scarecrow poetics/essays

Monday, May 01, 2006

Anal Mermaids...

Some tip for nowness:
splendor. Yellow dog named Snort
ejaculates upon my name.
Truncated holocaust nails
tiny lips explode in germinated
fields of polished gore fabrics.
“How do you know I haven’t painted on this already,”
that’s the bird dropping off cost’s
sun-veiled toilette. Coupon bleeds

Pink symmetry of wolfhead
falling, dreamy mermaid
beefs up the green. Without
any tact we feel real music
emotion, chopped and bleeding,
flush this.

Travis Jeppesen was born. He wrote a novel. It's called Victims. It was published in America by Akashic Books, and in Russia by Eksmo. His new book is called Poems I Wrote While Watching TV. It has illustrations by Jeremiah Palecek, and will come out in March. His work has/will appear(ed) in Purple, Prague Literary Review, 3am Magazine, Another Magazine, ZOO, thefanzine.com, New York Press, Bookforum, Pretend I Am Someone Else, Thee Flat Bike, dorfdisco.de, Pavement Magazine, Shampoo Poetry, Can We Have Our Ball Back, and a bunch of other places you've probably never heard of. He edits BLATT.

His new collection of poems [Poems I Wrote While Watching TV] can be ordered HERE.

posted by scarecrow # 10:21 AM

3 Poems...

Such is...

She wants to eat
He wants to drink
They go their separate ways
He wants to save
She wants to spend
No compromise
They took a walk
He thought a lot
She was content
She looked resplendent
He looked away
They joined their friends
He wants to leave
She wants to stay
Same old story
They stare at houses
She sees a terrace
He sees a bungalow
They never made it
He has the dog
She bought a cat
They have never met.

Srangers meet...

Persuaded
Begged
Succumbed
Entered
Stroked
Slapped
Re-entered
Chastised
Aroused
Sinister
Pleased
Shifted
Ridden
Punched
Choked
Caressed
Eyeballed
Kissed
Drenched
Held
Thrown
Held
Thrown
Gripped
Denied
Ignored
Respected
Rejected
Ejected

Moral code...

Once when I was young
Although not so young
As not to know the moral code
The difference betwixt the right and the wrong
I was on a swift promenade through fields
And the undergrowth belonging to the countryside
Stalking was my mission
As I fixated on pools and runs
Natives to the river
Foreigners to mine eyes
I wanted a trout
I badly wanted to feel the pull on my line
The indication of success and glory
And a reward for my patience
And a punishment for my conceit
A clearing became clear
So I joined the overhanging branches
And the moss covered mounds
Cast aside my pensive state
And delivered my fly to the mouth of a wild brown trout
Ignored by the beast
Not for the first time
I surrendered to failure
Yet a sudden yelp
Indicative of neither man nor beast
Startled my peaceful surround and pierced my ears
I swivelled and turned 180 degrees
To both my surprise and delight
A small downs syndrome child
Was giving hot pursuit to a young gelding
He ran like an olympian
Shouted like a football fan
I laughed for three days solid.

Stephen Monaghan © 2006.

posted by scarecrow # 5:45 AM

On Your Way - Somewhere in Hackney...

You have woken up, your temperament sour
You missed the morning
On this day your outlook dour

There is a staircase to descend
That is where it starts
Your day
In the kitchen
Downstairs

You are regret (pause)

There is no more morning pleasure left
To lift your limbonic' lard
No tea
No coffee
The milk is not

You must ascend
Ascend
Ascend
For your morning glory
It is a fight for your survival
Your eyes just openned

To leave your dwelling is a dagger in your heart
You know you can not begin your day
Without that hot liquid pleasure

The white mate is paramount to the accompany the dark
The dark paramount to accompany the white mate
You often played chess but winning became boring

Anger has flushed you out
You have lost again to fury's downfall

You remember where the axe is
The current climate expands the wood
Adding fuel to your rage
The door will not open
You bite your right arm sinking your teeth into your skin
You pull away when the pain becomes unbearable
You look up then down, you take a deep breath
When you release your temper rises
You climb on the kitchen sink and disengage the window lock
You do not break it
Climbing outside onto wet green grass feelers
Licking in between, your morning feet are bare, toes

There is the axe upon the cluster
A fierce manic stride you take your self to the clump
No yank from a log, the axe left behind on it's side
You grab the axe handle
A shard of light catches your right cheek and right eye
From the sun laid on the metal

Your frustration subsides after the wood whack and cut
Your mind has cleared
Unlocking the once surrounding fences, you once put yourself into

You return through the unlocked kitchen window
Ascend the staircase
Apply some fabrics, slip on a pair of slip-ons
You are ready to go out, face the street,
Face the world in your wee borough
You are geared up to depart your asylum.

If the corner shop is closed, you know it's open. You will burn it down.
If the corner shop is closed, you know it's open. You will burn it down.
If the corner shop is closed, you know it's open. You will burn it down.

However your day grows, you are excited
You are on your way to the beginning of (pause) your day.

What will it be?

Coffee or tea?

The mixture of dark and light is always your choice.

Cathy Flower © 2006.

Australian born, Cathy Flower has been writing and performing her work for the last fifteen years, enjoying the colour and conviction of poetry from her page to the stage. In 2002 she launched her debut CD of performance poetry, entitled 'Meniscus'. CD No. 2 is in the wings alongside a hard copy volume of her poetry and visuals. Cathy loves the oral induction, taste and mind altering pleasures of coffee, chocolate and (fine) red wine.

posted by scarecrow # 1:46 AM

1970...

1

We begin here. Here we begin -
The modern age with all its novel twists.
We may have been sixties born,
But believe me, when I say it is,
The next decade that made the man -
For seven was my lucky number,
Once over thirty years ago -
At three years old, unaware of what went on,
Tied ribbons round old oak trees.

2

My granddad smoked like Harold Wilson,
Spittle at the cornermouth.
The farm was, by then, on its uppers
Both the sons got civvy jobs.
The milk round in the old Ford van,
As canvassers from all three parties,
Shuttled round the dirty streets,
Promising a new beginning;
And giving us Ted Heath.

3

Paul broke them up, wrote the note,
Placed the dagger between the ribs,
Made his own not so primal scream.
The sixties it seems were over,
The mini skirt had grown an inch,
We weren't ready for the midi -
The Sun showed us Stephanie Rahn,
Fallen from her cheesecloth top,
Sex went mainstream; we buttoned up.

4

Monika Dannemann sips champagne
With her Hendrix - earlier Shanklin
Shuddered with thousands to his squall -
It, he, they were over, promotion to
The great gig in the sky.
Is always poets dying young,
As if they know, how fragile life is.
My earliest memory, I have forgotten it,
But even now I recall the song.

5

The yellow shirts were out in force,
And in the heat of Mexico,
The pale-face Englishmen were beat,
By a greater force than heat.
Allison Krause, 19, Jeffrey Glen Miller, 20
Sandra Lee Scheuer, 20,
William Knox Schroeder, 19,
At Kent State in May,
They never saw the ball game,

6

They sang! The singers sang!
Smoked hashish at Glastonbury Tor,
Grew their hair just so long.
"Nixon in his counting house
Counting loads of money
Reneged on his promises
Cambodia was quite funny."
The modern age begins here,
Begins here, with our sins.

7

I played on the unkempt lawn.
My sister gurgled in the pram.
We had our first telephone put in.
The power strikes of winter
Sent us running for the candles.
I doubt my parents had chance
Or time to watch Ali McGraw -
Not burning at both ends,
But making candles meet.

Adrian Slatcher © 2006.

Adrian Slatcher is co-editor of a poetry and fiction magazine, Lamport Court, and has published a number of poems and short stories in various magazines over the last few years. He is based in Manchester, where he studied on the MA in Novel Writing at the University of Manchester. He was born in Walsall in 1967. A previous "e-book" of his poetry, "The Market is Second Hand Poems" was published in 2002. Copies of "2004" can be obtained for "£3.00" payable to Adrian Slatcher, from 1 Victoria Grove, Fallowfield, Manchester, M14 6BF. Or email adrian.slatcher@gmail.com for further details.

To listen to Adrian Slatcher reading please CLICK HERE.

posted by scarecrow # 1:44 AM

A Rock and a Hard Place...

one floor before we reached the top
of the Stalin-grey concrete tower-block
we found ourselves in a line
all waiting for the same guy
to sell us cut, milk-sugar heroin:

I was struck by the Englishness
of it all:
forming a queue
to buy shitty drugs

stuck behind a silent, hulking Rastafari
and in front of a sniffling Russian kid
who swore that the shit was getting weaker:
“a tenner-bag won’t even get me straight” he sighed
and I wondered if his old life
in some collapsed soviet state
could be any worse than this one

doing the deal
in a small unfurnished room
stuffed full of paranoia
and rickety, stolen handguns
before being ushered through
a metal side door

and we were out

down through a maze of concrete and
rusting steel, the saddest looking playground
in the world, a child’s abandoned shoe
lay next to a decaying roundabout
a seesaw with an empty can of Special Brew
upturned to the left

the Dagenham tower blocks
cutting into the nuclear sky
like the misshapen, yellow teeth
of the drunks on the benches
rising out of their bloody, black gums

a crow caw-caws and a car alarm
wails across the evening
like some mournful call to prayer
for cat burglars and petty thieves

on a bench
I watch
while Steve cooks up two bags
and right there in the playground
we fix with the muggy air
close around us

surrounded by the broken glass
and the shattered lives
unraveling in these government rabbit warrens
I feel completely
aware
of my place:

microscopic
invisible

adrift
in a shitty universe
which stretches, infinite,
like one billion
Dagenham council estates

I think:
Tony…
this is no way to
live

but then I think of my father
hunched over
back broken
pumped full of morphine
and ink

25 years
on the job
and they left him
with nothing
but money that wouldn’t last
and chronic pain

and outside of this playground
lives dictated by alarm clocks
and work whistles:
clocking in
clocking out
commuting to work
or to unexpected death
concealed in abandoned backpacks

people spending more time
with sour faced bosses
and dour, hateful co-workers
than those they love

weeks spent
in minimum wage servitude
instead of laughing in dark bars
and drinking away the sunlight

I look at the needle in my hand
and I realize

oh Jesus
maybe I’ve got it
right
after all

Tony O'Neill © 2006.

In a previous life Tony O’Neill played keyboards for bands and artists as diverse as Kenickie, Marc Almond and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. After moving to Los Angeles his promising career was derailed by heroin addiction, quickie marriages and crack abuse. While kicking methadone he started writing about his experiences on the periphery of the Hollywood Dream and he has been writing ever since. His autobiographical novel DIGGING THE VEIN will be published in Feb 2006 by Contemporary Press, in the US and Canada. Wrecking Ball Press plan to release a UK edition Summer 2006. He lives in New York where he works a variety of odd jobs and writes.

More details can be found at http://www.tonyoneill.net/

posted by scarecrow # 1:42 AM

For N. B...

the first mistake
in a long fucking list
was made in the pool
of the Beverly Hills Hotel
when I said
“lets get married”
and you said “yes”

the old world versus the new
and the battle for supremacy
was waged in our marital bed
during that endless summer

you introduced me to your world
like some idiot child
about to be shown the
error of his ways

your rich, perfect
West Hollywood friends
drinking cosmopolitans
and shoving tubes up their perfect
white asses
to flush the shit out
of themselves

I have to tell you:
It didn’t work

the outside world
an irrelevancy
when compared to how to get
the best teeth, the best car
perfectly bleached ass-hair,
perfectly shaved cunts,
perfectly shaped eyebrows,
thousand dollar shoes

even though your father
had pissed and snorted it away
you still carried that sense of entitlement
down the years
as if it was you who had won the Oscar
and deserved your just reward

my father drove buses for 25 years
my mother wiped the incontinent asses
of senile old women
to put food on the table

yet somehow
in the topsy-turvy world
of beautiful Hollywood
it was your mother who commanded
respect
for making her money
by spreading her cunt
for the alcoholic heir
of a B-movie actress

dissolution of marriage:
we come in with nothing
we leave with nothing
but I’ll leave you with
these words…

you don’t have to thank me
just hold them close
and I sincerely hope
they keep you warm
tonight

Tony O'Neill © 2006.

posted by scarecrow # 1:40 AM