I’m blushing
it’s embarrassing
to admit this
but these days when I piss
at a public urinal
to encourage the flow’s eventual arrival
I have to make clicking noises like the Predator
which makes people turn to look, but – whatever
I mean sure – I could probably learn something better
like When Love Takes Over by David Guetta
which would still be odd but not so dramatic
and make my life less traumatic
but there you are – I’m just an average bloke
with a prostate and invisibility cloak
a jellyfish is basically living goop
a giant contact lens crossed with a hoop
its digestive tract justly famous
one end mouthparts, one end anus
pretty much water (explains the lassitude)
legs like lassoes it uses with attitude
technically speaking a kind of cnidarian
(for pronunciation ask a librarian)
the suited journeyman sits
and mournfully fits
his penchant for the mordaunt
into the fondant
of a store-bought cake
oh arise and awake!
the artisan who baked
mistaking
one poet for another
come see how the wish-less suffer
slightly asthmatic without their puffer
Sovegna vos al temps de mon dolor
I requested icing of a different colour
and now my drunken suitors recline
on Ercol chairs of meagre design
while doomy, Bloomsbury shadows climb
the bunting-strewn colonnades of ancient time
and the candles blaze low
as I sit here quietly and wheezily blow
(chain-smoking Dunhills doesn’t help I know)
but look here dammit
I’ve just about had it
today’s not the day one kicks the habit
not with these reprobates scattered around
and this bullshit card from Ezra Pound
when an atheist dies
that’s all folks
one day alive
the next day croaks
when a priest dies
they think it’s a bridge
to harps n’wings
from a mortuary fridge
so (to summarise):
on the one hand, NOTHING
on the other, SOMETHING
(NOTHING being a lack of TO and FRO
hard to imagine but there you go)
but here’s the thing about NOTHING or HEAVEN:
maybe they’re the same thing, Kevin
if it’s heaven – great – you get to float
play with God and generally gloat
it it’s nothing – you don’t know a thing about it
and you don’t get a chance to crow about it
in other words
you die – wow – a heavenly show
or you die – there’s nothing – but you don’t know
so you wouldn’t know there WASN’T a heaven
– is any of this making sense to you, Kevin?
does that mean you should hedge your bets
cross yourself and genuflect?
when you see a church door, should you go through it?
nope – sorry, mate – still can’t do it
if I was a witch I’d totally flex
spit three times and fatally hex
this nightmare tory government
of dodgy winks and covenants
selling off anything not screwed down
to generate cash to pass around
an Eton mess of cushty mates
with offshore funds and big estates
who sing the anthem, kiss the flag
and twist it into a handy rag
to gag Britannia and bind her wrists
and give free reign to monopolists
fourteen years of special measures
parties in clowning street, wreckers in chequers
infrastructure down in the dirt
everyone hurting, nothing works
but keep your nerve, people, don’t lose hope
there’s magic in a pencil when you go to vote
there was once an old shoemaker
who had two major
flaws
one – a tendency to inexplicable guffaws
and two
zero talent for making a shoe
one night before bed
the shoemaker said
this business is certainly down on its uppers
I haven’t the money for any more suppers
then with a final, heartfelt guffawn (half guffaw, half yawn)
he trudged up to bed looking pretty forlorn
that night, while he slept
there quietly crept
a gang of elves!
who could make a great shoe between themselves
then disappeared as the cock crowed five
(this was years before mobile phones arrived)
when the shoemaker saw what the elves had made
he guffawed a lot and the shoe displayed
and it sold for heaps and he bought more leather
and the elves made shoes with no payment whatsoever
and soon the shoemaker leased a new shop
and the shoes flew out of the place non-stop
and the elves worked well below minimum wage
and the shoemaker guffawed as his bills got paid
and the elves all asked for better conditions
and the shoemaker guffawed at such impositions
and when the elves tried to unionise
the shoemaker guffawed (surprise, surprise)
then sold all his shares to a multicorp
with a globally branded superstore
and the elves walked out and got busted by the cops
and this is where our fairy tale stops
cemeteries are strange
graves in a line
neatly arranged
with slab designs
names, dates
hollow phrases
stones like weights
to freight the spaces
in other beliefs
they hang your bones
for light relief
in catacombs
tourists take snaps
of skeleton preachers
skulls in stacks
crosses of femurs
either way
life’s all you’ve got
one day here
the next day not
so dig me a bed
lay me down gently
a tree overhead
its roots to hold me
jim clayton 