It’s never too late
to talk to your dear old pappy
– although having said that now’s not great
the connection’s pretty crappy’

and suddenly he rose up
made a farewell pass with his wrist
and I sat there numb and froze up
as he vanished in a swirl of mist

I worried a while about the visit
but really I shouldn’t have thought twice
he was always good with the jokey shit
and not so hot with advice