Each Dawn I Die

Each Dawn I Die

I dreamed that I was Godzilla
ravaging the city
and in my claws were you and I
and we were arguing
in Japanese.

I dreamed that I was Sherlock Holmes
and you hired me to discover
why you had put that snake
into my bed.

I dreamed I was Count Dracula
befanged and dread
but as I moved to bite you
you gave me laughing gas
and pulled my teeth.

Each morning in the hour before I wake
you kill me in my sleep.

What You'd Said

What You'd Said

Success with women
eluded you
because you were trying too hard.
It's obvious to everyone except you.

We found it funny too
(that isn't too strong a word)
that you cried when
the girl you desired
so much
got married and invited you to
join the fun.

We took bets on whether you'd
disgrace yourself
and then you did
and I won a hundred and twenty quid.

Best of all was when I was
drinking a cocktail in a seafront bar
and someone said you'd died.

I remembered what you'd said
about suicide being pure cowardice
and smiled.

That Hole

That Hole

Reports indicate
(and Christ knows I trust reports)
that the sky has a hole in it
somewhere over Greenland
and places like that.

Anyway, I'm thinking
about that
(I think about all sorts of things you know)
and I'm thinking about
trying to climb out
of the hole
and stand on top
and look down on the people
in Greenland, and say,
'Hey, Sven. Fuck you!'

Maybe.

Flowers

Flowers

You used to say that picking flowers
was like pissing
an orange moustache
onto the Mona Lisa.

Those are your exact words.

You said picking a flower
was like that moment
on Christmas night
where your dad unplugs the lights
and the room changes back
to your boring old lounge.

Anyway, even after you'd said all that
you still slept with Paul Morrison
and when I asked why
you said,
'He bought me nice things and YOU never did that',
even though he only ever bought you
a bunch of flowers
and a
gift-wrapped
threepack
of condoms.

Card Tricks

Card Tricks

I bumped into Tom Simpson yesterday with whom I spent
several unhappy years at St Patrick's School For Boys
You could say, although we never did,
we were best friends.
Anyway, we chatted about his life, his two kids, wife,
Audi TT and then when he asked about mine I said
'Actually I have to go'
He handed me a business card and said 'Let's talk again'.
I couldn't think of anything to say and although I had no reason
to excuse myself I whispered 'I'm sorry'.

I didn't have a business card so I tore the pocket off the front of
my shirt, handed it to Tom Simpson and ran away.
A little later I burned Tom's card.

You don't think he could track me down from a shirt pocket
do you?

How'd That Happen?

How'd That Happen?

The police told me you were dead
I said
How'd That Happen?

They said your corpse was spread
across five black plastic sacks
and stacked inside my shed.
I said
How'd That Happen?

The senior cop (the nice one)
Said what I had done
was pointlessly end the life
of my young and pretty wife
I said no nah no way mate
It's a mistake a fake.
He said give me a break.
He said she's dead and in your shed.
He said your bloody prints are on the walls
and on the sack and now you've got the balls
to answer back and say
How'd That Happen?

Our Car Park Cow

Our Car Park Cow

A cow escaped from the market
and ran across the town
in a lonely stampede.
I imagine it was looking for
other escaped cows
or maybe just a door marked 'Exit'.

By the time it was cornered in the car park
outside work
it was looking tired
and confused
flustered like an old aunt
at the funeral of her matching uncle.

When the police turned up, the crowd were
already whispering about a child
killed in the High Street by a runaway cow.
Our car park cow didn't deny the charge.

The bullets punched holes in the cow's face
and it lay there for forty-five minutes
before the market van arrived to take it away.

Your Soul

Your Soul

Look inside me you said
I'm open and I love you
Look inside and see my soul

I had had two large brandies
On top of the booze.
When I concentrated hard and squinted
your face melted away and I could see
two dogs chasing a rabbit across a dewy field
I could see twinkling lights
and horses
and salt-beef sandwiches.
Was that your soul, I wonder?
and if so
are you really the girl for me?

My Uncle

My Uncle

I don't know, I don't want to say
that killing six million people was acceptable
but my uncle only killed 355 of them
and they were Italians anyway.
Plus he's fucking ninety and hardly likely to do it again.
It's perfectly well and quite understandable
for people to say that war crimes
must not be forgiven

But I think when you're ninety
all bets are off,
your priorities changed from political gain
to comfortably finishing up
with minimal shame.
I suppose in my heart I can also see
that a ninety year old jailbird is a joke anyway.
My uncle is a prisoner in his own flesh.

A Happy Poem

A Happy Poem

This poem is a happy poem because
Hitler killed all those people
but it didn't happen to me
and Stalin starved twenty million
but I'm eating chocolate biscuits
and in Sierra Leone and Chad
and Somalia and Bangladesh and
North Korea, people are fighting and
starving and suffering and dying
but I'm well out of all that
and more or less untouchable as far
as politics and economics go.
Yeah, I mean I know the planet's fucked
and my kids, when I have them,
will be looking at a demographic nightmare
of over-crowding, pollution and drastically
lowered life expectancy, but by then
I'll be pushing up daisies with a fucking smile on my face.

So this is a happy poem.
I mean, why shouldn't it be?

The Last House on the Right

---

The Last House on the Right

Our Final Solution,
much better than that Nazi one,
was to play music much louder
than our neighbours.
They liked country music
and hymns
while I had Eddie Van Halen's
guitar pinned up
with a crucified Jesus
on the neck.
We played the Eastenders theme
on my brother's drum kit
every night
for forty five consecutive midnights.
My brother had been killed
in a car crash
but the neighbours moved out
and their house was destroyed.
Bulldozers. Turn it up.

Nonsense Words

There's a place I'd like to take you
where words like equivocal and absolute
are meaningless.
I'd like to take you there
that place where firemen burn in the night
and taxi drivers keep herds of cabs in line
with a vicious whip.

We'd get there and you'd look at me
suddenly still and pale and silent
and you'd say
"All this is this. All that is that.
All men are girls. All dogs are cats."
I'd say huh who when what why
and you'd look right back and start to cry.

Meanwhile these two old men in leather coats
would have carried away the world we knew
like scenery
and the new place would be home
and we'd change our names.

You would be equivocal.
I would be absolute.

Untitled

Things haunt me
things you said in takeaways
as your cab pulled away from the kerb
things i barely heard
and things you never said at all.

How sad am I and how sad are we?

You followed me in the rain
home from school
with a knife between your teeth
and all these years later
you're married to a guy called keith
and cope with a deaf-mute child.
It almost makes me smile.

Isn't life cruel but interesting?

Don't you agree
as you cry yourself blind
Never mind: one day
you may show them what you're made of
sprout wings and fly
as the thunder begins and the rain comes fast
and you'll know how to settle scores at last.

Something I Liked

Something I Liked


There's something about you
I liked
from the very beginning.

Probably you're funnier than me
and full of sharp things to say.
When you say those things
I always think
how nice it must be
to have all those people laughing.

When I try to do that
people just stop what
they were
saying
and consider what I said.
It's a joke just a joke
I tell them brightly
but by then it's
too late.

Or somebody gets offended
and I have to say
I'm sorry
secretly thinking
that you wouldn't have to.

I don't think there's anything about me
that anyone ever liked
from the very
beginning.

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