THE JOB
A ball of mango-flesh,
I grew dark in that wood
Drawing up birth-marks
Strange designs, red tattoos.
For whole days I absorbed colour
Huge palettes, my mind forming
Its loose lava based patterns
(Sloppy thinking)
How long floating on my back?
Days or a year - Not sure.
I lost track living in my dome,
Found too many things absorbing and pure
Living in a bath of tears.
I traced everything back to its source
Smile? Yes, mostly for reasons beyond me -
Merging sights and sound
Playful vibrations
****
Then the day of the great wave overtook me
Turned me from the intricate work
Of perfecting eyelids
Clasping unclasping
...I listened to
Concerned voices, high, low,
Shouts of encouragement, groans
As the walls moved in willfully.
My face closed like a fist; I was pushed
Way beyond all that I could cope with
To a hole, a growing
Place of light,
Overwhelming a new Life
And then I was held
By something invisible - merciful.
All I could do was cry
MONKEY TROUSERS
To Vic & Bob
Im preened and admired
At the show
My lady loosens her hair
The audience stares hard below -
I commence rubbing monkey trousers
Until I feel a glow.
Ahupta! Ahupta!
Palms rub up a heat
Eating strips of herring
'Duchess’ dribbles on my feet.
I was hired to Dortley Manor
Fresh faced in ‘62. This is my
Time-honoured act to fill.
I rub afire’ -
These heavy monkey trousers
Make my inner thighs perspire.
Aged 52 her ladyship thinks she’s fertile,
Her eyes are furtive too.
After judging the best marrow
(And winning back the ‘Dortley Shield’)
She asks me to sniff her recently purchased
Indian rubber lined shoes.
BLACK DYKE
Im leader of this band
A mesh of steel closes
In - Im uplifted, I feel
The notes vibrate cylinders
Precision phases roll
Layer over layer as
Richard Marshal
Blows the high note
The music is strong
Reflects the warmth
Of this community of
Men who preserved
The metal for one and
A half cold centuries
Long after they dug it
Out of Queensbury ground
O.A.P
They lift me in to bed
In a stringy blue vest then
Lift me out again to clean me -
Night begins
When the fuckers turn up for work
There are leg ulcers on me. Its
Almost two days before my birthday.
I try not to second guess, but
I guess this is how it will end.
...I need a long rest
On a caribbean island
Or Blackpool
Instead they give me porridge,
Occassional bacon and eggs.
I can't keep this up
I don't have my identity card
My DVD's or CD's are scratched to bits
Im shuffling in pissy clothes
Down corridors lined with carpets
Originally I was looking for love
TRAVELLER
Every Monday
I light up my lightbox.
My local doctor closes the door
Im peaceful.
I fall asleep...
There is a porthole ahead
That spotlights the sea -
Reflects a man full of light
With Mother of pearl fingernails
I frequently
Turn it up to ten -
Curl up like a shell
Dream, travelling far...
the moon so scary and large
Scatters on the sea -
My brain travels like
Sinbad 'the american tourist'
And by the time
The doctor returns from lunch
Im curled like a
Slightly brown sandwich and
Theres a porthole, a paradox
Cut into one corner
Of the magic carpet hovering
Over a large Oldham carpark
LOVE'S CALORIES
only love
can save your gut
will save you
from the fizzy pop
faith just goes
For lazy options -
Deep pan pizza
Pepperoni
charity too can
Collude with large
Obese trousers
From dead white folks
only love
can save us
and our excreta,
put greens
in your mouth -
kiss the inside.
THE DE-BRIEFING
Loves in need of love today
Don’t delay, send yours in right away
- Stevie Wonder
Before I know it the journey's over.
The virtual space-suit
Which I got so attached to
Peels away, discarded.
I step out of the stimulator's velvet.
A new me.
The de-briefing begins immediately...
I've been so chary of this moment
Waking up in the middle of the night
Scared, sweating, anticipating Death,
But this is just a simple premiere...
(Perhaps the room's a bit brightly lit
Banked up - but thankfully no heat).
There's no score or tally board on show.
But even so, most things
Have been indelibly recorded -
I correct myself - everything here
It seems, has been recorded.
I settle back in velor, the homely touch.
The voice-over's emphasis
Is on learning to accept the choices made -
It's very tactfully done, like Richard and Judy on TV.
My wired up heart
Now palpates quite audibly.
We hear the great pressure
I felt in 1984, a bad year.
I revisit it - A part of my life, when
I screwed up. a silent year,
annus horribilis when i affected
The happiness of several souls.
I'm soon in tears.
Next a psychologist comes in to explain
To the packed auditorium, with a pointer,
How my thought processes
Developed from birth. He moves onto
The regular habits I acquired -
Some rare ones actually for the good - Creative.
I warm palpably to that word - The screen goes bright
When it gets anywhere near it - Orange.
But then the voice explains how I actually believed
(For a few years) that it was
The main reason why people loved me.
...I'm shocked to see that large areas
Of the screen fade to grey.
I sit there tense,
Expecting something like a verdict,
Or at best a bad school report.
After a minute, when I have
Carefully reflected on the whole film,
Both the Heavenly moments and the Hellish
(A minute which truly feels as if it lasted an eternity)
A radiant woman appears.
She's clad in chiffon, a bit like Sophia Loren
And (as her badge clearly states) she's
A recently qualified counsellor
After a quick talk with her
(Which went like a breeze,
Sorting out most of my childhood memories)
She leads me on to Central Stores -
There, a sixty year old man, in an overall,
Takes out some temporary wings
From a huge wall -
A notice attached says they are
The only transport/clothing
Permitted here. I look at myself in a mirror
I'm radiant, happy
And I've a permanent hard-on
As I leave the room an
Old man looking crazy
Passes me by,
Shouting something about his 'Master race'...
Then - more of a whisper - 'under all that muck,
You’ve a nice Royal Blue aura flecked with Green’ -
And then he falls through the red door marked 'Exit'.
Anyway, they say I can rest here for three months,
Then I'll have to be off.
All good things,
As my Dad said once
Have to end.
Soon I hope to be ready and trained up
To begin a new more dangerous mission -
This time I'm to be a peasant girl
In Northern Patagonia -
An assignment which will begin (once again)
In that centrally-heated red cave.
