In the 1970s and 80s I wrote a lot of poetry and performed this, first in London with a band called Edge of August (with Keef Green & Jon Arnold), then solo, then in Sheffield with The Commas: (with Brian Lawson, Grace Palmer and later Suzie Fields). The Commas performed at The Crucible, Sheffield and at The Leadmill, Speechless and The Edinburgh Fringe.  

The Commas, Brian Lawson & CM, live at The Crucible, Sheffield, Nineteeneughtysomething.

*********

That – soft – click

of the sitting room door handle
of my parent’s home when I revisit it
releasing like a madeleine dipped in ty phoo

That soft click

Having lain awake for ages
hearing the muffled buzz of tv laughter
I tiptoe up the stairs, reach up to the
warm brass knob

That soft click

Years later a girl called… Elisabeth?
sits in the armchair which is really my father’s,
crosses her arms over her chest
and pulls her teeshirt over her head
revealing
two new dawns

That soft click

Adam and eve and pinchme
went down to the river to bathe
took off all their clotheses
swam and laughed and played
then on the sunny bank they lay
indulging in sexcesses
in polymawful pervery
and sadomasokisses

we stripped off our denim
we stripped off our tee shirts
we stripped off our knickers
we stripped off our lies
and then God spake saying:
“From now until wonderdrug
there remains stretched
between all women and all men
between all men and all men
a taut membrane of fetherlite rubber
and who punctures it dies

the vicious little shit! but what the fuck
never mind this new filth forged from the
juice of our understains. God knows
what dark crust of odious murk
already cakes us?

Nostalgia:
bottomless feelings without conclusion,
an endless, pointless sigh

Jealousy: the stomach opens, scrotum tightens
each croaked word I speak drops from my lips and
aaaaaiiiiiii!

My son Joey crazes round the room stark naked,
wanton libertine, begging pleasure me pleasure.
Simple at three to be starkers. Boy o boy
it gets harder and harder
Satin & lashes, peaches and steam,
leather and fleshiness, creme de la cream
hitch this up, stick that out, pout thus and thrust –
voila: lust.

 

*

Buspoem

It was quite
a long-time ago.
There was a
red bus
at dawn.

Little red bullet bus

with cobweb windows
and grey shadows lurking
and wandering
from seatoseat
among the old ladies
and weeping conductors.

Sixpence
The little red bus
stopped.

At the end of the bus queue
I watched
as the doors buckled open
and the grey mistshadows
slid up
onto the bus
and
the brownshadows 2

giggled
and pounced
on a
runaway driver
who suffered
from severe engine trouble.

A couple of
ties
stepped aboard
and wandered past the shadows
to disappear
into the back
into the past.

Sixpence

And the greyshadows
rise up
and sweep
still cackling
out of the
cracked lips of the bus

Sixpence
And,
hiding a tear beneath my busticket
sweep out with them
and across the road
into
the
shadowschool

1970

”””””””””””””””’

Raft

In frost all substance equalised:
brick, flesh and earth as cold, as hard
as raw blue fingers digging in the snow,
unearthing twig and bone.

You are a brave child,
foraging the stillness of a landscape
without space beyond these lines.
Your hot head feverish,
in the onslaught of a perishing wind,
convulsed by pump of blood and footfall,
wet-eyed; at every breath steam rising.

You are gathering objects to you,
stripped now of function,
scratching the frost
from these emblems embedded,
assembling and binding them,
constructing a vessel.

I cannot know what words,
what images you choose to store –
provisions for interior siege.

You are building a raft,
a thing to cast off in.

”””””””””””””

Sound Poem

You, listener, speak;
I take the credit
/edit/ out the hums
and ha’s; “I’m just a medium
sort of person, really,
tuned to my Fmeral reality.”
With razor blade and sticky tape
reclaimed as Personality.

I listen. I record.
I analyse and then revise –
“It seems to me,” and what seems
NOW
is past rewinding passed
from reel to reel
refined rejigged reverb
…verb
…verb
…verb

May I present
A BALANCED VIEW
__________________*
*my pencil drew
this fine blue
line

While on the other hand (hand other the on while)
The Radical,
extremistly self-styled,
prepares to phone –
(delayed by seconds
…1…2…3…4…5)
– to phone in LIVE

Hello?

Hello?

“We’re talking to,”
a yard or so of tape
AND NOW A BREAK////////////////////////////////////////////
to play a jingle
spin a disc
to tell you this
is RADIO
oh, wonderful, oh
RADIO
oh, singin’
chattin’
proppin’
up the status quo
…quo
…quo
…quo

May I present:
THE QUIZ FUN CHAT
KID SOOTHE & THRILL
SHOW
THE 24 HR A DAY
WEEK IN ONE EAR
& WEEK OUT
ALL YEAR ROUND
SHOW

Hello?

Hello?

My… (talk into this please:-)
my dumbness transmitted
in stereo
multiplied nation-wide
latent voice hovering
silently seethes up the air
at a very high frequency
drifts over the city
awaiting a listener
a you to tune into me

Hello?

Hello?

You read me?

””””””””””””””’

King

huddled embryonic
in warm corner
of cold, dark world;
a soft, white solipsist
silently curled,
am playing my gigglestick,
fiddling about under cover.
slipping under the covers
of hard-edged reality,
into my underworld…
King Wanker
of a flushed, moony universe,
bosoms and buttocks
I summon up,
the old rites perform,
polymorphous, perverse
in my otherless land.

this bedship I steer
beyond possible bounds,
King Wanker
sticks pins into darkness
where the fears are full flood.
savage – I feel no rage
surrendered – I feel no shame
what harm can I do?

O, but the onrush,
the guilt juice,
the spillage –
the howl of alone!

unable to lie now
to cuddle me,
King Wanker
King Man
grit teeth
slip tight
no need to awake
unless bodily shaken

”””””””””

Him

Your long words
never cease to confound me;
your estranging nod
when we pass in the street,
your barest glance
through the thick of debate
as the ol’ dialectic plods on.

‘ah yes, but…’

A safe flirtation
through the thick of the themes
we discuss:-

a) The Role of the White,
Anglo-Saxon, Protestant,
Middle Class Male
In Contemporary Society.

b) The Sexual Politic:
A Personal View,

c) by allusion, occasionally,
tentatively,
The Nature of the Relationship
Between Me And You.

We armwrestlers
we two men
over coffee over beer over three years
of Eng. Thought & Lit.
sat discussing, squeezing out pips
from our separate experiences
pressing together.

“ah yes but…

WE CHART MAPS OF COMMON GROUND
WE PLANT SEEDS OF COMMON STRUGGLE
WE PLOT ROUTES
through the thick of the future
as the ol’ dialectic plods on
through the thick of the web of the text
to a point where the two of us fit
in the closest proximity.

“ah yes, but…”

your long words
never cease to exclude me
from the heart of the matter.
Come time we do not hesitate,
don’t loiter to natter but
turn back abruptly to Real Things:
lives with our women.

“ah yes, but…”

just once or twice I have had you
through the thick of our distances;
I saw and I ached and I gobbled you up –
your hesitant, confident eyes
your graceful, nervy gestures,
chopping up squares of air.

“ah yes, but…”

your long words
never cease
never falter nor lead me
to a place to make other shapes:
angers and sanctuaries,
silences, tangles.
oh yes but

the ol’ dialectic plods
on
and
on.
We armwrestlers
half brothers
love smugglers
we two men.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

The Politics of Glances

The Politics of Glances

a delicate matter.

Her caution, her cynical glint,

that hint of – admit it! – desire.

And how can she communicate

without manipulation

without sell-out

without strings,

assert her right to ask,

might we light perhaps tonight

each other’s fire?

Instead the looks and smiles,

the talk of other things.

So, what’s the risk?

She’s sussed up to the eyeballs,

all options open,

insured, at least in part,

against despair.

To reach out to someone,

to a man to be precise,

to reach out for something

and find it not there.

He makes all the right noises though…

Succumbing again

to men and their treachery,

confronting the oppressor with,

of all things, a kiss!

And didn’t her friends say:

The prick is a gun with babies for bullets,

it is pressed to your life,

your glances his trigger –

don’t pull it! don’t pull it!

Rocking with her sisters at the interface;

thinking that, doing this.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Song for Swinging Politicoes

Let’s go! One two three four –

INVADIN GRENADA

Bangawanga, bombawomba, –

hup – hup – hup -hup – hup

INVADIN GRENADA

Democracking, stabilicing, bestowing freeedum –

dumb -dumb – dumb – dumb

INVADIN GRENADA

north south big mouth east west we’re best

INVADIN GRENADA

we got the key you got the cruise –

how can we lose? how can we lose??

INVADIN GRENADA

INVADIN GRENADA

INVADIN GRENADA

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Dance Daddy Dance

Dance Daddy Dance

out of nowhere someone come

the tip tap tip of ten new toes

beat the big soft drum

beat beat cos Joe is come

Dance Daddy Dance

clutch to your chest his hot head hug

he grib grab grubs he longs to suck

eat eat now – Joe is come

Dance Daddy Dance

in the early hour he howling howling

rock rack rock dat soggy bum

him suds him shit him bodyheat

sweet sweet Joe – Joe is come

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Sheffield Elegy

ThisBeingTheIntolerableTelling

OfNoneOther ThanThatAbsoluteFact

OfLifeAsWeDreadIt

CominToYaLiveAnPreRecorded

DoubleSpeedQuickTimeNeedfulCraving

MindfulofAllBeatsAndSubtleties

SHOCK! thatsthenameofthegame

SHOCK! tellingitloudstyle

backforsideswards – upandown

goin on a mission on a character assassination

shut up an listen BAMBALAMBALAMBAMBAM

(eeupduck!)

eros & thanatos wrestling in the park

adam and eve and pinchme driving through the dark

I&I and she/he their ReLayShunShip marooned

on jagged anger, high and dry, high and flying

flunking out to stray red eyed the bleary city

itchy city shitty city – shut up an listen

I&I and she/he mourn the dead

wet their lips, press kisses to her silent wrist.

SHOCK!

The wrench bolts through

their limbs conducting

death to life to rage to rage;

a livid consciousness of every breathing.

in and out and in and out

this is the way through the guts of the city

as the mourners hysteric it dancing 2/4

sticky hand in sticky hand,

wobbling on the brink like baggy toddlers.

and remember the old days? the nice days

the bluepeterland of nice clean white faces

so PaTerNaliStickally polite, so simply super,

so goodytwoshoes?

and we were young and easy under the strobelight

eyes wide, legs wide, smiling,

reading the news today boyoboy,

dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemin.

We had a dream then and pots of money,

no egg on face, no rags, no bones…

FastForwardToNowThen

TheMAtterOfTimeBeing

ThingOfTheMinute

ThisGloomyBlueAgeUppermost

ReseshunHitCrumblinSheffield

slap in the face for the well brung up white kid,

pinko, affluent everso, the mealymouth.

SHOCK!

Southsider sidles northwards

gleaming newpinstyle

thinks he’s the cream man, the fuckin creme –

reet chuffin berk ‘e were

“Shutupanlisten” this woman sez,

gobsmacks the kiddiwink,

lays him on some

PoLiTickle Re-EduKayshun –

Get this – info on what’s

goin off an stuff, the what’s to do.

He blinks, gulps some and shoulders up,

roll’s up his sleevies – you bet!

And if I could only

with sharp steel scissors

clip out the good bits

assemble crisp booklets of

black print on white paper

the whole doings packaged concisely

to be flogged for a bomb

And if I could only

funds apply for for ongoing

workshops and skillsharings

brainstorms and nosepickings

by misfit truants laddoes and girlsonly

And if I could only

store 3D multimead

softwearing videoh dear

her everybreath recorded

stored in memory for

atatouch recall

And if I could only

be naked singularity

clutching her gift to my throat

silver locket of black black

antimatter black hole of

hopelessness warping the everyday

And if I could only

fight back the panic –

“You and I two also rans,

lost at sea in a baked bean can”

Today wrenched from its socket

cars back into lamposts, old lady topples in the road,

a drunk is roughed up and dumped outside the pub –

all duff. grit yer teeth and kick a policeman

(we need someone to blame)

sing: BANTHEBAMBALAMBAMBABOMB

grow wings to soar above oppression,

rage rage against the killing of the strong.

Satanic

“The exposure of a writer of twice his stature…”

“The status of a writer of no substance at all…”

“Fiction of a danger substantially greater…”

It is. Are you? Aren’t we all

Backed up against the wailing wall?

Speechless – gobsmacked –

heartfelt – unutterable,

darkly unmuttering

stunningly silent

our adjectival causes

turned suddenly

violent.

As the Sky rains down its drizzle

of wall to wall celebrity,

plugging holes in chaos

with tromploy pictures of integrity,

recipes for disaster

in undergrounds, at Locherbie,

How-To guides to scandal –

do you want to be a wannabe?

It is. Are you? Aren’t we all

Backed up against the wailing wall?

Lest we forget

the gap twixt text and chat show,

twixt scraps of newsprint headline

and the floating turd,

a three minute silence, a momentary pregnancy –

Praise be to Allah

for the power of the written word.

Edge of August, Keef Green, Jon Arnold and CM, Phun City, Hoxton, London, Nineteenseventysomething)