A mirror face. The helium heart
floating on light. We wear the smile
of when a puzzle piece clicks into place.
The picture is complete, the world coherent.
The world mutates, as if water or fire
have dissolved the earthly elements.
Nothing matters then. For love is a glue
that binds all things into a kind of sweet
perfection – the only one we know.
Why is a person of wisdom and taste
hanging out in this sleazy bar
this cess-pit of ignorance?
Let me tell you why.
I have zero tolerance for beastliness
I am here to lampoon.
your low-wattage intelligence
I am your keyboard enemy.
I may seem mild in manner
but my power is mighty. See how
I can raise the temperature of the room
with a slightly raised eyebrow.
Good manners are not in fashion
but I have superior compassion
and the trusted weapon of irony.
I Twitter regularly on Bluesky.
People like you are ruining this nation
Well the snowflakes are coming, my friend
We aim to bury your kind
in an avalanche of mild indignation.
We will settle on your roof, break through
and smother you with our disapproval
How does that make you feel?
Be afraid. I am a ninja in oatmeal.
I could go out, but downstairs scares me
It’s a frozen tundra with gun towers
And barbed wire – the gulag archipelago
I know it’s a gross failure of desire
To see what’s outside. I simply don’t want to
The bars are imaginary by what can you?
You see, I have lost all volition
I’ve made my house into a prison!
It’s been like this for years and years
In fact, ever since I retired
Visits from the family on Sunday
Tea, cake, awkward conversation
I might get myself a new tattoo
Bird, jail, choky, the clink, jail
At least I can get email
I’ve made my house into a prison!
The geraniums on the window-sill
Are struggling to be free
They don’t know its winter
They have no seasons, you see
They are pushing out flowers
Like tiny red fists. Bless them
I admire them. That’s ambition
I’ve made my house into a prison!
Hope is what keeps me going
Home-made hooch, colour TV
Sunlight glints on the horizon
I imagine walks to the museum
Flowers. My favourite tree
I know it’s the human condition
I’ve read Sartre’s existential exposition
I’ve made my house into a prison!
Like a blushing timebomb it parachutes
when its time is up. It is dying already.
Its brittle skin and ice hardened arteries
map a spiral of luminous decay.
This show of futile gallows defiance
should be a warning to all of us
and yet we praise the dissolute beauty
the sang-froid of its gaudy silk waistcoat.
This hostage to gravity has lost its grip.
After the fall, its final ignominy
is to end up as sullen pavement slush
an inconvenience, a broken hip
for JJ
In the shadows before caffeine and light
Strange creatures assemble in black coats
On the wrong side of the city, at night
Bending the darkness with their sweet notes
They astonish with their lines and chords
They lend us poetry without words
They are the rule-breakers, almost foolhardy
See them skip recklessly across the wire
Throw shapes with their shadow puppetry
Or pass their bare skin through the fire
We admire the illusion. Is it trickery?
Fortune favours those who are brave
They know, with mathematical certainty
When to push, when to hold back with their art
Their artistry has no boundaries
We’re not like them. We could not scale the height
Of these sky dancers. See them gamble with eternity
In deep cellars, where candles are burned
They are the poets of the cold,
thin air
They fill the darkness with
their luminous sound
They need no net. They know that
one is there.
Tomorrow sharp showers will break like pencils
A popstar will die. The rivers will flow.
Light will break. Two friends will argue.
Trees will burn – they are plotting against us.
The weather map will turn pink.
A shamed film star will be cleared.
Rivers will ask us questions.
A lying person will be truthful.
The flames reared up. We cut down trees with chainsaws.
The mountain exploded. The soil blew away.
We sealed the borders. The airports were closed.
A country starved. Some deaths will not be mourned.
