poems

oh no, dino

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

there’s a dino loose in Barbieland
causing all kindsa tyrano-sized troubles
security gate buckles
converting convertibles
snacking on collectables
hot tub huddles
tossed down clean
the barbecue-themed
blue eyed couples
fixed smile struggles
the whole scene getting WAAAY outta hand

there’s a dino loose in Barbieland
he musta just bust out the Park I guess
dressed to oppress
feet to depress
a million gnashers more or less
scranning on guests
a grand design
for an ad hoc dine
(but I have to confess
very little finesse)
to the disco sounds of the groovy house band

down the plughole

Image ~ ~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

The Great British Run It Down & Flog It
The Great British Jacob Rees-Mogg it
The Great British Eton Mess
The Great British Fascist Press
The Great British Government of Tyrants & Cons
The Great British Keep Your Head Down Carry On
The Great British Act of Egregious Self-Harm
The Great British Squealers on Animal Farm
The Great British Michelle Mone, Golden Zone, Have It
The Great British Offshore Smash & Grab It
The Great British Shrug Off
The Great British Mug Off
Pull the plug off
The Grr British
The Brit
The Brr
The
shh

Stanley’s DNA report

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Stanley is a mongrel
which means he’s a bundle
of lotsa different things
so this report untangles
a few of those strings:

it says here that he’s
approximately 5 percent cheese
10 percent sneeze
2 percent howl
4 percent scowl
1 percent essence of frustrated owl
9 percent Viking
9 percent liking
the striking
of ridiculous poses
3 percent noses
about 5 percent ruined sofa
it discloses
10 percent paws
like big clawsy loafers
4 percent whiff
2 percent sniff
3 percent wearing his
hair in a quiff
1 percent manly
1 percent Bramley
1 percent ludicrous modus operandi
1 percent the painter Modigliani
twelve percent scraggly
four percent baggly
but essentially
one hundred and ten percent Stanley

status update XXXIX

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’m the Tory Party in control / fiddle-dee-dee and fol-de-rol / the poor must learn to be self-reliant / unless we see you’re a wealthy client / in which case advance friend and be recognised / your donations will always be classified / in fact – you’ll see we’ve organised / a secret nod and a VIP lane / for cooperation and mutual gain / the rest of you losers can just go hang / you haven’t the dough to be in our gang / so it’s cheers, pip-pip and cigars all round / as we burn the rules and scorch the ground

and…in other news

I went to the corner shop and asked for a sprite / and certainly got what I went for alright / a mischievous fellow with gills and fangs / seashell booties, kelpy bangs / and I stood there a minute all pensive and quiet / then asked him if he was sure it was diet / but the geezer just shook his head and laughed / so I took the thing home and ran him a bath

I’m the creature from the black lagoon / escaping the swamp in a hot air balloon / shouting smell ya later, losers / but I’m attacked by drones from a distant computer / royally fried in monstrous chunks / from the ghastly gills to the speedo trunks / plummeting back to earth with a bump

I’m your average, messianic prick / scented beard and bald head slick / posing on a bonnet for an insta pic

I’m a zombie dressed in abercrombie & fitch / staggering onto the football pitch / the ref blows hard on his little black whistle / and I end up carded, barred and gristle

I’m a ghost gone glamping, a wraith in a wrap / I’m the spirit of justice taking a nap

I’m Aurora adrift on a bougie cruise / a disney princess with a disney bruise

I’m a syncopated waiter with spoon and cup / rapping in the kitchen as the plates come up

I’m a desperate submarine captain, poor soul / octopuses pointing and laughing through the porthole

please welcome onstage for the final soliloquy / Macbeth, chuffing on a roll-up miserably:

(pause, while he smokes ad nauseum / staring out at the auditorium)

out, OUT brief candle, life’s but a walking shadow / over too quick and rigged from the get-go / you do what you can but the next thing you know / you’re stitched up by witches at the end of the show / and the only way now you get to play the Adelphi / is as the skull in the hands of an actor called Chelsea

and this is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.

Not with a bang but a selfie.

red riding hood ltd

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Once upon a time
there was a grandmother
whose primary carer
was a young girl
who also worked for the
red riding hood care agency ltd.

One day
the girl set off to see her grandma
happy as usual
skipping through the forest
with a basket
of microwave meals
a carton of long-life milk
a copy of TV Quick
and a new blister pack of meds

Suddenly a hideous wolf
disguised as a campaigning tory MP
stepped out in front of her
and asked where she was going
and who she planned on voting for
the girl politely told him
the wolf said interesting
then turned
and raced on ahead
to get to the cottage before her

When the wolf got to the cottage
he evicted the grandmother
for non-payment of energy bills
then dressed up in her clothes
and jumped in her bed
just as the girl
came in through the door

‘Whoa! Grandma!’ she said
‘What big eyes you have!’
‘All the better
for seeing how much more
we can screw you over for’ said the wolf
‘And what big teeth you have, Grandma!’
‘All the better
for gobbling up your employer’s margins!’ said the wolf.
‘And what a cold heart you have, Grandma!’
‘All the better
for talking austerity
and economic prudence
whilst at the same time
awarding lucrative contracts to all the other
wolves in the pack!’

At that moment the Grandmother
stormed back in
snatched up an axe
and dispatched the wolf
with one blow.
‘Whoa! Grandma!’ said the girl
‘You’re pretty handy with that axe!’
‘Yeah? Well – you don’t get to ninety
without learning how to swing,’
puffed the Grandmother
then wiped her brow
and said ‘but now I hear myself saying that
I guess it could do with editing’

The two of them laughed,
the girl put the axe
back in the umbrella stand,
helped her grandmother
rinse off all the blood
at the kitchen sink,
fetched her blister pack,
pressed out her psych meds,
made her a cup of tea
and a sachet
of 2 minute porridge
then left her watching
Murder, She Wrote

lola’s last great chase

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

when lola was young
no dog could catch her
except for a collie
who’d round her up
intercepting her trajectory
like one of those satellites
you read about
relentlessly closing in on a comet

but time passes
as swiftly
as that owl
we once saw
as we stood together
at the edge of New England woods
staring out
on a moonlit field

years later
and suddenly she’s gone
rushing through stars
that fall like daisies beneath her paws
lighting her way across the void

and I let her go
but I know
this time she will never be caught
will never tire
or stumble
and she will always
always
be loved

status update XXXVIII

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’m the lady of the lake / done being wet and done being fake / drying her hands before taking a break / smoking on a bench and seeing her mistake / as Arthur cometh forth and spake / Hey – didn’t you oughta be out in the drink / ready to catch my sword I think

I’m the mice in the attic / done being static / taking mouse E and acting ecstatic

I’m a muscular priest getting paid for favours / pious perks and righteous labours / a semi-automatic and a pocket of wafers / love thyself but shoot thy neighbours

I’m a deep space probe with a camera on the bonnet / monitoring an asteroid with eight billion names on it

I’m daemon DNA with a double hex / wondering who I’ll be vexxing next / marking my own front door with an X

I’m Jason and the Golden Fleece / on the run from the Greek police / for being a dick and a Ponzi schemer / boaty bloke & questy dreamer / other sundry mythdemeanours

I’m a tick at the tailors, a bug in a tux / donating to the party to get to us / making connections, moving on up / from Cheyne Walk Chelsea to the Cheltenham Cup / so singalong! : maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner / that I love the way big business has made turned the city into a theme park for the rich

my bucket list

~ jim clayton ~ 1 Comment
  1. Not to feel the chill breath
    of death
    prickling on my shoulder
    every time I joke about getting older
  2. And not to FEAR Death
    but see it in a wider, more holistic context
    everything that lives must die
    ours is not to reason why
    (but exercise and early nights
    are probably still good advice)
  3. To finally see
    life’s definitely
    not all about me
    (I mean – in the history of this planet
    goddammit
    roughly 117 billion people
    started out foetal
    which is the best way to understand
    roughly where I stand
    on the whole, bucket list phenomenon
    and why I’m not a bit more forthcomenon)
  4. I wouldn’t mind seeing the pyramids, though

Jimmy Mcquaide – flower detective in The Bunch Connection

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Detective Jimmy ‘The Florist’ McQuaide
sits in his fuschia pink chevrolet
sipping a batch roast cafe au lait
as he watches the offloading underway
at the dockside flower shop Botanica Francais

It’s a month long undercover surveillance
trailing a gang of Venezuelans
counterfeiting lilies, pansies, impatiens
spraying their leaves and plastic stamens
sacks of poppy seeds as payments

He grimaces as he suddenly observes
the bulky handles of secateurs
showing through the lines of their black suit curves
as they slap the backs of the proprietors
who’ve come out to greet les visiteurs

Suddenly he feels the press of cold steel
and a voice says ‘put your hands on the wheel’
then calls out ‘Vincent! Luis! Odile!
I’ve caught me an aphid – let’s squish him till he squeals’
then orders him out of the car to kneel

‘Easy man, easy!’ says McQuaide
taking off his groovy purple shades
getting out slowly, options weighed
as the other three perps with cutters displayed
saunter out from the shopping arcade

‘So – a new recruit to the bouquet mafia!’
snarls Odile, tying his hands with raffia
‘Is there anyone else we should know coming after ya?’
‘Just me’ says McQuaide, ‘Does that make you happier?’
‘Sure! And maybe your autographia?’

They drag him into a floral repository
piled to the roof with contraband floristry
sit him on a poppy seed depository
then the others leave Odile oddly solitary
so he can get all handily plotline expository

‘Let me tell you about our world’
smiles Odile, giving his cutters a twirl
‘how this whole magnificent bloom unfurls,
the cars, the seeds, the blooms, the girls…’
McQuaide’s moustachioed top lip curls

Suddenly he jumps with both hands free
grabs a vase of peonies
swipes Odile aggressively
who crashes back dramatically
into a zinnia display catastrophically

The whole place creaks and groans and shudders
McQuaide dives headfirst through the shutters
just as the ceiling shrieks and gutters
falling in with a storm of colours
‘Now THAT’S a flower press’ he mutters

Back at the precinct McQuaide sees the Cap’n
who wants to know what the hell just happ’n
under what authority he thought he was actin’
all the regrettable press he’s attractin’
he’s supposed to be arrestin’, not compactin’

McQuaide shakes his head quite bitterly
‘The flower bunch are no longer at liberty
but if you’re dead-heading, Cap’n, please consider me’
‘McQuaide? You handle yourself quite brilliantly
but the top brass say you’re a liability’

‘I’m sorry McQuaide,’ says desk Sarge Madge
as he hands her his bug gun, his gloves, his badge
‘You’re a maverick, man – but you sure make a splash’
McQuaide smiles, sticks a rose in her hatch
says they’ll find another gardener to work the patch

Outside he stops by a pink hydrangea
maybe this job was a real game changer
out of work but out of danger
feeling free but also stranger
maybe get work as a flower arranger