Monthly Archives: April 2023

London (A poem cut from my show ‘Bouncer’)

This poem was a part of my new show, Bouncer, but was removed just because of the way it fitted in. I still think it’s quite good. I hope you like it!

London

Hark, doth London linger.
In lingering humdrum exhaust fume longer
Doth it linger
With that sweat tang white van traffic jam
Lingering in the humdrum London.
River bridges glower tower block
Chock a block gridlock London.
Overcast mellow weather does it settle
Yellow smog hacking hacking Hackney cab London.
London fun with traffic tang
On the tongue
Coming undone I might succumb
Lingering loitering London.
Sunday parks car parks Cutty Sarks
Torn apart grabbed my heart
Seedy humping in London fun parts.
London looming in surly amid the
Hurly burly London fog so swirly
You never get there early
In London.

Sweaty set sweat stains
Train seat sweat stains and the
Sweaty armpits tube hanging
Sweat stains hanging from that
Tube strap sweat stains
Tube strap pulsing veins
Very much like the tube map.
Mind the gap.
Sweat stains armpit blotch like 
Map of Greater London.

Drunken wine bum
Drunk on London
London low life lowdown lurking.
London terminus ominous terminus
Probably verminous
Not cleaned since Copernicus.
Charge by the hour
Ever so sour looming tower
And I hover likewise
I have the power
Eardrum thrum in London.

City city pretty scape
Skyscraper cityscape 
Mass escape city pretty
Sitting pretty cityscape.
London undone fun run London
London squares and bars and fairs and cars and bears
Kick that burn that kicking in
Floating high on fog bank London.

I hover tentative grey sky
Square mile London longer
Doth it linger deep within
My city my thing my
History my place my dream
My London.

Snooker Slam Poem

Poem

‘Twas a night of balmy breezes,
Sensual and moist, the air itself
Awash with thrusting expectation and a breath
Which rattled the palm trees.
The sea, the surf,
The semi-naked delirium of sly bodies.
The moment our eyes met I knew
That by midnight we’d be ensconced in
Slippery passion,
And later that night 
as my hot hands hovered over your
Manly and feral chest 
You closed your eyes in erotic ecstasy and said,
‘I see Ronnie O’ Sullivan is
Through to the next round of the snooker’.

A momentary blip, I thought,
And as you drew me closer with your
Muscular arms
And I succumbed to the obviousness that lurked
Deep within the moment,
I felt a growl of pleasure rise up within you
And the following words spilled forth
From your sensuous lips:
‘And Mark Selby is up three frames to one
In the quarter final’.

I’d seen you in the cocktail bar,
All trendier promise and the kind of body
That if it were any more buff
Would have been that of a buffalo,
And our eyes had met in the steamy heat,
And I’d felt the exotic wonder that time should deliver
A man who made my heart a-quiver
Knowing all along it was too good to be true,
When I said I wanted to spend the night with you,
To which you’d replied, but have you got a long cue?
(I’d thought you meant
The other kind of queue).

Now here we are in the throes of passion
And as I tried to lose myself
To the insanity of the moment,
That inexorable oblivion 
Of skin on skin and souls ablaze
And the sheer physicality of heavenly bliss,
You purred,
‘John Higgins came from a five frame deficit
To go in to the semi.
It’s just a question of getting that moment of luck.
But you have to earn luck, don’t you?
 Sure, your opponent can miss a shot,
But you’ve got to take advantage.
Don’t let the moment slip.
Foul shot and a miss.
Foul shot and a miss.
Foul shot and a miss.
And then before you know it you’ve reached
Some kind of parity with your opponent
Sometimes
Sometimes
Sometimes
The pink just wont go in
No matter how much you chalk your cue.
The pink just wont go in
The pink just wont go in
Tickets to the final are sixty quid a shot.
The pink just wont go in.
Oh my god,
Ronnie O’Sullivan!

We lay in each other’s arms for a bit
And then, quietly, you sing,
‘Snooker loopy nuts are we.
Me and him and them and me.
We’ll show you what we can do
With a load of balls and a snooker cue.

Pot the reds and
Screw back
For the yellow green brown blue pink and black.
Snooker loopy nuts are we
We’re all snooker

Loopy.’

Ink to the Pen

Hello, here’s one of my earliest poems from around 2009 / 2010. It’s an experimental piece which I only ever performed once, and then forgot completely about, until I found a video of it. This is from a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Anyway, the video is below and that’s followed by the poem.

Vintage Robert Garnham experimental sound poem
Poem

Ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Think to the pen to the page to the mic.
Wink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Sink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Pink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Drink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Kink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Link to the pen to the page to the mic.
Zinc to the pen to the page to the mic.
Jink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Think to the ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Wink to the think to the ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Pink to the sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Drink to the pink to the sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Kink to the drink to the pink to the sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Link to the kink to the drink to the pink to the sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the page to the mic.
Zinc to the link to the kink to the drink to the pink to the sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the page to the mic.
Jink to the zinc to the kink to the drink to the pink to the sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the page to the mic.

Gasp.

Jonathan removed my antlers and said, ‘Not in here, the clientele are mostly Dutch’.

When

Poem

When does a mess become a muddle?
When does day become the night?
When does a spillage become a puddle?
When does a shudder become a fright?

When does a brag become a boast?
When  does a mess become a fuss?
When does bread become toast?
When does a train become a rail replacement bus?

When  do we become middle aged?
And do we only know we are middle aged when we've lived
Our whole lives?
Is it only then that we can look back and say, oh yes,
That's when I was middle aged, that's when I had a
Midlife crisis,
The day I went out and bought a jetski?

When  does a crowd become a throng?
When do pants become a thong?
When does a dirge become a song?
When does a whiff become a pong?

When does a settee become a sofa?
When does a look become a demeanour?
When does a pamphlet become a brochure?
When does a verbal warning become a grievance procedure?

When did I decide that maybe you weren't the one for me?
Was if at the opera, or was it in the supermarket?
Or was it that time I came home and found you in bed
With a stamp collector from Barnstaple?

When does a trumpet become a bugle?
When does an imposition become an impertinence? 
When does prudent become frugal?
When does a TV advert become a nuisance?

When does pruned become sheared?
When does uncanny become weird?
When does stubble become a beard?
When does a poem not have to rhyme?

When do we lose ourselves to the delirium of the
Beauty of the world of the planet of the people of the creatures
Of the moon of the tides of the sea of the land of the cities of the
Absolute if the spiritual of the technological or the brave of the bountiful
Of the beautiful, possibly at two PM on a Thursday afternoon.

When does it all become meaningless?


You Should Write A Poem About That!

This is a poem from my new show, ‘Bouncer’. It’s about something that people say to me every time they discover that I’m a comedy performance poet. I’m sure lots of other people also get told this especially if that’s the sort of thing they do.

I hope you like it!

My new show will be coming to various places in 2023 and 2024. At the moment it is booked in for the Barnstaple TheatreFest Fringe, the Guildford Fringe, and for two weeks at the Edinburgh Fringe. I’m also hoping to do it at other places, too.

Here’s the new poem:

You Should Write a Poem About That, from ‘Bouncer’, 2023

If you like what I’m up to, feel free to buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/robertgarnham