2010-06-30

Single Malt / Crimson Lips

Don’t look for consistency when

asking about his identity:

he’s a cross between himself

and a stranger he has never met.


Sure feeling like a million sterling

and then some change,

the whisky in his belly

sets him in the path

of a spectral dame.


Begging for the freedom

to just pick up and leave,

by introduction he hopes

to conquer this dimensionless beast

simply born of the syllogism

of the dancefloor rhythm

and the flash of a chandelier.


Alien to mortal existence,

her skin is a wondrous tapestry

of infinite colour and complexity,

stained indelibly by a dress

that would look the height of fashion

on any other woman.


Bored of having every whim answered,

every degenerate wish granted,

she forces he pay the theft

of living in the crowded

miser’s den of private ego.


An unimaginable force keeps

this sybarite inexplicably

anchored to observable reality.


He should have been thrown out by now

but instead stands as an impertinence

to their unstated lust, tight

in the jaw, clutching an expensive single malt.


A dilettante of the vilest crime

imaginable, she tortures him

with the peculiar imagery

of crimson lips blooming

on her stony expression.


They assess each other’s

lurid intentions, painfully

aware of the suffocating

emptiness of impatience.

2010-06-16

Untitled Starlet #4


“I wanna be a green-eyed popsmith

Loved by a twenty-first century fox,

Queue as ammunition for urban myth –

Poets never wanted to stop the clocks,”

Said the miraculously fabricated blonde,

Aligning the scan of her garter belt;

With the spartan regimen of a dedicated bard,

She melds exclusively with bonafides.


Authors’ tweeds and philistine Hollywoods

Write cochlear rhythms and reels of rhyme

For mere craftsmen, who’ve sung their songs a million times.

Panting for screen tests, frenzied by Mad Ave. hype,

Centrefolds flock the lobby – tell Godot I’ll get back to ‘im

– For a new treatment cut with a stylish Valium,

Hoping they’ve gotta pair to script a million shorts.

Tell me when his olifactory compass finds north.


“Dance like an organ grinder’s monkey,

You whiskey-soaked troubadour.

Crawl the King’s Fucking Road Darling,

Nobody wears hearts on their sleeves any more.”

For those interested in finding other poetry blogs, visit http://poetswhoblog.blogspot.com, a great resource on blogger.

Speak easy,

Sharp Noir

2010-06-08

Act Normal (They Won't Suspect a Thing)

Once I’ve torn up their graphs

And burnt all my clothes,

We’ll laugh at all those revolutionary stories

Too many times told,

We’ll run down the streets

With our guitars and beating drums,

Like blood through the artery

Of the heart-attack commandant,

Whose carotid angst won’t fail to sheep

All the bourgeois café critique.

Just act normal –

They won’t suspect a thing.


From their windowless towers,

Where dreams cataract so bitterly,

They won’t suspect a thing.



Then:

With a view to apprehend

Those at home with stamps to lend,

We’ll hit the road and fold who sticks,

Try to find wholesale highwaymen

Who choose the fruit, far from ripe,

For pipe-nightmares and rent-a-life.

Instead deal in sunshine laughs the love found

In old, school ties,

Dance the youthful mime

As the radio news cycle ticks over

Underground camaraderie

Just act normal –

They won’t suspect a thing.


From behind big mama’s door,

Where wounded hearts forever linger,

They won’t suspect a thing.



Even if the source was fictive,

Said the boy who always drank his milk,

“You always knew how to make me sing,”

When taking preliminary stance of fisticuffs.


Espress the love from your hearts,

Pour it into each other’s cups,

And you can’t have enough

Until you’ve drunk every last drop.


From the social mechaniac’s cave,

Where opera binoculars aim,

They won’t suspect a thing.



The thrill of the riot will envelop

(your soul, like a plague of locusts),

Rid you of any inhibition,

Pour away your conscience.

Soon you’ll be eaten –

Varnished claws tear at my skin.

We’re waxing dielectric, midnight disinfected,

Can’t remember who is who

And which sins to misgive. I can’t tell

This story’s end,

As my lungs fill with water

In the lake and my heart’s about to sink,

Just act normal –

They won’t suspect a thing.


From law-wrought, pistol-licked,

Leather-stud, armchair-consented liquories,

They won’t suspect a thing.

Tell Everyone

Don’t be too surprised as I
Click heels with the blessed of ‘em;
Wait ‘til we’re out of hiding –
News reels just haven’t
Confessed it for us yet.


Their Dolce and Gabbana
Public cadre, mobile messages
Tightly taped to their faces.
Can whisper to America; so opined
Yet never even queued for groceries.


Fine with me though: I could happily nap
During debacle retrospect, ‘The public
Were not in danger at any time.’
Is the mantra of avenues run
By nebulous crooks.


They may refer me to their lawyers
With apoplectic whispers,
Those botulined etiquette by-pass baiters,
Who pick their sons and
Their daughters from long glass tubes


– Cask-conditioned birth cocktails.
They enumerate these benefits,
With an accent to seduce Gorilla-men
And tempt their Santa Monica
Wives into troop formation,


While I’ll be talking all that jazz,
Order a double (extra black) to blunten edges,
Mix in melodrama spin for other-half
Apologetic passengers who’ve
Nothing else to do or say:


“I’ve all these wonderful remarks to make
Because of course I am a writer
And I can jive poetic about any skirt
That can direct traffic;
How the sum of her parts defines her.”


The cutter’s choice is too good
To cover in rags no-one will motive;
Those rakish details young
Designers bring to things.
That hyperbole?


Whose cheeks’re so perfect
You wouldn’t believe?
I joke I’ve lain her twice
But seriously: tell everyone.

A Cold Reflection

A cold reflection on a mirror pavement wet with rain,

I wink my violet eye,

My collar high against the wind.

A dried out roll-up on an empty stomach;

Any comfort, as I roam the streets.


A willing conscript to sign in rhesus positive

For some fleeting belletrism,

I chase the success envy believes me to be,

Like a marionette without strings,

Drowning in this lazy river

Of tepid ink.


A heartbeat flicker like a wasp in a jar:

An alternatina teenager

In tyrannic nothing-dresses.

I court a frankenstitched friendship,

kiss her sweet-sweat neck

She somehow avoids arrest.


The laughter of sidemen from behind their instruments

As i consult the haruspex;

I suggest the motions of a wanderer;

Any disproportion of whisky could kill me,

Waiting in half-assumed stances.


Some miracle of adhesion:

I watch the shirt buttons strain across her bust.

I prefigure my hands in frustration

My guts in a twist

As trying to turn a needle inside-out.


Pin-stripes on all sides as two colts climb

Through ten paces;

I flash a bruised smile

Flip a table smashing glasses left and right.

I raise my .38, plug one through his leg,

He falls to the floor,

another in his chest,

So he knows he’s finished.