scarecrow poetics/essays

Monday, June 19, 2006

 

Poems...

Blood (1).

Fresh red blood
Dries on Gravesend’s streets
With veins so full
And over-worked
This is
No surprise.

Its wounds are
Sutured
Fixed-up
Tied together
With String.


Dad.

Your fingers on my face
Rough from work
And rubbed with tobacco
Huge and protective
Offering safety.

Now my fingers
On my face
Just like yours
Rough from work
Rubbed with tobacco.


Blood (2).

There’s blood on
The toilet seat
Like pillow talk
On Parrock Street
Like Spanish voices
Or Spanish fly
Like the opium dens
In Limehouse
Underground monoliths
Standing
Decadent
In their historical achievements.


My Chest is like a Rorschach Test.

My chest is
Like
A Rorschach test

Red butterflies
Skim
The epidermis.


Sleeping in an empty bed is still like sleeping with
you.


Sleeping in an
Empty bed is like
Sleeping with you

Tugging the bed
Covers and losing
The fight to rest

More so when yr
Out away from home
Ecstasy high

For you I write
Stanzas unfounded
Beholding I

For you I lie
Bic biro black
Ink dry and fucked.


Liberare.

This is my Cuba
The balcony
My veranda
Overlooking the brown rooftops
Grey houses and
Tarmac lakes.

Playing
Screaming
Fighting
The kids are my ocean waves
Crashing against the cars
And electricity.

Our revolution
Will never come
Through words.


Post-Illumination.

You’re not alone
Right Now
There’s not a single book
I want to read
Or a single song I
I want to sing
I just want to sit
On my doorstep
Smoking cigarettes
While the pseudo-spring wind
Blows swiftly
Across my naked feet
While dogs bark
In dark back gardens
While the dead
Move in
And out
Of porches and doors
And out
Goes the light across the court.


Johnny Grace © 2006.

Johnny Grace writes poetry and short fiction. He lives in Gravesend.


 

Two fat boys...

Two fat boys

are being looked at

no, stared at

by a thin man

who then trips over

face first

into a ditch



Two Fat Boys


In Croydon

two fat boys

(Rick and Sam)

are drunk under the moon

neither have ever been fallen in love with



Two Fat Boys


Four wickets in one innings

ah, that was such a long time ago

thinks one fat boy at a desk

eating spreadable cheese sandwiches



Two Fat Boys


Two fat boys

in the back of an old Fiat Panda…

one notices a dead elephant


how could it have become dead?

ah . . . now it begins




Two Fat Boys


Two fat boys

waiting at the zebra crossing

see Nancy on the other side

dressed in the fuckest thing you ever did see




Two Fat Boys


Two fat boys

fight

over a snapped ruler


The next day

they’re best of friends again

having a lack

and having no-one else

to fill that lack




Two Fat Boys


Donald Duck




One Fat Boy


One fat boy

in the toilets of McDonald’s, Stroget

shakes the last drops of urine

from his penis

and notices

the ubiquitous pissmat

of Kerne Hansen



One Fat Boy


One fat boy

looks at his maths mark

a ten!

how gleefully he walks down the corridor


In science

a ten!

again!

mischievously Joe Slick starts the rumours




One Fat Boy


One fat boy

gets lost

in the woods

holding a stick



James Davis © 2006.



James Davies has written in Clacton, Exeter, Copenhagen and Manchester. At the moment he works teaching English - various. Also drawing, readings, mags, festivals, exhibitions, friends, women, bars, etc. He also edits Matchbox.

posted by scarecrow  # 9:07 AM
 

An ode to the author...

Is to be gay more liberating when addressing affections
I question myself of late, and late at night
Not too seriously yet with inner contention
I have loved two men in my life
And as most alphas would have experienced
I am bound to them by blood and money I owe
Yet be it a revelation within me
Or merely a mature acceptance donated by age
I for one am a heterosexual
Living in some form of metropolis
Yet not fond of the term metrosexual
I love women and one woman more than anyone
Yet I have seemingly fallen for a man
Not biblically nor sexually, as it is ...
We have never met, and never locked eyes
He is more a flesh and blood casing for his mind
It is the mind of the man that I desire to be intertwined with
He has made me laugh, cry, regret confess and think
More than any other has done in my years on our planet
I feel I want to buy him a glass of the finest wine
The most sumptuous main courses he devours
All he has spoken to me of on countless occasion
Yet we have never met, never passed on the street
Once I went to find him, but I blushed
I blushed on the plane, on the bus, and again on the subway
Such was the nature of my affliction friends
I couldn't dismount from the A train
And thus I got lost, not geographically you understand
Lost in my thoughts, locked in conflict, utterly lost ...
I longed to overcome my fear of the handshake that I had dreamed of
Yet the moment had passed, like a rat o'er shoe in manhattan
Nevertheless my affections have grown stronger and now I feel fulfilled
I have a friend who I can turn to, and I don't need to talk to him
As when he talks to me I get comfortably lost
And that is where I find my bliss.

Stephen Monaghan © 2006.

posted by scarecrow  # 8:53 AM

Thursday, June 08, 2006

 

To All Of My Dead, Drunk And Missing Uncles...

one uncle
overdosed in a cell
while locked up
for forging prescriptions:
no inquiry
just another dead catholic
in Belfast, 1962

one I remember
hid bottles of whiskey
in the fields
and we had “our little secret” -
entire days at the pub
while he drank and drank
and me, eating peanuts and drinking Coke,
as he explained the difference
between “wee white lies”
and the proper kind

yet another
was a vengeful alcoholic
who tried to kick
my grandparent’s door in
and fell out of bed
smashed his head
and bled
to death
as he slept

one went out for cigarettes
and never returned
another painted imaginary landscapes
from a cell in Long Kesh
my grandmother’s collection
of yellowing newspaper clippings
in an old biscuit tin
all that may remain of his legacy

when I was 14
I was suspended
for writing pro-communist pamphlets
and pasting them
all over my Catholic High School

the priest,
a watery eyed old alcoholic
shook with rage and said:
“Do you have any idea what the communists
“did to the priests in Spain???”
I laughed and said
“Yes.”

they told my father that I was bright
but my mind needed to be
channeled
effectively

but instead of the priesthood,
or teaching,
or the business world
or any of that horseshit
I’m glad to say
I stuck
with the family business

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  # 11:04 AM

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