Friday 31 August 2018

Luisa


Luisa

Crimson blushed across her lips,
hands thrust upon her hips,
‘How old you think?’ she quests.
’27.’  you hazard a guess.
Grinning, she pushes your arm,
 a friendly shove that may or may not
be an alarm to love.
More of a stroke, you swiftly think
knocking back another drink,
feeling her imprint against your shirt,
she winks, boss-blousy and pert.
Choking back thoughts of any sin,
all of you abandon any hope,
for she will gently stroke
and the fingers frantic Google home,
working the skin, stroking the skin,
for suddenly you are far and away alone.
At the bar, she waits and so coy,
but you feel her gaze, like a boy
who discreetly aspects his teacher
and you wish you could somehow reach her.
And when she lighthouse flashes her smile
you remember warning hymns of falling
because her eyes are calling, calling, calling.



Friday 3 August 2018

Just Like the Deal or No Deal Exit Desolation Brexit Blues, Approximately


Just Like the Deal or No Deal Exit Desolation Brexit Blues, Approximately


Now, they said she’d stab me with a teaspoon,
certainly, the next time
I asked her to make love,
committing to some kind of crime:
but I don’t have to be that way inclined.
If I’m tasting grit, then that will be just fine.
I only wanted to bend knees to please her,
so I voted just to tease her.
And the doctor swore to me
he’d measure out the viagra,
but he took the last train to the sea,
slipped tabs into deep blue Niagra.
And I’m left holding flacid wood
too fake to even grab yah.


So, the leisure pool was full of sharks,
like Saint Francis predicted at the lido.
But they swam here from the serpentine
with plastic teeth and white tuxedo.
I’m not scared, practising my front crawl;
as I’m swimming near the exit,
while flabby flunkies now slide daily
down synthetic snakes to Brexit.
I see Saint George, backstroking real low,
chewing on his mustard sandwich,
he’s sure to rise above them all,
tread water as he gets rich.
He says that if we go much further,
we’re bound to catch some souls at Dover,
twist their balls and turn them over.


Then the lawyer grinned and said,
‘as a rule, you know I’m out of here’,
he hung his apron on the speaker’s door,
alleged that his chambers only were
the bedroom for his Tuscan whore.
The lord, his lady and her whip
tried to hold us back in vain,
but we crossed the lobby, caught the ship,
bound for sunny Spain.
‘Hold it dear and let’s debate’,
said the sceptic monkey to his rooks.
‘There’s backbenchers changing Euros
for a parliament of crooks’.


Well, the teacher she was the master
of somehow imagining herself
as not being the mistress
of meeting someone else.
Her classroom now was so full of spaces
where there just used to be
different crayoned coloured faces,
and if she couldn’t hear the tears
then she would fold away the traces.
She loved empty desks whenever she could
because if they weren’t made of plastic,
then they’d be made of wood.
And the blackboard that used to hear her talk
had turned white just to hide the chalk.



Well, the priest hung on the beach.
He could feel his purple headed mountains
but those pebbles were always out of his reach.
His sermons plead for more understanding,
and laws that might be less demanding.
He loved his choir but they don’t sing his tunes,
male voices that wobble out of key,
when he’s struck deep, in his room,
and judges might realise if only they could see.
He wants to help me, interprets the gospel,
takes my picture, but I’m just too sodding dull.
He'll settle for a stick of rock when he can
and when he can’t feel like a woman,
then he’ll feel like a man.


‘And we’re all going to hell in a handcart’,
said the foodbank to the grievers,
as she handed out sweet potato tart
to the leftover queue of leavers.
‘It’s the immigrants who are to blame,
taking minimum wages, bringing Spanish rain.
They work for nothing, take your jobs,
smell of garlic, snort at your yobs’.
So we’re melting down the aeroplanes,
politicians playing musical chains
with landing gear instead of brains.
She says we’re building more runways,
and a ten volt electric fence,
but no one’s ever bloody coming,
no one with any bloody sense.