poems

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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fruit theory

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Before you get all punchy & patriotic / sceptred isle psychotic / hymn singingly hypnotic / sentimentally aquatic

Before you get all knees up / knees up / c’mon dress the trees up / singalong a booze up / pull the ladder up Jack / mind your language & your back

Before you get all remember remember / the tuppenny trembler / a swift one in the dog n’ duck / sneaking out back for a spot of how’s ya father and an ounce of ready rub

Before you get all roll me over in the clover / jitterbuggin’ about on the White Cliffs of Dover / with Sir Vera Lynn and her orchestra / dropping your cacks,  cocking a leg over

Before you send us all back to the Blitz / to wave our flags at her Maj and our arse to Fritz / with my dear ol’ gran getting blown to bits / the night Queen Liz come on a visit / to finger her pearls and ask how is it / the cockneys manage to stay so chipper / with everything in flames along the river

Before you get well and truly started / before your brass band’s got its strapons and departed / and everything’s draped in bunting and shit / and the boys brigade step up to do their banner-waving bit

Before the planes strafe the sky / with union jack stripes a mile wide

Before you start banging on and on / about heroic times long gone / who did what to who and where / who won the victory fair and square / with a brave Churchillian cigar / a bridge too far / a plucky royal back of a car / with a grateful huzzah / and an atom bomb on hiroshima

Before you get in a right ol’ two and eight
I just wanted to set the record straight
okay?

I love my country
I love les dawson & david bowie
I love darts, parks
public works
the fens, the cornish coast
poached egg & beans on toast
I love lidos, lilos, windows
I love vic n’bob & matt lucas
I love swimming pools and verrucas
I love bag o’chips
mr whippy / punk rock / roses & space hoppers
I love padlocks and bolt croppers

and

I love the fact there are old bones in the ground
that if you had a genetic rummage around
you’d see quite clearly
they were related to me
distantly
like a ton of other organic stuff
if you looked hard enough
through a variety of funereal matter
from Limerick to Parramatta

so many choices
but essentially I suppose my point is

I love my country but I love my planet
we’re all just pips in a pomegranate

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Build your own Baronet

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Build your own Baronet
with this tried & trusted
22 carat, jewel-encrusted
Elementary Gentry set:

Included:

One pot of family privilege
rendered and refined
from the upper caste mine
on the outskirts of the village

One bolt of royal bluster
woven and dyed
in our holdings worldwide
to the most luminous lustre

Five buttons from an offshore fund
as clean as possible
invisible, non-taxable
presented on a Kevlar cummerbund

One certificate of authenticity
handwritten on vellum
rapere pauperem
sealed with a Royal Crest of Complicity

One empty, elite skin

One plastic castle to put it all in

Flattery not included

Legal Disclaimer:
This toy is strictly play apparatus
It does NOT confer any social status

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auntie ollie’s sheepdog painting

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Ollie was dad’s sister
and you’d definitely know
even if you didn’t
because they looked exactly the same
not just the no-legs
square face, big hands
a breathless laugh
like they were suddenly crying
but mostly something else
something deep and unexpected
a watchful kind of warmth
snagged in the corner of the eye

I’ve no doubt
where it came from
cooked in the long, cramped
years they shared
before the war
a father who drank
to forget the trenches
always going over the top
with his sons
their mother Martha
doing her best
given the circumstances

Ollie liked to dance
one day she partnered up with John
a ducker and diver
mechanic and driver
who unexpectedly
got killed in action
in Italy, probably
(so they said)
then turned up
barefoot
on VE day

once a year
Ollie & John
would drive down to see us
in a Ford Zephyr Zodiac
with white walled tyres
and a sheepdog
called Rusty
Ollie would stand there
in a fur coat
bigger than the dog’s
whilst John chewed his lip
and chucked sweets
from a carrier bag
like a mad farmer
scattering seeds onto
an unprepossessing field

forty years later
was the last time
we saw her
John had long gone
(so they said)
her dancing partner
now a zimmer frame
‘look at this’ she said
pulling a painting
from behind the chair
a laughing sheepdog
wha’d’ya think?
I loved it
it was funny, lush, extravagant
and although the perspective
was definitely skewed
and the teeth looked weird
there was something else
something deep and unexpected
a watchful kind of warmth
snagged in the corner of the eye

martha and olive

tanglin’ with the pangolin

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Did you see the clip?
shit
it was a viral hit
quite a trip
this motherfuckin’ pangolin
this flail-tailed, shuffle-butted shaolin
went all Kwai Chang Caine
stormed through the market and back again
punched cops on the street
kicked them out with his clawsy feet
he was a real fightin’ bitin’ treat
till the cops called for backup
and the odds started to stack up
they clattered and battered him
man
they totally flattened him
this fat cop sat on him
kicked him in the snoot
pulled his gun and threatened to shoot
tasered his ass
rolled him face down on the grass
zip-locked his paws
dabbed his claws
read him the miranda
but he jes’ smiled like he was taking tea on the veranda
I mean – c’mon – that poor little shit
he was jes’ saying something about the market
what exactly they meant by wet
he saw things he’d never forget
he was jes’ trying to swerve it
no WAY did he deserve it

anyway – fuck it – I’m done talking
the bodies are piling up and I’m through chalking
is this it?
is this really it?
I’m getting all hot n’shivery
put me down for home delivery

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death of a game dog

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I saw Marian over the woods
her young golden-eyed GSP
rapt, en pointe
– Where’s the other one?
Oh – didn’t I tell you?
I had to say goodbye to Helga on Monday
– I’m so sorry
Long story short
She’d gone a little lame
I put her on Metacam and bed rest
It seemed to clear up okay
then I felt a lump on her neck
took her to the vet
lipoma they said
we’ll keep an eye on it
a few days later she stopped eating
I took her back
they did a scan
cancer everywhere
EVERYWHERE
liver, kidneys, lungs
– where DIDN’T they find cancer? –
they talked about chemo
but I didn’t want to put her through that
I’ve always thought
you have to know when to act
better a few days early
than a week too late
– I’m so sorry
that’s okay
she was such a game dog
– I know
80 pheasants last year
did you know
there are badgers over there
their setts last 200 years
I remember once
coming back from a shoot
me and Helga saw
some badger cubs
playing with some fox cubs
right about where you’re standing
Helga looked up at me
as if to say
what do you want me to do about this?
so I said to her
I said Helga – RELAX
let’s just stand a while and watch

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lockdown fever

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’m Captain of the Nostromo / getting ready to go / lighting a fag with my torch / shakily psyched for the search / joking when I should be praying / staying when I should be running / wondering which way the monster’s coming

I’m Dracul sans cloak / wandering the night as an ordinary bloke / fake it till you stake it / I snigger / vamps are sucky tramps, go figure / this upper lip so stiff it’s rigored / clanging my fake fangs in a tooth mug / *shrugs* / hope my bed is freshly dug

I’m Chasin’ Jason / quick, slick & self-effacin’ / flexing / sex texting / lush headed / bed steady / instagram ready / slowly drifting into port / with whoever’s left of the Argonauts / muscles greased and taut / dreaming about sport / wearing a shop bought / fleece / tag on / golden to my knees / ready-rubbed in spangly grease / very very nice indeed

I’m taken, spent / battered & bent / I’m hopelessly, totally trouble / I’m a kidnapped heiress in a dirty drug bubble / I’m Liam Neeson punching rubble

I’m the Creature from the Black Lagoon / going off menu way too soon / eating shit with a silver spoon / stuffing curly fries in my gills / smearing sauce on the windowsills

I’m Michael rowing the boat ashore / with a cargo of meth and a whole lot more / kill the lights / alright? / keep quiet / the coastguard work these waters at night / jus’ make the sign and bless the moolah / it was always way more than hallelujah

IMG_2084I’m bad Jimmy Bond / totally bombed / with a disposable blonde / twerking, smirking / hope my cute little watch is still working / flashing my dimple of death / in the sweetly rubbed heft / of my perfumed cheek / man – I could do this shit all week / so blow me, Blofeld / my skill’s unparalleled / just let me make a cute remark / then lower me cock-first in your tank of sharks

a lexicon of old plant names from the 2020s

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

IMG_2072Cough-in-the-Market / Love-in-a-Lockdown / Reluctant Disclosure / Nothing-in-the-Hand / Long Blue Quarantine / Nodding Terms / Greater Stitchup / Kit Slips / False Trump / Wild Trump / Trump o’ the Dump / Red-Eyed Adviser / Two-Weeks-Wasted / Drooping Resolve / Frazzle-Headed Conspiracy / Jack-i’-the-Coffin / Lesser Politician-in-the-Dock / Go-to-Bed / Ragged Routine / Heart-Shaped Whatever / Tentative Apron / Boxed Gloves / Truth-in-a-Mask / Summer Memory / Sneezeweed

 

pandemickey mouse

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

mickey mouse comes over all big heady
foam handed, numb-eared, unsteady
donald duck shakes his feathery butt & gets ready

flaps around for a crap plastic gown
and an itty-bitty mask that keeps falling down
yelling and gelling and generally running around

IMG_2033minnie mouse is more minimal
a thoroughly practical cartoon animal
sighs as she puts aside the infection control manual

meanwhile, up on the tv, there’s pluto!
guffawing, exploring stats on the computo
(quite how he got THAT job I DON’T know)