tit for tat

CITADELS

Packages get brighter
The choices get wider
The citadels of thought
Becoming stronger as
Ninety populations unlearn
What they were taught

Brighter whiter longer
Harder - but what exactly
Have we bought?

THE SLOW BURN

Rock
Pins -
Primed

A cute
Firing
piece
Cocked
To halt
A Life

Ten past six
Mouth opens

A jolly
Strong tip
Repeats the
Injection of
Shells

And as steel
Spins away I
Watch
From a hollow
Plate glass

As one by one
The atoms
Forget
How to be a leg
An eyelid,
A human
Intellect

GOD SPEAKS

I have been making babies
Since the start of time
Putting two and two together
To create nine new faces -

Reuben, Marmaduke, Marlyn, John
So many to choose from like rubber
Bands twisting against my heart.

I remember the first Demi-Gods
Who were Father and Mother, they
Were under rough furs at midnight
And had began to search for their
Origins - Again! (It was so romantic -
I had a little cry)

And yes, that whole beautiful comedy
Started all over again.

THE HUNCH

I saw a girl
Extremely well made
Eyes like sapphire
Thighs constructed
Of sinewed pain

I thought she was pliant
And willing to teach
Basic wrestling techniques

How wrong I was!!
My cheesy chat up line
Delivered cooly with Bud
In hand, was not very wise
So I received a full bloodied
Punch to my guts.

Perhaps, as I recover here
In A & E, I will conclude
I was wrong in my hunch
About wrestling, it was
Really her Martial Arts
That did it for me.

CLOSING THE FILE

I show affection
By putting everything
In alphabetical order

Study those photographs
The decades we inhabited
The smiles we shared out
On ski slope and beach

Then reach over
(Click) to close the file

BOXING RAINBOWS

I box rainbows
To survive the
Onslaught of love

Come through
The punishment
The tornado
With the punch

Of affection
Of heavy tears

I was stripped
To the good weight
And bled badly, hit
The canvas hard

But I don't care -
I know I will win
A last title shot

Where all is
Splintered luck -
Shattered rain -
Myriad smiles.

OH NO I'M DEAD

My vocal chords are getting
Slack, my belly seems rather blue
- Can't hum a decent tune

A WATER RESISTANT MORAL
(GUARANTEED FOR LIFE)

As I talk
And drink
Ten men die
Perhaps hundreds
Even thousands...

The clouds scuttle
Across the sky
As I relax in
My penthouse

The moral is clear
Wear a Cartier watch
And enjoy your time

THE PROTEST

It was your last wish -
I dropped two eggs at your funeral
The yolk soaked into the ground
The orange absorbed into the mud
Then I left without a sound.

I'LL SEE YOU SOON!

Can't look you in the eye
To say goodbye so I'll try
That angelic white lie

...'see you really soon love'
Much more roomy and kind.

HELLO...IT'S A BAD LINE

I heard about the stuffed bear today
- Is it waterproof?

HELLO...IT'S ME (AGAIN)

Sorry to intrude but I once
Was taken to A & E attached
To a bear from the late
Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Is it safe.... and is it waterproof?

REPLY TO ADVERTISMENT

We are the Czech Community in Bradford
And we would like your bear Clancy.
(Petr Cech says it is reputed
to be A3 sized).
Hopefully we can have it
Before Winter sets in.

DISTANT COUSINS

Bears sit like humans
They have tempers
They love chocolate
And are curious about
Camper vans

They need to scratch
Their large behinds

Sometimes (especially if sleepy)
They just need to be alone.

A TYPOLOGY OF BEARS

Sun bears
Panda bears
Great bears
And Care bears

Bad hair bears
Grizzly bears
Gay bears and
Straight bears

Brown bears
Cinnamon bears
O.A.P bears
Spectacled bears

***

Charity bears
Himalayan Blue Bears
Bears with beards
And nervous bears with
Circus collars

Bears in a pit
Bears in bother
(Orphaned bears -
Got no Father or Mother)

But most of all
We like cuddly bears
Washable at forty degrees
To hold on to as we
Drift off to sleep.

WHY DOES BRADFORD CATHEDRAL WORK?...

Can't say exactly why,
I do not follow these rituals -
But on a lunchtime foray
This place does it for me...

It's clean
Every stone or block of wood
Is lovingly placed

I appreciate this city barrier
Crennellating an interior space
The spirit protected
By the stubborn faith of rocks

In ten minutes
I am nearer the centre
the grain of life and its flame
Respected and obeyed.

FOUR ENTWINED VOICES

1.

Do you exist?
I am certain you do not.
No source, no supernatural meaning.

I am my own pedestel and prize
I have raised this point of view

It is based on reason, my ancestors
Risk taking, and what I learned
The hard way, about pleasure and pain.

In a chance universe
The survival of man
Is down to the use of brains
And ingenious tools - regrettably it may
Also be our undoing.

2.

This text - these words
Held in our tribe - with these
Revelations - are the points
We must adhere to –
or burn

3.

Are you a fist -
Do you have nails?

Will you smite us
Or let us off lightly with
Reasonable good behaviour?

I want to analyse the tribal texts
Bring the best of my science to bear
Got to have certainty...

I know I have
Something to do with you -
Some days though I think
That my own mind imagined you
That you are my Frankenstein,

On others,
When I stop thinking so hard,
I believe you imagined me...

4.

I once read you are
The greatest servant of all
That you serve all things -
And I like that
Yet it scares me...

*

It would seem
You are the greatest whole
The greatest synthesis

To reach inside to you
We must climb down from
The all-knowing head,
To uncover the hidden well

Under the human heart -
That drum always at peace
And always at war.

AUDIO DOG FIGHT

Rat-at-at-at-at
Kaphut-kaphut
Ping...Shreeeeeee
(sound of fuel escaping)

Ten second pause

(Indescribable - long scream)
whistling sound on burning fusilage

(krakapow PHTOOOUM)
Fizzz.
Silence

The eerie crackle of burning crops

THE EXPERIMENT

Lab rat
In re-hab

No pigmentation
To keep the light
From entering my veins
I live behind steel bars
My mother is a rubber glove

I am wonderful perhaps?
In someones eyes in
Someones system

THE BUILDER

Split me
Take a section
Shine light
Through me
Absorb, divine
The secrets
Of my cells

Catalogue exactly
What I comprise of

You will not know
The beauty of what
I was meant to build

THEY ALL FADE

Lost my rhthym again
Lost my sleep.

Someone is thrashing a
Guitar on Youtube.
There are more thumbnails
Than stars - all will
Fade

THE FLAME

The gas flame
Has more life then my eyes
I have so many organs
To co-ordinate

You upstairs
Are pure love -
I sit in the dark
And try to move

Like an ocean
That shudders in orgasm
To resolve all arguments
And counter arguments.

DAWN EYES

I don't want to punish my eyes
To line them with red
And burn the sunrise.

Yet there is only one small
Platinum cog missing, so tiny
It is worth looking for.

WORDS

These words are not enough
Yet I still write them -

We all need Gods.

GOOD STEW

Dear guest
Swallow my love off
The stove with it's
Cornucopia of herbs.

Enjoy the burnt taste -
Will make you
Big and strong.

AMERICAN COOKING

I hear the two drops
Of water falling on tiles
In a ripped out kitchen

I get lost in two perfect notes
Falling through a fractured roof

Only a couple of Sheffield cast
Steel pans survived the blast
In this intense cookery.
No faces. All the utensils melted.

THIS IS NOT ETHNIC COOKING

Twenty seconds before you put
The wall into the kitchen,
Stare from your slit in the street
You add the trees to the sky;
And whisk.

HOLIDAY NO.1

Too much light
Creasing my window.
Cannons lie in the bay.
I swim and touch
Bare cold steel

Chess takes hours
Until I learn the rules.
As a family, we sit
On the veranda and
Squeese into a retired
Sea captain's painting.

CONFESSION OF A SPECKLED EGG COLLECTOR

Shinned up broken drainpipes
Fought woodpeckers & finches,
Ran from RSPB coppers, but,
When the law got tougher
Just got egg on my face

GENTLE MALE PERVERSIONS

When I was eighteen
I had a fatal attraction
To a traction engine

When I was twenty
I got cheap thrills from
A fridge's bright crack

Later when I recovered
Cling film engrossed me
(I lost half a stone)

But now I am a grown man
Football gets me going
- All those dirty studs.

CHANGE

I look to my friends
To say profound things

My talk is numerous
as the bronze in my pockets -
It spins and sometimes rolls
under the furniture.
Bugger...

ADVICE

So many souls
To ferry across, my boat
Is getting dangerously low
To the water line.

May I request the people
Waiting on The shore try and lose
Some heavy opinons before sailing.

FERRYMAN BLUES

I wish I had a love life
Someone warm and fleshy,
But even with this abscence of eyes
I see through it every time.

THE WORK PLAY RATIO

Work hard
And play soft

Work soft
And earn money
From converting your loft.

NON STARTER

La Traviata and a tuneful violin,
Is a complete non-starter
If one gets ones romantic kicks
From fried haddock, peas and chips.

NEED IT FOR MY BUS HOME...

I sing like Sinatra
Pose like Bradd Pitt
Beg like Tommy Smith
...Can you lend me two quid?

CHARLES DARWINS
WORST NIGHTMARE

Something in a grave
Of exposed body parts
stirs...

In the lab
Daffodils grow gills,
Orchids pouty lips,
Mushrooms colonies
Advance underground
Like the Viet Kong -

And you call this stitch
Up Evolution?

SIMPLE SPEECH

I say it with flowers
Because my voice is numb -
I am so relieved, as you smile
This organic pattern is dumb

HALF ASLEEP

Humble eyelids gradually
Lift and enjoy a sunlit gift
Stamens of flowers
Peak over a stripy
yellow red petal

A fragrance to hell?
Am I injured - In hospital?
Swimming in a past life?

My head drowsed in pillows
Struggles to turn over -
I breathe out, relax - see
Your face rise and fall

NEAR MISS

She turns the street corner
And the street catches her,
Plays with her layers

But the trees screen her.
I strain as she slides
Into her Ford Cabriolet
And wince as she callously inches
The handbrake, then steps on a pedal.

For nearly a minute I can't move...

MIRROR MAN

I was fooled
By her configuration of atoms
In a chance universe
She was a mirror
To my dust mirror

THE LITTLE DEATH

I dream
The moment comes -
We lose the body and
Spiral upwards to
The old hole at the
Top of the head
Where we forget
Exactly who we are

Then the alarm rings
To get up for work...

CHICKEN FACTORY

Packing in the chicken factory
The goosebumps infront of me
Remind me of her -

I pick up one of the chickens
And cast it away at a wall
(I am sacked of course)

ON THE STREETS

I see her on the streets
Her lower half neat, hair a royal mess.
The men drive slowly past her
She waves for them
like she once did for me

THE END?

In the middle of the winter
I unsuccesfully try to kill myself
Insert one last roll up -

On my tv some French
Film with subtitles tortures

There are half-finished sketches all
Over the floor; the fire is nearly out

Then I turn in the bed and
See again her terrible depression.

MY HOMEOPATHIST PREDICTS...

I have my bag
Of fashion accessories
A supply of Yorkshire tea
Special sub-tropical underwear,
Three species of face cream -

I am going below the Equator
And my homeopathist predicts,
I may never be the same again

****

TRAVEL GLUTTONY

I know all about Africa

I have a guidebook

The ink blazes with colour

Africa has very many species of carnivorous flowers

I've read all 34 pages and have learnt

The sporadic Black people wear immaculate tribal costumes

There is greater beauty there than the Wild West

I have fallen in love with the Drakensburg mountains

*

But can I plug my laptop in there?

Is there a local freezer centre?

Will somebody please inform me quick

THE WHITE TO RED HOUSE

From white-blue blocks
Of pure ice carve yourself
A house - to make it warm,
Give a stick of fire
It's own name, like Reginald
And tie it on the garden gate.

Then kick the door in -
Start killing in the rooms
Throw warm blubber
On the grate of snowflakes -
Use everything, hair, teeth
Bowels, to furnish your home

And invite your enemies in
And, as they tremble on the sofas
Make them take off their shoes
Reverentially, and drink cups of Ceylon tea.

THE GIFT

Couldn't make it
Better if I tried...

Even a simple thing
Like a blue sky, I would
Probably screw up - either mix
The wrong colour, blur the edges,
Or not tie it in
To all that is alive

Even the best artists
Whose mind ranges far,
Only try to play at God from
Within the safety of a
Kiln, sketch-pad or canvas.

INNOCENCE

When I didn't separate
The good from the bad or drain
Away my infintesimal power.
My enthusiasms reached out to
Everything, fired up by love.

A tiny dynamo without
Engine wall or dam -
A sieve without holes
An army with no enemy

A whole person for a while,
Until the cracks in my smile showed.

IN THE BEGINNING...

God strains, reveals
Throbbing veins of light

The Lord of darkness
Constricts the matter
Of life

God projects breathes out
And it is good

And the foundation
Of radioactive stars
Release their spangled stench

GLADIATORS

Ear blows it’s horn
Mouth lolls and spits

Penis charges, it’s enflamed tip
Tries to spear an exposed eyeball

The babies in the black hole rope
Each other’s necks with bloodied chord

As taste sight and sound
Impregnate the ground seeking
The ancient of days, her wise
Place where birth is known

LABYRINTH

Ear is a labyrinth
Where hammer and anvil
Proboscis of butterfly
Stirrup of horse canter
Whinny, flutter, talk.

This echoing corridor
Knows the vibration, the spin and
Rattle, the pitiful high pitched
Whine of the creature called light.

FULFILMENT

A glassy sea wave building up
Architecturally from its single
Root, then slamming through
A wee granite blow-hole
Creating exotic jagged flowers
On a stone cervix.

A new god is born.

EVE IS BORN

Her lips are
Curved bows
Fletched with
Words falling
Like raindrops
From a waterfall
Made of nerves.

ADAM IS BORN...

EVE'S SOLUTION

Much madness in a world
Made of careering elements

So just uncurl my hair, make
These feet naked - explore grass
That has never been touched
By exquisite human perfume

LOOKING

Lucifer enters in
Stage left, to a world of
Caved in meaning

His head from far above,
Built for surveillance

His eye, an orifice
Takes in larger images
Lets in light

*

Visitor from bright
Worlds, blinking tearfully
He comes down to earth

Examines water patterns,
The stew of 4 elements
The swaying Tree of Life

And those biped stewards
With fire in their heads,
Who one day, he guesses will
Breed, organise, and kill.

EDEN

An eye
An inlet
Where the water is still

Beaten path of smoke
Lungs always
Desiring air

An ear
A jetty, a promontary
Built with planks of wood

A small pond
Tickled - heart rests
In a beautiful world

Harmonious countenance
(With it's smashable teeth)
Adam is planning for Eve
A shipwreck of love

INTROSPECTION - The First Spinner

This belly button
My hidden panic button
Source of life
And death

Once threaded by God
It throbs gently,
Reminding me of home
My gory dawn

Too soon and quite
Unprepared, I am tied to
Adam's sex and his names,
Tied by affection
Wound back in.

ALL ABOUT EVE...
(find previous adam & eve poem & combine with parts of'virtual monkey bars'?)

ADAM'S FIRST DISCOVERY

The trouble with sex
Is, it comes...
To a very sticky end.

ADD ONE ABOUT 'TOP OF HEAD'?

REFLECTION

How do I hold
It all inside?

The curves
Of the great ride
Torment me until
I get off all twisted

I ride the helter-
Skelter of my beauty -
Globes in front
Below and behind

Until I land splash
In the icy fountain
Of my rustic smile

TWO CONVERSATIONS

Two shadows
Talk to each other
One sister
One brother

The room vibrates
Around the pulse
Of a woven chord

Two worlds
That lap, so close
But don't touch
Or share words

Alacazam!...
Each sense is separated

SATAN's CHAT(THE SWALLOW HOLE)

Your positive I'm negative
I get funny kicks out of
Our transformer kisses

Let me whisper in the ear:
I thought I was the hub
Of your lubed wheel
The light to your
Bottomless pit

(she eats the unripe fruit
Falls asleep)

***

...I am the hidden 'Omega' point
You dream about, you ask me
'Can it be better' 'Is it true?'
I tell you I need feeding now
With Sunlight, heat and truth.

***

My thoughts are her garden
Until in a glorious echoing universe
I grew too proud and opening my slack
Snake jaw (for a mouth is all I ever
really was) tried to swallow
the ultimate source.

BEAUTY AND THE BLACK HOLE

So easy to imitate -
Were spread like butter on toast
opening up like a rosy vessel
Our heart-beat and breath roll

I stare at our adventure
The red wormhole opens -
I want to fall
Into an infinity of stars
But just touch gravity...

TRANSITION POEM NEEDED HERE?...

LOSS OF FAITH

You like hearing your voice

You get followers
To play it from the roof tops

You send it from bell-towers
So it echoes suggesting Infinity

Believers try and touch you -

Your greatest quality is your
Invisibility.

PORN IN EDEN

Eve on her fucking machine
Built on the principal of animals;
Adam greasing his nipples

Two find use for the orifices
God hadn't really intended

Eve's curiosity blazes as Adam
(The Pervert) likes to watch
Takes it all in his stride.

CAIN

THE BLACK ART OF HUMAN ENGINEERING

THE LAST TOUCH

The last trump

One touch of lips
Was all that was needed
The secret stitch of
Hermaphrodite breath,
As twins kiss with tongues
Uniting the gods of sense

1-2-3-4-5-6-7
Each holy number
Enters the moist
Orifice of zero and
Dark holes devour lights

Their office is complete,
As creation's blackness
Is sewn up, folded
Into nothingness again

STILL LOST

No matter how many (click)
I have, no matter how I frame
And re-arrange pictures

Your still lost to me

No matter how
I recollect techniques,
How we took tea together,
And in The Observer, got six down
three across correct
(Reference:Seventies porn)
Your still lost

Took too much of your time.
You dipped below as
I spoke your name:

So today your breath
Is my breath, is my lifeline.
As I cling on to polaroids and
Sketches, on a day of vegetable crime.

SWARM

The eyes insist on
Clandestine moments

The mind can not be tamed
It's a beehive where
A thousand legs trip
Over dead wings

Only when we swarm
Out of the smoke,
Out of the dark,
Do we fly

DEVIL-ANGEL BOOTY THANG

The devil is hot
The angels are not?
I'm a hybrid of sorts...
...Lost the plot of course!

TITBRAIN

If humans thought with their genitals
We would preserve them in glass jars
And study them franticaly
Each lunch-hour

NUMBERS

The numbers have it in their hats -
Living in French apartments with
Tax advisors, an assortment of cats.

The numbers make the waves roll in
Explain the swirls in Cadbury whirls
Exquisite lies told by MP's, the cute
Curves on next door's Felicity

Yes the numbers have it - make us
Clock on, toe the line, shuffle in ques
Perhaps they're masterminds behind a
Whole host of unsolved crime;

But they are adorable too - as
Ancient Pythagoras taught, each
Ghostly crying numeral is divine.

POETS IN GLASSHOUSES

Feathered glass
Hides weakened cracks
As battle-tongues
Wear melody

Nettle-stained eyes
Slant in the glasshouse
A place of banks
And bloody blades

I touch the sunset
Beaks operate on sweet flesh.
Wise poets with artefacts
Know that language infects.

BROKEN CONNECTIONS

Were unconnected to truth,
Someone packages our food
Tidies our distant relatives
Or fills our mind
With scrambled opinions
What to believe or buy.

Yet when I eat, if it's fresh,
The flavour reminds me of
My rootsystem above,
The Heavenly tap-root, Love.

WITHOUT YOU

A nation without a country
A club without a league
A rope with no knotted ladder
A church without a creed

A winter without a snowflake
An engine without a car
A war without a bullet
A red sky without a star

A ballerina without a ballet
A forest stripped of trees
A village without employment
Means world-wide emergency?

POET'S BLOCK

My tongue knows no joy -
I'm all gob and front.
My jaw hangs off it's hinge

My writing is rusty
Trite, pedestrian

I have lost the
Blazing Sun
At the centre
Of my pupil

DAY ON THE CHEAP

Were on steps above tramps,
Lost statistics looking for pence,
Silver coins or the spectacular
Squashed meat of kebabs -

But no-one steps below the tourists,
Foreign gawpers at civic displays
Queing to pass their afternoon
A meaningless cultural Sunday?

Thank God
We can look at the expanse
Of grass and ducks
Park on benches and see
The river of faces flow by -

Sexy shoppers, well dressed
Workers, who skirt an island
Where an old dog licks his
Master's drunken face.

INDUSTRIAL THROAT

I rise to the high
Rise to the love-bloom
To say half words
Hand-crafted like
'Black Charabanc', enjoy
True moist mouth sex...
'Insouciance'

Yet it's plastics
We employ. Concrete
Sarcophagi for dry tongues
Notional morgue mud
For a dumb show

**

...So many voices inside
Below the swallow-ground.
And the rare sinkhole of
Rust bettered, a silver plant
Leaking steel arias, throwing
Revered sophist angles

Until the revolution
In the groaning throat.
Rust in the hole -
Metamorphosises in
A comic strip millenia

Which strikes the gantry-made men
Silent - those dead men who
Always croaked emotion
Who never cried in the
Mouth or eye

Who ditch their skeletal airs
For dance folk tunes in ceilidhs,
Enjoying pneumatic airs they created
Using the welds and bolts of language.

CACTUS - CAMERA - ACTION

Inside out cactus
Bleeds water -
It's root-tongue
Aches for the simple
Heat of the desert

As a poor little film star
Bakes in her silver trailor
Applying extravegant make-up
Three hundred miles from
A decent hairdresser

Every morning she has
Milk delivered and cream....
The rumour is something atomic
And inhuman was tested
Recently on the horizon

And at half past three
The reels turn tortuously above
A dirty dust filled bowl,
In which this star will shine
For under 100,000 dollars

Plying her love wearing
Silver spurs and a cape
On a white pony loaded
With death and polished barrels.

HOMO CUMULUS

Extract
The felicity from
Open white clouds

Switch off
Your engine

Forget your car
And close destination -
Be a man

FREE BEAUTY

Beauty
Twist my gizzard!

Beauty
Twist my cruel hand -

Until I don't know you
Until we don't own
Anything.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

No contract no
Mapping no co-ordinates
Just a man in a raft
In a Sea of Love
Drowning under
The brittle stars

We hope, we swim
Only to drown...

***

Needing your face
Needing to burn your smile

***

A man in a mine
Enjoying the weight
Of your hips, wrapped in earth -
Mementoes weighing heavily
On each family moment
On the night breath

***

And deeper still
Down another level -
God, that great white ghost
Reaching my heart unconditionally
Flooding my frame
With his hope his death his love,
Crying in these streams of blood.

SWEET

I'm wasting my life
Reflecting on tin-foil

I am the moon wastrel
The minstrel who
Sings the song

...Saved by hundreds
Of foil from chocolates -
It seemed important
At the time
Gold, silver the thinnest
Currency - sucking life.
I needed the rest

I lined my treasure chest
My sugar wishes
A sugar rush

My sweet -
Obsession

A NIGHT AT THE GRIMSBY BALLET

I make a perfect s-bend of my body
Gurn my toe and wrap my torso by
An unsuspecting prima ballerina

She wants me, so obvious?, yet still
Persists in willowing her wrists
As if imitating a dying bird

Suddenly theres a blare of trumpets
On walks a strumpet with two large
Buns - she opens her mouth - her throat
As pure as if she'd swallowed Covonia.

Before I know it the plot and scenery
Completely change - I'm accosted by a
Sozzled Pirate - (hang on! Gilbert
& Sullivan is not for half an hour)

I improvise and do an Irish jig
(My bulging thighs and lunchbox
Still prominent) And dump 'willow tree'
Stage left, whilst pretending I'm bereft -

As the timpani create unconvincing thunder
And I pirouette on my own, wondering
(seeing as this is utter crap)
Why do they bother to clap...