poems

potted history

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

from an early age / I was very well behaved / prepped & peppered, preened and saved / whelped in a bonehouse in pere lachaise

I was flamed, tamed / tastefully framed / but hey – I did alright / wrote out the dreams I dreamed at night / burned my words and turned to the light

I admit it / if there’s a sin to be sinned I’ll commit it / there are a hundred things I say I’ll do but won’t / a million things I think I’ll do but don’t / it’s all just a walk / flashy trash talk / a dirty board and a piece of chalk / a bucket for the clown and a dollar for the work / a great white shark with a knife and fork

sorry – I know it’s boring / the same old hoary story / land of hopeless glory / death by stealth and trial by fury / the tried and trusted theory / so blow me / says madame curie / faking it shakily / painfully taking a knee / showing ALL her teeth in a see-through selfie

always the pupil never the teacher / always the lumbering B movie creature / whose monsterish features / score laughter not screeches / stomping and romping on sandy beaches

I saw a sign once – it said shit to shovel / hone your art and build your hovel / sit the fuck down and write that novel / the rules aren’t all that hard to follow / spit don’t swallow / life’s a fart in a wind tunnel / you might as well enjoy it / everyone knows you can’t avoid it

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borology

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

you know where you are with a coronavirus
it only wants to get inside us
boarding our lungs like spiky pirates
turning us into multipliers

put one under a microscope
you’ll get the full dope
a belly coiled with RNA rope
a little protein envelope

that’s it. that’s all there is
laid out for your analysis
a particle that’s a practical whizz
at the biochemical repro biz

turn that scope on the current prime minister
and you’ll find a much more puzzling creature
an opportunistic power seeker
with no discernible moral feature

the virus is easier to understand
as it propagates across the land
to nix its tricks and make a stand
you only have to wash your hands

but the PM is a problem of a deeper complexion
a master of fog and misdirection
so if you want to guard against further infection
vote him out at the next election

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cummings, running

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

1

look at all the lemmings
loving
worrying
wanting
believing
blindly following
all the stoppings and stayings
the leavings and dyings
the sorry son no goodbyings
the unattended buryings
the forbidden crossings
of non-existent rings
round all those dirty, deadbeat, disposable things

2

it’s crushing

punishing

we need something

anything

nothing?

yeah – well – fuck you cummings

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you were in my dreams last night

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

you were in my dreams last night

you were a sad sack city gorilla / leaping pillar to pillar
a hairy tormentor / swearing, tearing up the shopping centre
and me? I was the hapless, hatless alligator / tumbling backwards down the escalator
straight into a screaming waiter / who said he’d get my drinks order later

you were in my dreams last night

you were a crazy aunt / trying to brain me with a potted plant
buffed and bouffant / totally trenchant, brutally unrepentant
and me? I was the toad on your toilet seat / a lascivious, amphibious meet n’greet
with an eye for surprise and a taste for meat / a schlubby old tub with webby feet

you were in my dreams last night

you were a striking, holiday Viking / horns in, thumbs out, hitchhiking
curling your plaits, looking inviting / but the traffic wasn’t biting
and me? I was half man, half midwife / wading through a midlife crisis
losing my shit with laryngitis / outside of the party ‘cos you wouldn’t invite us

you were in my dreams last night

you were a robot mother in disguise / spanners for hands and cans for eyes
who fed me nails and said they were fries / and raced away for more supplies
and me? I was the blinking lighthouse kid / foghorning all the dumb things I did
planning a takeover bid / hitting the skids / dragged off screaming by a giant squid

yeah?

okay

so – what does THAT all mean?

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we’re off to see the wizard

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I must admit the vicar’s slick
gets through the service pretty quick

reads an anecdote
something the family wrote:

John proposed at the end of a date
top deck of a number thirty-eight
nineteen forty-one
before he was gone
again to fight
like most of the other guys that night

the film they saw was the Wizard of Oz
because because because
they went to see whatever there was
Ollie agreed
they married
it was hurried
but perfect
they fit

(here the vicar pauses, his face darkens and creases
apparently the church was bombed next day and the vicar blown to pieces)

so THAT’s why they started the show
with Somewhere Over the Rainbow

(rather than We’re Off to See the Wizard)

but I have to say, the way the coffin’s delivered
on a kind of fancy stand with rollers
operated by remote controllers
lit by a subtle light
drapes that snake in left and right
it’s all quite magical
tastefully clinical
smoothly invisible
while the vicar says the Lord’s Prayer
blessing us all there
words of comfort from the Mighty Oz
because because because
we all know what the story was
the yellow brick road led right to the City
but Oz was lost like us, more’s the pity

rhyme crimes

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

the three blind mice
got busted by vice
agreed a price
spilled the cheese on the farmhouse heist
the fugazi tails device
nice

the dish and the spoon
blew cover too soon
the scene was somewhat opportune
we scored the cat, the fiddle, the cow, the moon
– the whole goddamn spittoon
boom

doctor foster
double-crossed her
one last blast of oxycontin then he tossed her
but no WAY had he lost her
he bobbed-up in Gloucester
shocker

old mother hubbard
finally blubbered
tossed her, discovered
a Glock and a Beretta in the cupboard
the murderous old buzzard
god love her

georgie porgy
pie-eyed in a suburban orgy
fingered by clergy
DA says he was DP’d by a Tory
sticking to his story
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little jack horner?
plum off his tits in the corner?
that crusty little performer?
let me warn ya
he’s our best informer
top dollar

the wee willie winkie case is now officially closed

 

re. birnam

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I.
it’s all been such a damned slog / a curious fury, a fit in a fog / a snigger of witches, a professional whack / smiling, beguiling, drifting off track / curses, reverses / a shimmy in shorts / best intentions, bad reports / some deadbeat motherfucker / with a spectral dagger and an eyebrow plucker / save it, sucker / you’re out of time and out of luck / back of the line with the rest of the losers / beggars can’t be choosers / sit the hell down or I loose the bruisers

II.
face it / it’s untraceable / no-one’s irreplaceable / write it down we’ll pray for it / now please be quiet please / there are men with glasses watching from the trees / it’s a total rip and a wrap / a knowing wave and a slow hand clap / but wait / wait / even though it’s late / we can jump the castle gate / run to the lake / come on in the water’s great / we can dance freely in the deeps / with all the other aqua creeps / in the tangled lines and lunacies / potentially / happily / temporarily at least

III.
I love the way you argue to the finish / while the draggy day slows and the options diminish / among the alarums and sirens / the sudden silences / dodgy contrivances / like a blind boy pointing to the sun / feeling it on his face like everyone / why not stay and play / go on, say it / no way am I going to pay for it / I was the last and the least / I was the strangely limber, lumbering timber beast / the rotten heart of the forest / unholy / slowly rooting it up the hill / I don’t know / shit – shut the window / tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow / and so on / fuck you witches you won / come, put mine armour on

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Corona Q&A

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment


Through the magical process
of viral zoonosis
a pathogen
can jump from animal to human
in the belly of a vector
some kind of primitive blood collector
that’ll carry the virus but won’t get sick
like a horseshoe bat or a blacklegged tick

 the virus itself is teeny tiny
globoid and spiny
really – just about as small as you like
120nanometers spike to spike
with a strand of coded RNA
safely coiled away
in a protein envelope
that’ll get posted down the slope
of your upper respiratory tract
especially given the lack
of basic PPE
–  something we see
disproportionately
unfortunately
in the UK today

Okay?

Please address any further questions
to Michael Covid or Virus Johnson

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space decal

~ jim clayton ~ 1 Comment

Dance like no one is watching / drift away, weightlessly hopscotching / notching up another dreamy EVA / as the rest of the space crew dies laughing / wildly telegraphing / drawing pictures of a goofy horse / holding them to the observation ports / miming how they’re messing with your life support

Sing like no one is listening / or there’s a horribly blobulous slime ball glistening / slickly quickening / finding it homicidally interesting / to see / such a delicious morsel of humanity / advertising itself so fragrantly / as it slowly crawls towards you from the laboratory

Love like you’ve never been hurt / by a beautiful robot called Kurt / in aluminium pants and torn white T shirt / who flicked his copper-coiled quiff / his curly aerial stiff / then sashayed / through the moon colony colonnade / digits splayed / and asked if you were the daughter / of a famous interplanetary transporter / because he couldn’t think why else he oughta / be feeling like he’d just lost his penis / and seen it on the news orbiting Venus

 Live like it’s heaven on Earth / because interplanetary travel sure ‘aint worth / the cost of a berth / on a beta star freighter / for reasons I’ll go into later / so toss me the keys from your spaceship / Chip / and button it / this is the shit / right here – you’re living on it / so phone home, ET – then quit / sometimes you gotta know when to commit

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