Je suis dans le cirage

Art alien
Semi stiff

Stuffed enough
On paper

Pre-dating
Arousal

Outercourse
Dopamine

My serve

All forehand

No return

Madrid (One Summer)

From my hotel on Gran Via
I’m burning
Prostitutes stand by
A zebra opposite
This building
Where they take
Their pay

We’ve gone down streets
To Sol, Mayor
And Malasana

We’ve eaten Madrid style
Veal tripe

Seen Goya’s various styles
Found café Gijon

The women and girls
In sleeveless tops
And shorts
Make me lame
On Plazo de Santo Domingo
Drinking Mahou

From a frozen glass
My mixed olives remain

Gareth Eoin Storey has been to Barcelona. This is a justifiable excuse for not posting. Boadas was how all bars should be. G S

A Problem with Silence

She refuses to have mains at St John,
And I pick cake crumbs
My fingers smudged with ash,

She refuses a sweet white
As torture snips at my heels,
Armies of plastic soldiers
Sink in the Boise

Spiders tie my laces together

It’s a blackout
An unused bomb
Her purple coat

And studded jeans
Suspended me

Wish

This one was written in a clothes shop while I waited to see if she liked anything she was trying on. G Storey.

Wish

Hanging off la tour Eiffel,
Shot at outside Grauman’s
On the Boulevard,
Brain surgery in the back
Of a convertible,
Choking on a toothpick
In Catalonia’s Roses,
Kneecapped in Victoria Park,
Raped in the toilets of the Metropolitan,
Jumping off the sandals of Mrs. Liberty,
Pissing on the leaning tower,
Stripped and beaten with a bike chain
In Manchester’s Canal,
Hair pulling in the Royal Academy
Of Arts,
Buried alive on your birthday,
Pushed into a German Gas Oven.

The foot In It

Ron snapped you in L.A
Circa 1970

Lindsay looks a lot like
you
But with less tit

They all bullied poor Ron
The hungry eye
Wearing a football helmet

His defense was
'It's my job.'

Brando knocked out
His teeth

Burton's Boys kicked
His ribs in

And Elizabeth you smiled
Like a sharp blade
and almost popped

Out.

School

On the playground we knew
Teachers
Watched us from classroom windows

And we knew
Nothing
About language
Or sport rules.

We spent money on paper
Bags of jellies
Our unblemished faces
Had no clue about
masturbating into teacups,
La Vielle Prune
Or pickpockets.

Dinner at Spago

Oh Buk
God gave you a pair

Remember Spago?

It was Montfort’s wife’s bash
You came in sweating
And called
Schwarzenegger
A little shit

Mr. Universe
Was a soft turd
From your view

Who else could you see?

T S Eliot Called His Cat Noilly Prat

You ordered me a G and T
After my blurted compliment

The chancer took over
And followed ya to
The stalls and floor

You lost your friends
And coat
That I found under mine
On a bench

We saw them
As we left
Huddled by a shelter

And there was no bus
To Brixton but they left
To go east and we stayed
By the timetable

And let the clouds pass over
The wet moon.

Typecast

Perfect, hold it, now look
At me.
Can you do sad?
Your mother’s got bowel cancer.
Your girlfriend miscarried.
Your dad’s been convicted
For child sex crime.
Perfect, hold it.

Now look at me.
Let’s see the smile.
More teeth,
More gum,
Perfect, hold it.
Think of breakfast in St Maxime.
Driving a BMW convertible
From Rome to Sicily.
Sinatra singing at your wedding.
Perfect, hold it, hold it.

Can you do pensive?
Let me see intellectual digestion.
Perfect.
You’ve just read Finnegan’s Wake.
You’ve just slept at Picasso’s.
You wrote a new poem.
Now look at me.

Warm Ups

Men turn into wandering monsters
And women don’t turn
They’ve got it sussed
And poor us with our foul fucking language
And interest in sports tables

We’re like handbags
Or dolls
Ephemeral souvenirs
Useless for a bitch with large
Earrings and ankle boots

There’s a world full of us
Forgotten after
A few warm up fucks

Eden

In the garden Adam had it good:
Eve’s party pillows, the starfish
And her virgin cunt.

No rubbers or down payments
No phone calls or Hollywood bullshit.

But this serpent beast
With little eyes
Came out of Satan’s unwashed
Foreskin and offered Eve
A big red apple

‘Is it any good?’
She asked.

And like most creatures
Of earth
She didn’t wait for the reply.