UKRAP-rap

Following on from UKIP-mockery Chaucer-style, here's something a bit more 21st century performed for the first time at Punkmas in the Global Cafe, RISC, Reading just before Christmas, and it's recorded too for your listening pleasure...

UKRAP

UKIP, U’re KRAP, you stink like kippers,
packed in a minibus like dead day-trippers
scared of Bulgaria, the Eurozone, Romania,
purple-blazered xenophobes with Anglo-monomania,
the last idiots dancing to Enoch Powell’s tune,
scratched out on violins in a zombie ballroom,
no rivers of blood, just the trickles of piss
that run down your leg when two races kiss.

Nigel Farage, top of all the bottom-feeders,
leading an asylum-break of Daily Mail believers
and Godfrey Bloom their hate-filled preacher,
swivel-eyed loon like the house-elf Kreacher,
he says all women are sluts and all foreigners are criminal
in his tiny-minded world where intelligence is minimal,
the English Channel’s the National Moat
and anyone brown’s off the last banana-boat.

Racists, misogynists, homophobes and bigots,
you wanna get in government you’re gonna have to rig it,
obsessed with Diana and Bongo-Bongo Land,
you worship Churchill like the Pope with a tissue in your hand,
you say you’re common-sensical not wingnuts full of bile
but I’ve trod in piles of dogshit with more cunning and more guile,
so fuck off with your leaflets and your stupid rosettes
and shuffle off to Dignitas, one-way ticket to the vet.

Listened to with rapped attention

I don't rap, or at least I didn't, but I'm open to trying new things and decided to attempt some light-hearted piratical pre-Yule jollity at an open mic night a few days ago. It seemed to go down well, and a few people asked to read it, so here it is complete with nods to the Beastie Boys, Eminem and Cap'n Jack Sparrow - and you can hear a recording here.

The Hip Hop Company of Privateers

We are the Hip Hop Company of Privateers,
rapscallions with hats and fuse-match beards
rhyming and stealing Spanish galleons,
sailing ‘em away through white-foam stallions,
faster ‘cross the Channel than David Walliams,
we kiss the gunner’s daughters but we never marry ‘em.

Flintlock, stock, and one smoking barrel,
we’ll keel-haul Robin Thicke and Pharrell
press-ganged in Southampton, on the run from Stonehenge,
a crew of dub-loons on the Queen Anne’s Revenge
flying the Jolly Roger McGough,
we welcome all the ladies with our tricorns doffed.

Now you’ve heard of women pirates disguised as guys,
down in the hammock-room a big surprise,
but on this ship our opps are equal,
X-chromosomes run thicker than treacle,
when we make port, when we drop anchor,
your sons will quiver like lily-livered… one, two, three, four…

Scowl and cross-words, monochromatic,
swinging on ropes we’re acrobatic,
we climb your rigging, you jump in the water,
all brown in the trousers like Luke Plank-walker,
the Navy chased us from Trinidad to Thailand,
but we’d buried all our treasure on a desert island.

Yo-ho-home is the place where the rum-cask is,
'a gottle o’ grog’ said the drunken ventriloquist,
Cadizzy rascals in the Bay of Biscay,
smoking sixty Silk Cutlass a day,
some fat, some slim, but all are shady,
give an undead monkey to the voodoo lady.

Never marooned or short of gold,
our timbers are shivered, our course is bold,
we’ve got a magic map, so pay attention,
a cross marks the spot where we hid our pensions –
three paces north and fifty west
but you’ve got to join us to hear the rest.

[Repeat] We are the…

Rooms from my oeuvre

Something I wrote based on one of my mixed media pieces.

Hotel

Taking the penthouse, a three-room suite,
homage to that pickled shark,
once YBA enfant influent,
now can’t-paint-for-shit shock-conceptuality,
all dead butterflies and money.

Over in one wing,
crumpled biro sketch for a green man
wrought in silver fretwork,
now etched and hammered, chained
and put up for sale.

Brushed to one side,
an empty blister-pack of brain-pills,
each 20 milligrams
a bitter bite of sweet chemistry,
I'm such a neuromantic.

Tiger balm and beaded lizard
whisper nothings through wood-thin walls,
varnished with intent –
grinning, a brass-balled imp
sits sly on his stack of timber.

Paper-cut bamboo forest,
trees hold onto chainsaw blades,
while triplet queens lie supine
under a celestial arch,
contemplating their paradox.

Faded letters speak of old contests
and hints of science,
print-block songbird
calls the ink down from her serinette.

Fragments of ammonites,
pebbles once shiny and gleaming-wet,
but still interesting in the dry,
unlike childhood holiday gleanings.

Bar-room in miniature
touts ‘beer’ above its rug of ribbons –
next door, ransom-note wallpaper
proclaims the anguish and ego
of the artist.

Of course,
there is a lacuna,
always one empty
among a hundred others,
ghosts of occupants unknown.

This hotel will stay my own.

Marvelling at the mundane

Today, a brief verse about something not normally deemed poem-worthy - gravel and railway sidings...


Of heaps and hoppers

Ballast-mountains aggregate
behind hazy gravel hills,
purpling their way towards the tracks –
unsettled dust
hungry for the hi-vis shovel,
to be held wagon-safe and shunted
chute-slid to cluster under creosoted oak
and snaking steel
with its clatter-rumble
a friendly helm of sound.

More Wallace but no Gromit

After my recent modernist-style musing inspired by Wallace Stevens, here's one more - maybe the last - certainly for a while...

13 ways of looking at a black biro

I

Taken for a walk,
you leave behind
a trail of art.

II

From behind the builder’s ear
or plucked out of a boffin’s
lab-coat pocket,
moving swiftly across the paper
with a fetish for dotted lines, you
release much-needed funds,
(mis)inform census-takers,
agree contracts,
waive this-and-that responsibility
and grease the wheels of officialdom.

III

The loss of your cap-point
protects those who swallow you;
that tiny hole
in the side of your barrel
means ninjas can no longer
use you as a breathing-tube
when hiding in ponds.

IV

Target of a billion petty office thefts,
found
or received as promotional giveaways,
though no-one ever buys you,
you are legion.

V

As many of you are made by a company
known for razors,
you impart the ability
to write sharp words –
is this why you are
mightier than the Wilkinson Sword?

VI

Though a thumb’s merest oily smear
may halt your progress,
like straw,
enough of you can
break even the strongest of backs.

VII

Along with marbles,
photos of the Dalai Lama,
and indeed pencils,
you are valuable currency
when wandering off the beaten track.

VIII

Architect of half this poem,
give or take,
your scratchings lie mingled
with those of blue kin.

IX

By drawing on a little moustache
and side-slicked fringe,
you can make anyone into Hitler,
and like him,
you only have one ball.

X

Your blood
is thicker than water,
thinner than
the pitch it may depict.

XI

Resetting digital timepieces and other electronic gadgetry,
manually winding obsolete music cassettes,
being used for an emergency tracheotomy (apocryphal?),
an entomologist’s probe for winkling out beetles,
one of two pins for hair-in-a-bun,
makeshift clay-modelling or bathroom sealant tool,
somewhere to store rubber bands,
a simple conjuror’s prop appearing to wobble.

XII

Vous êtes un stylo,
from ‘stylus’ –
you’ve come a long way
since wax tablets and cuneiform,
un imprimante de mots manuscrits

XIII

Write/scribe/scriven/scrawl,
rewrite/overwrite/edit/redact,
revise/annotate/complete/create,
draw/doodle/sketch/scribble,
compose/solve/compile/draft,
sign/autograph/name/label,
thank/invite/impress/entice,
poison/libel/codify/fade.

Hanging about in coffee shops

I have neither black beret or goatee, nor a dingy garret in the Rive Gauche, but I have been known to slack off in the Art House...

Two hours in an art café

Meet a friend to campaign
for the release of
friends in Russian jails,
plotting over a pot of builder’s tea
(with cow not soy),
a coffee
(organic, natch – once again with cow)
and a ‘voluptuous vegan’,
most suggestive of menu items,

admire a white-on-blue
painting of a koi carp
like inverted porcelain,
before a quick-and-foamy beer
lubricates some more pen-and-ink work
and a chat about housing
and mental health,

high-five today’s successes,
grumble about cheap tat
polluting craft fairs,
hope to sell more jewellery,
feel good about getting a picture framed
and wonder how high to price it –

the bus comes to take me away.

Joining in with 50th anniversary fervour

No, not a royal jubilee, but something more important by far - of course, it's Dr Who... here's my attempt at a poetical friend's challenge to write a Dr Who triolet (rhyme scheme ABaAabAB in case you're not familiar with the form). Enjoy! (and yes, I do own a Dalek head...)

Clara Oswald, the Impossible Girl,
Oswin the Dalek makes souffles in space,
echo in time, tumbling pearl,
Clara Oswald the Impossible Girl,
heart of the TARDIS, temporal whirl,
War Doctor’s saviour so full of grace,
Clara Oswald the impossible girl,
Oswin the Dalek makes souffles in space.

Frackanory

Whatever the reality of local concerns about earth tremors and disruption due to drilling operations/vehicles, fracking leads to more fossil fuel use and hence carbon emissions when we should be shifting to renewables, not to mention the associated water pollution. Meanwhile the 'Government' says it's safe, tries to circumvent individuals' land rights, and lies about its potential to lower fuel bills. Do they have shares in fracking companies I wonder? It's all one big Frackanory (poem now here in slightly amended form).

Biotic and Modernist

A few months ago, I went to a workshop on Modernist poetry, during which we looked at Wallace Stevens' '13 ways of looking at a blackbird'. It was new to me at the time, but I was immediately grabbed by it - the range of metaphors, the use of imagery and so on. Expanding beyond blackbirds to include other plants and animals, here's a semi-autobiographical response...

13 of life’s moments shared with Wallace Stevens

I

During a squall,
jackdaws shelter
on the leeside of policemen.

II

Nothing is certain,
just as seaweeds are not plants.

III

We sit silently,
us good mates –
the landlord doesn’t mind lodgers having guests,
but what is there to say
when he’s watching TV
and idly cupping
his mastiff’s testicles?

IV

I am an old Jack Russell,
my balls drag in the snow.

V

There won’t be bluebirds over
the White Cliffs of Dover,
not because I don’t dream of peace,
but because the bluebird is not
native to Europe.

VI

Disappointed to find out that
the mummified foetus
of a Tasmanian Devil
has already been sold,
I have to ask myself ‘why?’

VII

Norbert Dentressangle,
Nippon Yusen Kaisha
and Dong Fang,
Triton and Mol the crocodile
bring what from where?

VIII

Pale grey ballast
recently laid and rolled
is soon obscured again
by shoots
of grass and Buddleia.

IX

Flossy the dental nurse
is a nine-grand rhino,
fibreglass,
green and white
with apple-a-day shoes.

X

One big man
admits on stage
how his life was saved.
The saviour,
on duty and
not knowing this until now,
sheds a tear –
gentle gorillas in our midst.

XI

The joy of
discovering a new
sexually-transmitted disease
of ladybirds.

XII

Crows gather,
fly down
and coalesce –
now a back-bent
black-shawled hag.

XIII

We are all stardust,
only some are golden.

WORdS, InNaRdS

A pair of medical/biological offerings in elementalist form i.e. made solely from the symbols of elements from the periodic table (because I do like tinkering with forms and constraints)


VErBaNAtOMoUS

AmYGdAlAs, PINeAl,
CePHAlISAtION OF
PrIMoRdIAl AmPHIBiC BRaIn,
OPTiCAl ORbS OF VISiON –
ReTiNa, SClErOTiC LaYEr,
BrOWS, LaSHeS,
NeAr NoSe, LiPS, CHIn,
SHoW UP As FAcEs.

In ThORaCIC SPaCeS,
ICKY OFFAl –
LiVEr (No ONiONS),
PaNCReAs GeNeRaTeS InSULiN,
ReNAl, HePaTiC, ILiAc,
SLiPPErY InTeSTiNeS,
BrONCHI, OEsOPHAgUS,
OVArIEs, TeSTeS (KNaCKErS).
FrAmEs OF OsSUArY SUCH As
TiBiO-FIBULaS = SHINbONeS,
CAlVEs UNdEr KNeEs,
VErTeBrAl STaCK,
CErVICAl, COCCYXeS, BAcKAcHe,
SCaPuLa, CLaVIClEs (PaIr),
CArPAlS, InSTePS, ArCHeS
CArTiLaGe, TeNdONS,
CIrCuLaTiON, NErVEs,
SKIn CoVErS GeNeTiC FOUNdAtIONS.

SiCKNESS

AcNe, NErVOUS TiCs,
FLu, BaRd’S AgUEs,
HErPEs SCaBS, SYPHILiTiC SOReS (YUCK),
BrONCHITiS, Tb,
PNEuMoCoNiOsIS
LuPuS (RaRe BeYONd ‘HoUSe’),
HIV, OThEr VIrUSEs,
CaNCEr (CHeMo, PRaYErS),
GeNeTiCs CaN Be UNKINd,
SErIOUS CoNdITiONS,
HoSPITaLiSAtION,
BiOPSiEs, SURgErY,
ReCoVErY?

Noir four

Following on from here, the fourth (final?) part of this noir story-in-verse, each from a different participant's perspective...

Colour me Noir IV: The Suitcase

The click of my catch
is the revolver’s hammer,
thumb-cocked to snuff some poor dope.

The thud as I’m dropped
is the blackjack’s kiss on a sap’s skull –
hug that sidewalk, John Doe.

The first line of light
as my lid opens is the crack
of a KO’d boxer’s swollen eye.

Whoever I see,
witness, killer or corpse,
they’re all my victims in the end –
I am a mirror not of glass.

Nod to 'Two Moons for Mongs'

Last night at The Art House, I saw Ross Sutherland perform a splendid set which included one of my favourites of his, Two Moons for Mongs which was (a) wonderful and (b) made me glad I didn't pick a univocalist poem during the open mic section (I was going to but then I wondered, 'what if...?' and did something else instead). Anyhow, I wrote this a few months ago as a response to Two Moons..., also as a univocalist piece in the key of O (the only vowel used). Now seems the right time to let it be read. Some day I may perform it...

Hollowtown

Long rows of blocks soon show
Tomorrow’s World looks old now,
bros roll pot, stroll,
stow stocks of loft-grown blow,
bohos on ‘shrooms,
top dogs snort snow,
‘hood-brood yobs cook hot spoons –
brown smog, not gold,
(soon off box)
two OD, go cold-doggo,
poor dodos,
boohoo moods bloom.

SOCO door-knock,
sort rooms of dross,
non-PC PCs stop wogs, coons,
low-down cops
nod ‘Dobro’ to Moscow mob-lords,
boot-shod boors who
boss pros to go down for no dosh –
now cops got pox, STDs, cock-rot,
hos ROFL,
tho’ crows not storks
for Coco, Lolo –
most snot-snook sprogs who’d yowl
torn from womb so not born –
poco tombs.

Poolroom folk go ‘tock, tock, tock,
pot browns
B-boys drop mojo,
Shlomo b-box vox, b’boom-boom,
cool Moloko,
Floyd’s LSD woo,
not rock’n’roll, Toto or Bono (knob),
or too-smooth bollocks-R’n’B pop-songs
not known
to old crooks who got form,
lots of Lotto sorrow,
sob,
lost so rob loot,
worst combo.

Yoofs mooch,
gob-lob ‘sod off, mofo’
(no bon-môts)
to oppos –
post-work droogs,
cogs of dotcom toffs who pop corks
to corps-logos (wrong gods)
storm to BOGOFs on alcohol
from lo-cost shops –
hobos go loco on grog,
posh sots down rococo plonk,
borrow vs stock
for Goodwood loss (vow to stop),
blotto clowns throw rocks
to crock front of motor showrooms,
hot-foot off,
soon toros lock horns,
bozo-kwon-do, chop-sock, boff!
tosspots' bloodsport,
tomoz, novo-pro-codo-mol.

Dorks (oft Frodo-short)
shoot X-Box Doom
or solo to porn –
Cor! Norks!
Swots post tosh on blogs,
sort Roblox,
words blossom on rooftops – pshht –
‘Robbo 4 Koo’
‘Morons rool OK’
‘Wot no shoggoths?’
Fox scoffs lost food,
popcorn,
pork blobs con pollo – nom nom nom,
dogs growl, woof, drool – shoo,
owls hoot, wolf howls, cows moo
on CBBC ‘cos town holds
no woods or moors.

Tom, Jock – two homos who got horn
smooch, snog, blow x x x,
Jock drops L-bomb shock,
slo-mo romcom.
Fools follow bonobo-bottoms,
ro-ro molls,
hook-worm dolls
from Mondo Go-go
O2 photo-ops,
OMG Botox botch-jobs,
schlock-horrorshow.

CCTV looks down on Hollowtown,
moon too
glows SOS,
dot dot dot.

Ross Sutherland performing Two Moons for Mongs