Holy Candle Blues

In the red-sweet sunset
angel brother bends his blown glass ear
over the wall of eternity
listening in on my restless rathouse jam

She entered peeling story-caked walls
riding lightning rod brooms
swept me out to half-dippermoon bridge
we swung downtown where
waltzing heirs warmed six-figure derrieres above smorgasboard fires
I faked all the right questions into hell’s paradise

panting at the emerald city orgasm
waiting beneath her olive skin gypsy thin cocktail feast
ignoring the runaway beast

and someone beamed
they make a great couple
as we dished sweat
to god’s blistering last-chance desperate romance bugle call
my ragged sailor heart pirouetting out the hornpipe door
where muddy cliffs lick their chops and more..

On the way down
the devil in white linen gown served dark red obsession wine
before flaming flambé soft brown coconut limbs stole my grin
a fly doing backflips in the honey pot

The lava-baked sea
million miles away
a moaning rusted ship creaked like a red infection
begging to be freed from the last ripples in that skin game port

You knew all along prophet of the beautiful tracks
that my ramble played in a forest of doom
I surrendered dear Monk in the sad samba night

That wind pushed me mountains away
flushed me out of hiding in the prehistoric pubescent
road-burnt grotto
at the piano bar you played me like a thundering chord
till a midnight candle grabbed the shades
fire roaring down in flames
we crawled like god’s sweet snails to the clear-as-a-bell day

Glaring up through the dark blue smoke
where red sunset angel rained wild, untamed amazing grace ashes
down on desperate love’s last twitch
applauding the singed curtain call
live! live! he cried from his bongo perch on heaven street
hot orange coals fading in the chilled breeze
words we’ll never speak again you and I
unless fate has too much time to deal strange train cards

This harp strung midnight reverie
sad violins hijack innocent dreams
and twist the arm of violet-coated wishes

In my hidden dark room
holy candle blues…
whispers a sea wind blowing

The Torture King

When I was young,
But not that young,
I wanted to run away
With the circus
Of course
But my skill set
Lent itself only
To banging in the pegs

I could have been a geek
I guess
But I’ve never liked
The taste of snakes
And I can only get so drunk
Before I vomit up
The reservations of sobriety

I read a book
About eating glass,
Dreamed of getting on
That ferris wheel truck
I saw from my parents car window
On motorway drives
To safe holiday villages

I lay on spiked beds
For my school friends
But my sinuses
Never accepted masonry nails
And juggling anything other than my balls
Was always going to be perilous
And end in bloody sheets

So I stayed home,
Read long books
About freaks
And carnies
And wrestlers and crime,
Dark shit
Of course

But I always wished
I’d learnt to fall,
Practised up a funny walk,
Picked up tips on
Taking a custard pie to the face
Like the clown
I always longed to be.

certain rushes of blood 

she walked into the room
and immediately reminded
me of stevie nicks

i needed to pause for a second

certain rushes of blood can
bring me to my knees these
days

she had the laugh of the most
beautiful demon i have ever
seen

she saw me and said hello

i raised my glass of scotch
and she said i hear you write
some poems

oh shit, people are finally
talking about the elephant
in the room

she then wanted to know if
i wrote the poem about eating
her panties under a neon moon

i decided to take the bait and
said yes

she said she admires someone
that can use their imagination
in such a vivid way

i would love to replace the
imagined events with experience

she laughed and said buy me
a drink and see if you have the
balls to take the shot

Kevin

Kevin has a slightly inflamed liver
From drinking so much
He’s suffered from agoraphobia
And the alcohol takes away his fears
The flat where he lived
Became uninhabitable
And he was threatened
By some local gypsy
That if he didn’t get him any Valium
He’d cut his arms and legs off
Kevin knows a bit about dismembered legs
Nine years in the army
His best friend got his leg blown off
During friendly fire
While he was training up in Royston
He had to pick up his best friend’s leg
He said and take it to the doctors
But they said there was nothing they could do
Kevin has Lucy tattooed on his left hand
And doesn’t want to talk about the army much
He’d fought in the First Gulf War
But he said nothing much happened there

Ardleigh Ward,
The Lakes Mental Health Centre,
Colchester, February 2011

Failing Forward

in high school
he repeatedly told her
that he was saving
himself for marriage

and eventually
she left him alone
but after graduation
she approached him
yet again

and this time he told her
that he was focusing on
his career as a writer

they both had their dreams
and they kept dreaming and
fighting to accomplish them,
insisting and getting up
from every defeat

failing forward
as some would say

It took decades but
eventually both of their
dreams came true

they were married
and he still hadn’t struck a deal
with any publisher but
made a relatively okay
income self-publishing

he wrote for a very narrow niche
very trashy erotic fiction
and his lovely wife helped him
with inspiration and research

“C’mon,” he urged her,
“moan a bit harder,
cry some too.”

she did as she was told
as he went around her
with the camera

it was hard work but
at least the German Shepard
fucking her from behind
had fun

The Dead Know

Death goes unnoticed the day
your blood seeps out of
your virginity cup, the day
you lie, eagle-spread, younger
than spring, forgetting funerals
and peers and if your Momma
could just see your hips swinging, hair wet
and your face a shiny gloss like
the shellac on rosewood,
she would lift up,
dried bones and all,
to rip you out from under him.

But graves don’t talk
and the dead never
come back to mourn themselves.
If your Momma could have
scrawled one message with
grainy hands
would it have been
to save yourself—like
she did?

The Taylor

I once thought I was in love with a whore
she was married and fed me lies
tales of a separation and divorce
I was a slave to the cunt
a slave to that cunt
many times stuck by the phone
waiting on her call
only to be let down
defeated
demasculinized
a beefcake turned into a cupcake
without a ringing call
this time was to be different
we set up a meeting at the Taylor Motel
a lowlife
low down motel
low on the totem pole of said establishments
I had a few pre-rolls of weed ready
and picked up a twelve pack of some kind of beer
she said she’d call at ten
I got to the Taylor at nine
ready to get the fuckfeast started
I got the key
parked
and headed toward the room
just before I reached the door
an old
white
wrinkled crackhead
with glasses and no bra
asked if I needed help with the beer
I politely told her no
that I was waiting on someone
as I entered into the disheveled fuck shack
I cracked open a few cans in preparation
and waited
and waited
and waited
that fucking bitch
that fucking bitch did it again
and then I regretted not sharing my beer
with the braless
four-eyed
crackwhore

Funeral Home Art Space

To our way of thinking,
a dead body is a canvas,
and I am an artist,
replacing blank expression
with, my mood for the day,
coloring the cheeks purple
if that’s how my palette desires it,
and the lips,
the brightest shade of gold.
Some family members
are shocked at the result.
That’s no different
from every other great art movement
from Impressionism to Dada.
One of my partners is a sculptor.
He’s been known
to transpose the eyes and the mouth
if that’s what his muse demanded.
Another is more of a gourmet.
His recipes are such
that even I draw the line.

Watching the Pigeons Fuck

Monmartre
We were to meet in the square
Share a drink, two wayward poets
Words a pony ride to the stars

She a mover and shaker on the big top scene
We’d barely ordered our café’s
She hit the
‘Every stroke of bad luck I’ve ever had’

I hung in there cursing my yawns and groans
The story grew legs, tired bones, achy saddles
My eyes drifted

An ephiphany
I saw it
On a balcony across the rue
Bright as the blue day
Two pigeons fucking like
Humping train lanes, pigeon style
A mile a minute
Slipping her the big carrier..
And after awhile

I returned with a ventiloquist’s smile
Didn’t want to miss the bad news crescendo

On a deep blue sea without a raft
She continued the rattle
For minutes or years

She has so much to give the world
So much of me, she says, and then there’s me
And me too

The pigeons fornicated mightily
Beethoven’s 9th
The whole thing came to a roaring climax
Saved by the bill