The Drunk in the Midnight Choir

The Drunk in the Midnight Choir

He used to drink like a fish; since being
led out of the furnace, he stands
along the back row, leaning
 easy
in the rocking light of the moon,

singing his raw, warbling tremelo.
When out of tune, he might adduce
Tibetan monks, or the tonal flow
of Gamelan as his inspiration—

the rows of mouths enjoy the laugh.
An up-beat starts one of the Masses
of Bach: the moving photograph
expresses an inexpressible sadness.

Encounter with a Whale

Encounter with a Whale

Approaching like a tearaway hill
come muscles, guts and bone.

Sea-spray flicks a lonely bible,
and the dog, under a table, moans.

Squid have ruined the photographs
swilling in the water’s darkroom,

and blocks of ice detach in gasps
like fainting women. Don’t assume

this is a monster roiling past,
captain; don’t assume your death

or cover the dog’s mouth. Here
is a fallen god, that in a breath-

in and a breath-out now disappears
like rain at the centre of the ocean,

returning in an apology,
that after entering our brains

slips back inside mythology.

The Origins

The Origins

 
An elephant, an albatross
and a tired mouse,
all wearing ill-fitting fezzes,
go into a public house.

The mouse slaps the elephant’s
behind inside the second saloon
door as the albatross wafts
and lands at the bar. Peanuts float on air. 

“What would you like?”
asks the barman, attempting
the concealment of a grin,
“three gin and tonics?” Comes the reply:

“Sir, we are high culture,
and each of us a marvel;
relinquish your position with
immediate effect—uncloud your eyes!”

The elephant cracks a stool,
the tired mouse snoozing
in his folded neck of skin.
“Trouble?”

No trouble says the face
of the barman, who whimpers
out of the door, with one shoe on,
and the other shoe gone.

Pavlov's Mistress

Pavlov's Mistress

Though man may hang around with dogs
stupified by faith and dominance,
his weakness keeps prevailing. Fidelity
is hard. Could Fido keep a ball upon
his nose? At first. Then gravity must hog
the spotlight. Suchlike is man and romance:
a balancing act. Then something small and fidgety
goes rustling through his pants. The telephone 

hits static interference. Eyes walk on stilts.
From rubbing thighs he hears a bell-like sound,
though nothing like the church’s tone.
Inside a house a pint of flowers wilt
and reach toward the feel of firmer ground.
Unleashed, the man jumps up and turns to bone.

Young Vistas

Young Vistas 

i.

A modded Morris Minor
holds up three silhouettes.
The three are teenagers
if they hit a tree, but hotrodders
until they do. They talk
the torque, gesticulate
about the gears, and drive off
into the unnoticed sunset.
 

ii.

Enclosed within a heritage forest,
a boundary wall, a giant’s library
and a collective hangover, 

a class of boys is warned
of the peril of mixed metaphors,
how the effects can ruin one’s rhetoric. 

Later in the dorms a line
is written for Hermes: ‘your wings are wings’.

iii.

We peel potatoes and know
that we are good boys. The peel
is nothing like the removal
of a dress. The catching of a dress
against the oven door is not at all
like the removal of a dress. 

After lunch a woman punches stodgy chords
at the upright piano and we sing about Babel.

iv. 

The whole terrace heaves
and breathes its pie-mined breath.
The home team feels the warmth. 

There are those who can see the game,
others contented not to. Atop the architecture
of his uncle’s arms, a lad lambasts the lazy striker, 

ready to change places at the kick of a ball.

The Man's Umbrella Breaks

The Man’s Umbrella Breaks

Not quite a sludge
but more of a demi-Venice hell,
the pavement wrecks the shoes

and leaves the toes blubbing.
The trees in their melodrama
weep at the tragedy

and do the best they can.
Then, as though something
elemental is taking place, an idea

surges up the umbrella’s spine:
we cannot do this anymore;
I want to be a crow.

Manor

Manor 

“It sure was pleasant to spend
 a day in the country”

The tone of a shotgun
shudders slower than the slug
plucks the bones.
 
The rapeseed shining bright
in rhapsody swims
between the intermittent homes. 

Rough hay has been huffed
all over the place;
the P.C. cracks a joke: “baleful.”

The next farm along has horse ears
itching. Once-tough scarecrows
are twitching. The beautiful country is awful.

The Great Flying Garbage Dropper Plane

A Turn of Wrongs

The storm is an upturned oasis
carrying the rain’s watery diaspora
from here to there, there to here, anywhere

in need of cleansing; this is the world’s
replenishment, its unblemishing, heard
all over, never the reveal of error.

I haven’t misread the map:
the trees have changed places,
mountains plugged up their gaps.

Let me guide us alone: the two of us clash
like opposite compass points, leaving us dashed
in the centre against a perfect cylindrical rock.

Then the mistake rises like a slow dawn.
A crescendo, an unfamiliar trope:
the first notes of a roar, the judder of antelope.

No Disaster

The moment when another logic comes and muscles
off the object of fancy: it shoulders us into a 
ditch of benevolent mud, the mud with its happy hug—

the brace position, with its promise
 of meticulous dental recognition,

is filled with this other logic; likewise, the final drop of ink on a final note
shows the working of the premise 
that x minus y equals zero.


The normal logic can’t compute that on these occasions strange things
are sensible; like less time with the family, and more with rainbow fish;
or, being so gently lulled, falling asleep on a mountain.

Chat-up Lines

“You are hotter than a syphilitic phoenix cock”,
said the young man. The words, though rehearsed,
didn’t float from his larynx as suavely as hoped,
and he glanced blankly at the book.

Feeling the world laugh at him
through the fat silver tongue of the mirror,
he looked up, once at his reflection,
and then outside. The birds’

burlesque was effortless. Even the cars
were capable of pirouettes. He needed
an accessory!—perhaps a polka dot bandana,
or, in the long run, a Van Damme torso,

or membership to the oyster and clam bar,
ah, to dive, to dive…maybe he’d learn to drive,
pick her up at eight, her with the lashes…It was strange,
as for years there’d been plenty of washing and scrubbing,

and he knew most of the deodorant slogans;
he could make a damn good slush puppy since his work
at the stadium; chewing stick after stick
of chewing gum, his minty mouth never smelt of sick.

All it needed was the right linguistic key:
“your heart, madam, at once”…too much arrogance?
A shuckful hesitation was sure to sweeten the deal,
something a tiny bit embarrassing, yes:

“My mother keeps me clean with soapy splashes!” No…
That was not the deal-breaker. He pushed the button
on the remote control and a freeze-frame
from Rebel Without a Cause appeared on the widescreen.

For the rest of the long afternoon he stared at the glow
of James Dean’s hovering ash.

The Glowworm to the Mower

after Marvell

The nightingale is quite a nuisance,
like you, the midges and the toads.
She comes as I try to patch my plans
of a family together, and unloads:

“my tale is so full of tragedy;
I was so beautiful once, my tongue
was pink as summer strawberries,
and all the men would beat their drums.

“…anyway, my favourite worms are silk;
though you look pretty juicy. Have
you met the duracell bunny? He kills
me; his stupid ears!” By then, the grave

is a bright idea and I take my torch
to the shed for a shovel; a pair of legs
appears belonging to a rake like you!—crutch,
bent double with pen, ash raining from a fag.

The Immobiles

The man in the bottom left corner
of the photo is poised like a flamingo
and rests his hand on his head. There
is a neatly-groomed beard on show.
 
Moving clockwise, the next man
salutes straight through the image
as if he knows that in the hinterland
an army is standing still for “sarge”.
 
The third is stood slightly askance,
his eyes fixated on a pair of shoes
he clutches as if from the grass
he’s plucked a rabbit magically on cue.

Magnetized, the gaze that the fourth
fixes on the floor is that of a man
who is waiting for a hole in the earth;
or for suggestion of a better plan.
 
The fifth looks for a birthday cake
as though he’s been snapped back
to his early years and nothing could make
his smile wider or his braces slack. 

The final man sits like a leader.
His finger keeps his mouth shut
and points towards the camera, where
he knows someone exists, awe-struck.

How Blunt Should I Be?

Today the river is open
as a cutlery drawer full
of sharpened knives.

There is the whisper of landing
ducks and the gentle bow
of water from the rower. 

The hanging brush-strokes
of the leaves fleck the scene
with browns and greens, 

and the wind pushes them
like some vague muse. 
Over there, a fallen leaf 

has the appearance
of a human ear,
but I do not mention it. 

Hitler Youth on Bicycles, 1937

They came over betsom’s hill like giant ants
who, having raided and divvied up a freshly
dropped loaf, scuttle away, each one
shouldering a single golden crumb.

Mum warned me of the apocalypse
and I'd thought it was here, but the ants
came nearer and grew pairs of wheels.
I knew better. And then the noise:

like a million shaking matchboxes,
the chatter from their taut necks
getting shoutier—it was like the final
of the school tiddlywinks tournament.

They passed. I carried on up the hill
looking for beetles; I found a bike,
broken spokes, and a boy. Something
about his blue eyes seemed to twinkle.

Birds in the Loft

I couldn’t tell you
the names of them
individually,

which would require
my own leap
of faith,

and I can’t talk
in broader terms
of the genus.

But
espionage like that,
and the beak

as a yellow
key!—
—now hearing

the pit-pat
and the
scuffling

of nicked
insulation,
I name that genius.

The Hurtoise

a fictional misprint in National Geographic

         Here, below,
pot-holes in the street are filled by tortoise feet
and any shadow cast is hidden by the bulbous
undercarriage of his belly. He’s never touched
a beer, poor thing. His back is slightly cracked
by the curiosity of children that took sticks
to his carapace like ham-fisted monsters
on palm Sunday. He moves slow so his eye is fast.

         A friend
is hard to acquire—the spirit is weak
since the hare was hard on him. Victory is
a small cup when you only have a shell
to share it with, and that whole escapade
was handled like a hot potato by the press.
Since then, avoiding sports days like the plague,
his social structure has fallen through like an egg.

         But old Harriet
did well for herself, he laments. She traveled
the globe on a rumour, inspired man’s love
that went to her head like the rod of god or some
sort of lightning shock, and how she led
and led the sermon well. When he went to visit
she babbled like a hell-hound on the matter
of charity; and now he carries his grief in a knap-sack.

         A lover
is practically out of the question—he is oldish,
an octogenarian and full of moaning. Because
he’s too preachy, females often leave him
for members of the hell’s turtles clan,
and he might see her zip past peripherally,
clutching leather and ghosted by exhaust fumes.
What could he do but slow down his racing heart?

         Each night a choice
is made between earth and water, and each time
he wishes for the other. The grass is always
greener than the sea-weed, or vice versa.
He cries himself to sleep, his eyes full of salt,
the salt of walking the earth or plunging
the depths. He starts to dream of the world
banqueting beneath a perfect touch of sun and splash;

         deep in sleep
he clutches at an image of clown fish
and mini-man’o’war clams, his teeth softly grinding,
his face slightly gurning inwards. And he wakes
in the middle of one—a jerk—a gnash—
a mouthful of stale air. When the night is too much,
when the insomnia is too forceful, he opens
a book on Houdini and nibbles its spine a little.

         Look at him now—
how the wind pumps through him as though
he were a pan-pipe fluted by water-skimming airs!
There are songs that only he has heard, tunes that
eighty years on might keep sounding for another hundred.
Feel his rough thumb of toil and travel; how his feet
have mapped all roads and ports in and out of here;
how, lying flat, he heaps himself upon himself.

Man Boldly Goes Evolving

In a future equidistant as from here
to the past an editor strips the trekkies
of their beloved slogan muttering
that will teach you, split infinitive. 

He sports the fidgety extra digit
his race has evolved specifically 
for the pushing of buttons and
from his anus he dispenses the brown

teardrop of a coffee bean. Swilling
the mug with his fork tongue
he curses the youth of today,
then dials his wife to put the pork on.

And he brings home the bacon. 
At this date, the light of the stars
is barely visible, and the moon
has all the ubiety of a frisbee. 

Now arrived, he parks his detachable
feet in the footway, reaching
into the third skin pocket along
for his keys and a honey I’m home.

Approaching his wife’s vagina
he boldly blesses her with his great
learning and goes diving for vowels,
pleased with himself and his day.

Meanwhile the relative relative
of Cornelius Cardew composes
his air on a bee’s wing, and from 
the notes there is barely any change.

Poster!

i.

Crusty slogans slip off cliffs
still smelling of glue but bending

to gravity’s naggings. The sag
is a two-for-one holiday of woe.

I mean to be old, they say,
the dogma of my youth has gone.

But men on ladders who know
too well that cirque du soleil is over

come along to pull them down.

ii.

This Chinese Medicinal Centre
seems to have made its posters
with some in-house contraption
and one of them

tells me that Lee used to be
very, very fat. A picture of him
confirms that. But utilising
treatment, says the next picture,

you can look like Lee’s
newly slimmer self who
is in fact, I have never been surer,
an entirely different human

kettle of fish. It’s not
even his brother, you lying
poster who deserves every
paper cut. It’s just like the time

I spent two days
constructing Tracy Island,
only to have wasted a tree
and stuck my hand in glue.

Authenticity

So this crazy lady left open the door, squire,
and as the wingered bird took off for yonder
I had the ocean’s sweat in my nostrils, ripe
as blunt melons, which she too had, thquire,
and inside me mixed a drive to lie and yet
a drive to tell small, impressive truths, an urge
for her breath as the perpendicular world
loomed like a big blue eye dusted with sleep,

and z is the least honest letter if you think
that the name you utter is never your own,
and how much gas is seeping out of those nights
in thin coils of cloud that you spend so many
hours (/pennies) trying to hide from loved ones,
but mainly from strangers you never meet again,
never in fact meet; but, regardless if they
get to flesh out your details or not, you make

sure you’re not the type that fills a lift in such
a manner of manners, only in the football crowd
or lady’s tea convention would you let that
foible go, hissingly dissipating. But everyone
would shit themselves now, in my position,
which, if you remember, is james bond sucked
dry of all talent, luck, and self-belief,
dangling above the world like god’s ugly spinach,

and I look at this lady and wonder how well
she could break my fall, on the rocks, and I
try to tell if I own these whimsy islands or a fly
is jammed on the rim of my coalish pupil,
a fly that was frozen and now lives again,
tiny-slippered creation of my Frankenstein years;
he’s tied to a (I invented the) wheel spinning
a grainy reel film of my mouth, it’s opening and

contracting, the centre of my universe,
the black hole and sun of my identity,
a forgotten classic and box office-splintering
smash! that has got stuck, and now lurches,
lumbers from that Oh frame to that mm frame,
the loudest silent movie never made or abandoned,
a chalk caption of words repeating, repeating,
repeating, repeating: “this is me; this is not me.”