Category Archives: poetry

An introvert’s guide to performing

I’m not the most outgoing person. I don’t go out much and I probably have around two or three friends. I’m not a big drinker and I hardly ever go to pubs. And yet in spite of all this, I’ve managed to make something of a career as a comedy poet who stands on stage and does outlandish things and makes people laugh. How on earth did this happen, and how did it come about?

For a start I’ve always been what you might call an introvert and it’s probably still the same now. Part of working in the arts is having the confidence to put yourself forward for opportunities, and this is still an area where I struggle. I’ve never applied for funding or any other kind of sponsorship because, well, that’s not the sort of thing you do, is it? I hardly ever apply for big gigs or showcases, either. If someone asks, that’s great, and it makes me really happy for the rest of the day. But the idea of asking them gives me the willies.

The version of me who appears on stage is nothing like the version of me who exists ninety nine percent of the time. The persona I’ve created is just that. I don’t even wear the same sort of clothes on a day to day basis. And this is interesting, because for the ninety nine percent of the time that I’m not performing, the very idea of it also gives me the willies. It’s not my natural environment. Again the thought comes to mind that this is not the sort of thing that should be happening to someone like me!

Social media creates avatars, versions of ourselves that we want the world to see. I see poets and comedians in the real world acting more or less the same as the version of themselves that appears on stage, and to this day it makes me wonder where they find the energy. My other little rule is that I never mention my comedic poetic adventures in ‘real life ‘. I’ve never shown any of my friends any of my books or videos, and frankly, if I did, I’d feel very embarrassed indeed, and as for my family, well, Ive never even mentioned it to them at all. For a start, nobody is interested. It’s like living a bizarre double life, like some kind of poetic super hero.

But that’s what makes it so amazing. Right at this moment, reading this, I wonder how on earth I can possibly stand in front of strangers and not completely clam up. I go through a comprehensive sequence of preparation methods before I perform, including putting on a costume, doing my hair, changing my glasses, lying on the floor, doing breathing exercises, and then listening to very loud music. I think it’s fair to say that I’m not a natural performer!

Often, though, I’ll be on a bus, or doing my laundry, or walking home from work, and I’ll think of what I’ve done and what I’ve achieved, and it really makes me smile. Sure, it feels like it’s been done by someone else, but it’s a person I know really very well. This last year I’ve worked very hard on my performance and next I need to start working on being a bit more forthcoming and what my dad would describe as ‘pushy’. I’m like the kid in the corner who wants to join in but is too scared of the big kids.

I was chatting about this to another friend, who’s a poet, and she reckons it might be a class thing. I don’t have that middle class sense of entitlement that some of the bigger names might have, nor do I have the confidence that I have a voice that should be heard. I take great comfort in those who are naturally quiet, who seem to have made a successful career, and have done so through a mix of intelligence and luck, and I think, oh, I think, wow, I, too, had been really lucky!

Festive Greetings!

I’d just like to wish everyone I know a wonderful festive period and new year.

2019 has been mega for me and there are several things I’m proud of, such as my show about tea, (Spout), the little web series I made, (Unbearable Lightness), a little book I made of previous show scripts, (Gazebo), and other projects too, such as In the Glare of the Neon Yak performed with the jazz band Shadow Factory, and my one-off show The Moon Wrapped in String, which I performed with violinist Sharon Hubbocks. On top of this, I undertook my first tour of the UK, which was hard work but flipping amazing!

And there’s so much to look forward to for 2020. I’m putting another collection together with Burning Eye for 2021, and I’m working on a new show to accompany the book.

The other things I’ve been up to is that I’ve been doing a lot of writing. I got in to performance poetry more or less by accident and chance, and before this I’d always written comedy short stories and scripts. Lately I’ve been returning to these and finding my voice again as a writer. That’s the reason why I’ve been a bit quiet lately on the performance front, I’ve fallen in love with narrative and stories again and I’ve been busy working on short stories.

Naturally this is a time when you look back. The sad passing of Melanie Crump was a shock to the Torbay spoken word scene. We had a few lovely events including one at the Blue Walnut Cafe in honour of her and her work. I do believe that Torbay has the most diverse spoken word community in the country with the emphasis very much on comedy and humour, and long may this continue. It’s also incredibly supportive and friendly.

I’ve read a lot this year, as ever. I recommend books by the wonderful Melanie Branton and Becky Nuttall, Tom Sastry and the forthcoming collection from Tom Austin. Jason Disley’s CD is amazing, a mix of jazz and voice, and the DVD from Jamie Harry Scrutton showcasing his amazing animation. In fact, there’s so much good stuff out there that I’m sure I’ve missed something.

As a lowfi Christmas special, I’ve made a recording of my show, Spout, and you can find a link to it right here: https://youtu.be/EtBTc7ANM6M

I hope everyone has a great year next year, and thanks for everything. See you out on the road very soon!

An Interview with Becky Nuttall

Becky Nuttall is a staunch supporter of the arts scene in Torbay. A painter whose work explores themes of religious iconography, relationships and memory, she’s also a poet whose work looks at similar themes. Her first collection, Nick’s Gift, has just been published. Becky lives in Brixham and organises the Stanza Extravaganza poetry nights at the Artizan Gallery in Torquay. She is also a member of various local cultural boards and committees and as such works tirelessly to promote local art.

It is a pleasure to know her and to listen to her poetry on a regular basis. Becky has often involved local poets in some of the events and exhibitions that she has curated at places such as Torquay Library, Torbay Hospital, and the Artizan Gallery.

I was glad that she met me ask her a few questions.

Hi Becky. How did you get in to writing poetry? Has it been something you’ve always done?

My dad was a playwright. He had his first play broadcast on television not long after I was born in the late Fifties. It starred Dame Flora Robson as Edith Cavell and its success enabled him to get an agent and become a professional writer. He worked from home. His studio at that time was downstairs and we could hear him tapping on the typewriter. It was his job and we absorbed it and its rules . I had access to an endless supply of paper. In those days everything was in duplicate and I had the thin paper for the carbon copy. I was my father’s child, I instinctively understood the importance of his work. He was a pioneer of television screenwriting in the Sixties. He was also a film screen writer and novelist. I wrote poetry and drew pictures constantly. I didn’t know any other child that was writing like I did, none of my local friends did. It was all solitary. Dad and some of his friends would read it and encourage me.

You came from a very artistic family. What kind of environment, artistically, did you grow up in?

My parents friends were artists and writers. Dad went to what is now The Royal West Academy in Bristol and came to Brixham after he married my mum, Jenny. They founded Milton Head Pottery in 1950 and sold it in 1959. Their friends were an enormous influence on me. They compounded my belief, that the creative life was hard and a mystery. However it is a vocation. My parents didn’t have much money when we were young children but the house was full of art by dad and the people we knew. My dad had links with Dartington because he was a founder member of the Devon Guild of Craftsmen with Marianne de Trey.

You are also a fantastic painter who uses lots of religious iconography, yet you’re not a religious person. How did this come about?

At nine years old I said I was going to go to art school. My parents took it seriously and that’s what I did when I left school. However I had a very traditional education from seven years old. We were taught the classics. Dickens was the author read out to us in class. We were taught the Greek myths and Roman culture, Shakespeare and Chaucer. It was very dry and closed. No discussion of modern social or world context. I loved it though. The problem was it was a convent. We stood out from other students because of our background, we were Church of England and I was seen as disrespectful for questioning the oddness of a religious life. I was scruffy because I wore my two older sisters’ hand down school uniform. I went on the bus to school from seven years old, I was bullied to and from school including by the bus conductors. I have no idea why my parents thought it was a good idea to send me there, I hated it. The alternative must have been worse. However religious art is the foundation for what follows in art history. I plunder it gleefully. It’s revenge for the emotional abuse I received from some particular nuns and Catholic teachers.

Your poetry is very autobiographical. What are your other influences?

All work is autobiographical and all art is a self-portrait – it’s just the different means we use to cover up or expose it.
As well as writing poetry from about seven years old, I starting reading it too, we were taught poetry in school and how to write it. My dad wrote poetry and my mum’s father wrote poetry in the Second World War. Rupert the Bear stories rhymed. There are obvious influences like Edward Lear, Hilaire Belloc, Christina Rossetti. Then I asked for Thom Gunn and Crow by Ted Hughes, for my 13th birthday. I made a leap, probably influenced by stuff lying around at home and some seriously good television programmes in the Sixties. I had The Poets Manual and Rhyming Dictionary for Christmas ( not a success). I wrote and drew equally, one influencing the other. I loved pop and rock music, for a while lyrics were my main influence. At art school , and for my degree, I studied Modernist art and writing and the work of Dada, the Surrealist artists and writers. I loved Gertrude Stein. I read Huysman’s Against Nature. I absorbed it all. What society saw as a counter culture seemed perfectly acceptable and natural to me. I’d given up children’s books at about eleven and raided my parent’s bookshelves. We weren’t censored.

You are a very stanch supporter of the local artistic scene. How would you describe the state of art and culture in Torbay at the moment?

I support the local art heritage because of my dad and his connection to Torbay. I wanted to honour our own heritage. Although growing up in such creative privilege was influential, it was a period of time that passed and became forgotten. It wasn’t idyllic growing up with an artist, it was messy and dysfunctional and I moved on and beyond. Gradually I came to understand the context of mid twentieth century culture and that my family had lived it. There is a move to recognise Torbay’s place in this and I wanted to help. It happened that the community, in Torbay and the South West, I first saw doing the most for the arts when I ventured out again was, and still is, poets. It was the kindness of poets that encouraged me to support the arts in any way I can. Contemporary art suffers because it is led by money and gate kept with value judgements. Torbay is slowly, I hope, starting to break this cycle by bringing back into the community.

How did it feel to read or perform for the first time?

I first read and performed poetry when I was at junior school, it was mandatory to stand on a stage and sight read. I think the school thought it was character building to make me perform as I had a lisp, a problem with Rs, a gap in my front teeth, naturally scruffy and a mild stammer. They under estimated how much I was a show off, entitled and a contrary pain in the neck so I loved it. I performed my own poetry at art school at student events. I was mentored by the creative writing tutor so the showing off was moderated. The next time I performed was in 2016 after sneaking in the back of poetry performances for a while. It was exhilarating and addictive, bouncing off the talent in the room.

Who are your favourite poets or artists?

I thinks is easier to come to my house and look at my bookshelves…

What is your process for writing a new poem?

Research and more research. I’m driven by the academic and art in equal measure. I treat every poem and every picture as a small thesis.
For instance, the poem ‘Spaceflight’ is essentially about the moon
I find the idea, most of mine are rooted in my past, a memorable occasion, a memorable person.
The influence of recent visits, The Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Spellbound at the Ashmolean, Certaine Wytches at The Devon Guild of Craftsmen; another poem I’d written, Nick’s Gift.
Remembering fleeting friendships in gloomy bus stations. The isolation if you were different
Text my daughter about her thoughts on the themes as she visited Boscastle with me. Connect it subliminally to Robert, who asked me to perform with him.
Research symbols attached to the objects in the poem, cultural and religious influence on people, objects and places drafted in the poem.
Research the language and roots of words.
Print off all the research and collate it.
Type the beginning, print it and hand write on it mind maps, lists of a chronology of events, the message, the character in the poem who carries the message, the sadness, the universal at the core of the poem over it. Compose and type it.
Listen to rock music, David Bowie, research childhood stories on the theme of the moon and witches. Turn it on its head, change the title to change the perspective, music. Compose and type it. Edit and edit, read it out loud, change the punctuation, change the page format for reading.
Proof read it

How would you describe your book, Nick’s Gift?

I grew up as a teenager in the Seventies. Between 14 and 16 years old I absorbed everything I could out of the sight of my family. I was against the patriarchal authority and society that said what was acceptable for teenagers. Mostly it was wonderful, sometimes it was horrible. The stars aligned though and here I am. Nick’s Gift is mostly about those influences, now moderated by the love of good people.

What does the future hold for the poet and artist Becky Nuttall?

After my twenties I still thought my achievements had be validated by a third party, that acceptance by a ‘better’ person was a high achievement, that I had to be shown, repeat, copy. The negative experiences far outweighed anything positive, I didn’t respect the ones I chose to teach me. I had grown up with better artists and tutors whose influence could sustain me and I was more than capable of finding out the rest by osmosis. I had to get on with it, stop procrastinating and thinking there was some formula for success held by a snake-oil salesman, some power/status merry go round; find my own voice.
Now I’m much older I still don’t need validation. If you like it, great. If you don’t, I don’t care and I move on. I develop my craft on my own, like I did when I wrote poetry as a child. I’ll carry on because it’s in my genes. It’s my journey and my heritage I see reflected back and there’s some way to go yet.

You can find out more about a Becky and her work, and order her book Nick’s Gift, here http://www.beckynuttall.com

A Song for Love and the Tundra (A poem for Christmas)

A song for love and the tundra

It’s a cold night.
Each chilled breath vapour cloud
Looks like a cartoon think bubble.
Frost gnaws like a zombie rabbit.
Certain things shrivel up.
But I don’t mind.
I’m on the station platform,
The steel sided sleeper service carriage to my right,
Windows lit, inviting.

My cabin awaits to protect me
Against the endless harsh tundra.

I clamber back on board, the cold
Swirls around me, the ghosts of
Fussy butlers. I traverse the empty
Corridors, narrow, labyrinthine,
I’m a ferret in a metal warren,
The buffet car decorated in fairy lights and tinsel
As fellow passengers raise a toast to the holiday season,
To the northern lights, cheers!
To polar bears, cheers!
To the warmth of new friends, cheers!
And off we go again.

Flicker flakes of snow skitter the window
As I lie back on my cosy bunk,
Warmth radiating from mechanical vents
The breath of a tame robot,
Yet no comfort do I feel as thoughts
Sting more than the frost, the sudden idea,
That I
Am the only gay in a thousand mile radius.

No glitter on the tundra, no mirror disco balls,
No Hungry love puppies feeling mushy in the slush,
No buxom gay seeking company in the Hudson Bay Company,
No life no joy no dancing nothing, nothing nothing,
And then,
As if seeking comfort through the pursed queenly lips
Of those generations who quivered
In shacks and igloos and on sleds and kayak,
I picked up my phone
And logged in to Grindr
Hoping to find in this endless nothing
Love sublime.

Yet
The screen is blank.
Yet another silent night.

Through the cold deep night comes the mournful whistle
Of the lead locomotive, the railroad line a straight parallel beam
Across endless tundra, incredibly straight,
Unwavering, resolute in its adherence to what should be.

Bugger,
I whisper.

But then, oh, then!
A Christmas miracle!

A flicker of wifi some signal of the soul
As I stare out at the show,
My mobile phone is aglow!
And a lone face of beauty manifests on the screen,
It feels like a dream
He’s the cutest I’ve ever seen,
And his name is a cry for the centuries,
A beautiful poetry which lights up my day,
DildoSlut4000, and he’s only
One hundred and fifty metres away!

Hark! The herald angels sing,
Glory to this sexy thing!
Like three kinds following the yonder star
I get up and stand in the carriage of my car,
My Grindr app raised on high
Like a diamond in the sky,
App with royal beauty bright,
Come back to my cabin and spend the night!
Like lovers of old we’ll dance and pray,
He’s only one hundred and fifty metres away!

The night breaths a chill yet the warmth within
Propels me from my cabin,
Along the carpeted corridor as the train rocks,
Eager, phone raised,
Past windows still and each a cold black canvas
With flickers of frost on the frames,
Guided by this handsome avatar and I run
As the metres tick down, one hundred and fifty,
One hundred and forty, one thirty five,
Good evening Mrs Higgins, yet, it is chilly tonight,
One hundred and thirty, one twenty five . .

As I hurry in through my heart beats insane
In time with the onerous chuffing of the train
And a sleigh bell jingle from the depths of my brain.
One hundred metres remain!

Through the buffet I go and the train begins to slow,
As o envisage his kiss in this land filled with snow,
My own Santa and his sack and his jovial ho ho,
This long cruel slog to be with him and his Yule log,
That we might dance divine, our hearts entwined,
That I might enjoy
My very own feast of Steven,
Fifty metres, thirty, and ten,
I check my phone again.
The night is dark by my heart is aflame.

But what’s this?
I’ve run out of train . .

A locomotive cul de sac,
Yet I can’t go back.
No sexy stranger, no gay in a manger
Do I see in this empty carriage,
Just my own reflected in the dark, dark glass,
Looking out on a world of endless snows,
The train, it slows, it slows, it stops.

Ladies and gentlemen.
We’ll be stopping here at Elbow Junction
For around half an hour or so.
It may be called Elbow Junction
But the joint is hardly rocking.
Stretch your legs if you like.
Watch out for ice.

A desolate scene, this
Mid journey pit stop.
A frost sparkled platform
In a landscape bereft of hope.
The train, a ticking tensing metal beast,
An eerie interloper,
Metal sides shining in a faint lunar glow.
I clamber down, my phone throwing out
It’s own corona of electric light.

A wooden hut, a shack, a cabin, mismatched timbers,
Makeshift windows and a slanting front door
Shrinks back from the platform as if afraid, yet
No station building is this, a light within
Hints at some kind of life, domesticity
In the frozen north.
The door opens and any hope
That this might be the home of
DildoSlut4000 evaporates as
An old man shuffles forwards,
Long flowing beard and the kind of face
That looks like it needs ironing.

Sayeth he,

I’m a track side shack dweller,
Yessiree I am,
A track side shack dweller,
Big beardy man.
I’m a track side shack dweller,
Never going back, fella.
City’s full of crack sellers
A track side shack dweller,
Is what I am now.

Hey there young man,
Why do you look so glum?
You’re not the one who’s cold all day
Everything’s gone numb.
Living in a track side shack
Certainly ain’t fun
Hey there young man,
Why do you look so glum?

I’m a track side shack dweller,
And you’re a tourist guy.
Off to see the polar bears?
And really, god knows why.
What’s that that you got there,
The things you city folk buy!
An app, you say? Let’s have a look,
I don’t want to pry . . .

Oh . . .

A toothless grin from my ancient companion,
A scratch of his unkempt hair, a rustle as he
Nustles the stubble of his beard,
He shuffles In a half circle, comes back and looks again.

Who is it?, I ask, suddenly perplexed.
Now there’s a face, says he, I haven’t seen
For quite a while.

Have you ever felt magic on the breeze in the night?
When the only sound is the majestic barking of polar bears,
Or geese in flight,
The lonesome whistle of distant trains?
When the jiggling wiggling brilliance of the aurora boealis
Seem scant compensation for an existence which drains
Every last hope of love?
Have you ever slept fitful as the frost creeps in,
Shrunk back from the world beneath a pile of bear skin,
Felt the abject loneliness of no one else around,
Startled, alert, at the slightest sound?
Have you ever felt the man sized gap where love should be?

Past midnight now, it’s Christmas Eve.
And that, my young friend, is the train driver,
Steve.

He told me he’d been taken off his route,
He told me this
Just before he gave me the boot.
His face may be, but his behaviour ain’t cute.

At this, like a phantom, a man obsessed,
My elderly companion runs down the track to the engine car,
And I follow, careful not to slip on the ice
Catching up just as he bangs on the locomotive door,
His fist a blur, shouting obscenities into the night.
The door opens, and there he stands,
DildoSlut4000.

You bastard! You fiend!, the shack dweller yells.
I don’t understand why you had to lie!
The nights I’ve spent, wondering why
You’d just disappear,
And twice a week these ghost trains would halt
And I’d stay in bed, my heart would jolt
On hearing your horn in the middle of the night.

(And also, I give a little wave.
Hi!)

He steps down from the cab, this saintly man,
His face a benevolent mask, the symmetry of his features,
The classical beauty of his earlobes, he
Stands forlorn before the bearded individual,
And then, like lovers lost, all rancour forgotten,
They throw their arms around one another,
A smothering of sobs and limbs and apologies.

(And also, I give a little wave.
Hi!)

Through the still of the night
comes the cry.
Allllll aboard!
And I clamber up to the carriage
Feeling within a renewed understanding
Of the world.

In the warmth of my cabin, I let out a sigh,
It is not for me to ponder on why
But revel in a world in which love
Is always worth the try.

We pull out from Elbow Junction, and pick up speed,
And soon into a flurry of snow we proceed this Christmas Eve,
And sleep begins to overtake me,
And the miles seem somehow less empty
Than they had been.
For Christmas is a time of togetherness,
Nevertheless, I feel hardly blessed ,
And as I undress I feel bereft.

But simultaneously lifted.
For who knows what led to
This romance,
The track side shack dweller
And DildoSlut4000,
Spinning their love into the winter gloom,
Two hearts empty that both found room,
A soul afire in this great northern sublimity,
Then it could also happen to me?

And as Christmas Eve asserts through the night,
My senses take flight, and I dance an inner dance
Happy on love that it should find a chance,
Even in this ceaseless gloom,
A lonely cabin,
A tiny room,
A cold steel train
And the northern lights a flicker.

Two souls reconnected after years apart.
How glad I was I’d played my part.

(2019)

Santa Fell down Sizewell B

https://youtu.be/-XD3nE4STd0

Santa fell down Sizewell B

There’s nothing under the tree
Nothing for you and nothing for me
At least not a thing that I can see
Since Santa fell down sizewell b

Rudolf has got the night off
And donner and blitzen have a nasty cough
The sleigh is now wrapped around a tree
And Santa fell down sizewell b

A large concrete chimney silhouetted against the sky
Santas dodgy tummy from a bad mince pie
He’s run out of tea and he needs a wee
And now he’s fallen down sizewell b

To the boy in the window who waved
To the elves in the factory who are all enslaved.
A Christmas elf dreams of liberty
And santas fallen down sizewell b.

The sleigh is all covered in tinsel.
The cars and the houses are covered in tinsel
I can’t think of anything to rhyme with tinsel
And now santas fallen down sizewell b.

Marjorie wants world peace
Dave wants an end to starvation
Gemma wants less underrepresentation in the media
Francis wants a more transparent banking system
Lisa wants a respite from the crushing oblivion which awaits us all
Jim wants a cheap pair of socks
But none of them will get what they need
Cos santas fallen down sizewell b

Plans for my Funeral

Plans for my funeral

I, Theodore Auberon Fricker-Fricker-Smith, being of sound mind and body, and willing to engage in matters pertaining to my future demise, and fearful not at all of the implications of such speculation, hereby, gladly and with enormous pride, give details of my funeral plans.

No-one shall wear black.

Black is the colour of mourning and it should not be worn at my funeral. I would prefer to keep in with the recent decoration of the family chapel, that those present should respect my wishes in wearing pastels, preferably lilac or lavender. Or Paisley. One has to make an effort in such circumstances not to fall into pathetic stereotypes and the stereotype of the grieving relative bedecked in black is perhaps one of the more tiresome for everyone else attending. Not everyone will be sad. Make an effort for the happy people. Pastels it shall be!

My coffin shall be carried to the church by six circus clowns, followed by two more, playing the flugel. At the same time they must be dancing, so that the coffin swirls and rotates around the church floor in a crazy rhythm as if almost celebrating the fact that I have snuffed it.
Preferably, the clowns must also be tap-dancing, though I am not too fussed about this. Oh, and they should be wearing pastels.

Sixteen massed zither players, flown in direct from the mountains round Salzburg, should serenade the guests as they file into the church. It possible, find a theremin and allow it to jam with the zither players for a while. The fusion of the two sounds, I am told, can be haunting and thought-provoking at the best of times and should fill the guests with a sense of peace, harmony and the innate goodness of man.

The vicar shall wear a Man United shirt. I have never been a fan of football, but, after having read the papers and scoured the news, I have noted that the average man worships football above all other, and Man United above all teams. Always one to go with the majority, I shall have my vicar wearing a Man U shirt. Surely, all those people can’t be wrong?

By the time the guest have arrived and the dwarfs have finished swirling and tap-dancing to the front of the chapel with my coffin, there shall be a sudden roar of music from speakers hidden in various locations around the room. Memflak’s Fifth Oompah in C Major (Rhapsody on a Theme of Tortoises) shall be fused with the latest release from the Faded Satans, ‘Granny’s Got Me In A Headlock’) – and shall be played as loud as the speakers permit. It would help if the vicar started break-dancing, in order to add to the solemnity of the occasion.

As the ceremony begins, I want a thousand coloured balloons to fall from the ceiling, each one inscribed with a word. The congregation should ignore the ceremony and, from these balloons, create a poem of deep meaningfulness and significance, which should then be proclaimed as my last final work. The balloons that are left over should be popped for no other reason than the fact that it will make such a satisfying noise.

At the commencement of the first hymn, the pipes of the organ shall be filled with jelly. Green, preferably.

There shall be no crying. Laughter shall emanate from all corners of the chapel. If there is not sufficient laughter to earn a rebuke from the nearby old folk’s home, then the zither players and the circus clowns should challenge each other to an impromptu game of It and the theremin player should be the judge. If this doesn’t work, then the vicar must be prepared to do host a spur of the moment tombola.
While this is happening, a small boy should be employed to crawi under the pews and tie together everyone’s shoelaces. And then, on the count of three, the vicar must announce that the person sitting on seat number 15c shall win a prize in the meat raffle, to which everyone will stand up and then fall over, therefore leading to the general sense of hilarity. If possibly under the circumstances, a fight should then break out.

I Theodore Auberon Fricker-Fricker-Smith, being of sound mind and body, cannot wait for this funeral and I shall therefore be attending myself, in person, before the event of my death. In fact, so tempting does this proposition sound, that the funeral shall be held next Wednesday, and I have already ordered the coffin. Bring your own beer.

Signed
Theodore Auberon Fricker-Fricker-Smith

Oh, and PS. I leave my stamp collection to the alligator.

Tinsel

Ho ho ho!

Every year for the last ten years or so I’ve written a Christmas poem or two. So this year I’ve gathered them all together as a present for some close friends, and then I thought, well, why not make it available generally?

So Puddlehopper Books and myself are pleased to announce to the world a pamphlet just for Christmas, Tinsel! It contains some of my various poems written especially for Christmas and it’s available through the Lulu website.

Tinsel is the ideal stocking filler, a book for evenings of warmth and that post Christmas glow. Details on how to order Tinsel can be found below, as well as one of the poems from the book.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/robert-garnham/tinsel/paperback/product-24334960.html

This Year’s Advent Calendar

Well this year’s advent calendar was a strange one. Here’s every day in it’s unusual glory.

Today’s advent calendar picture was of a duck wearing a Groucho Marx moustache, nose and glasses.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of a clown waving his big shoe at a smoke detector
Today’s advent calendar picture is of the Easter Bunny trying to keep two sides of a build-it-yourself shed upright while Marilyn Monroe reads the instructions.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of the seven dwarves waiting, angrily, at a mobile chip van, while the lady serving, who for some reason is a panda, is looking at holiday photos being shown to her by Snarf from Thundercats
Today’s advent calendar picture is of Gandalf at the self service Tesco machine
Today’s advent calendar picture is of an advent calendar
Today’s advent calendar picture is of Vladimir Putin eating a Pot Noodle
Today’s advent calendar picture is of sixteen Laurels (from Laurel and Hardy) and Sid James queuing at a self service cafeteria.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of a frog trying to push a sofa up a flight of stairs, backwards, sweating profusely.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of an igloo, a bin with contents strewn around, and a polar bear flaked out by tranquilliser dart.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of a Peruvian brown bear wearing a scarf scraping frost off the windscreen of a parked car with its engine running.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of a sneezing unicorn.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of a badger and a rabbit having a row about who gets the last chicken mayonnaise sandwich in the chiller cabinet while TV’s Victoria Coren Mitchell sneaks in and grabs it for herself.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of a stack of suspended ceiling tiles, £11 each plus postage and packing
Today’s advent calendar picture is of the nativity scene. (Bit early but there you go).
Today’s advent calendar picture is of fifteen donkeys wearing sombreros and a man at a stall trying to sell them more sombreros but the donkeys are having none of it.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of a badger getting a refund on a pair of trousers.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of Lord Byron on roller skates in a crumpled heap next to a slightly dented Ford Focus.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of a panda in a library reading a Will Self novel, double checking some of the weightier vocabulary in a dictionary.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of Mr T from The A Team at the boating lake in the park, rowing a rowing boat past some rhododendrons.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of a squid waiting in the queue for the Primark changing room with a Tigger the Tiger onesie.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of Darth Vader in a lightsabre battle with Alan Bennett.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of Michael Portillo looking very grumpy on a rail replacement bus. Oh, and why not, Skeletor from HeMan is sitting three rows behind him, eating a Pot Noodle.
Today’s advent calendar picture is of a confused ostrich.

A Christmas miracle

It was a Christmas miracle
Just like the ones you hear about.
Mum had lost her glasses,
Couldn’t find them anywhere.

All year long without them,
Assumed for some reason I’d nicked them.
Why would I nick your glasses?, I asked.
For a crazy prop, maybe.
For one of your shows?

(I mean, seriously,
Don’t you think I’d have at least
Asked her?)

All year long without them.
Squinting at cooking instructions.
Just get a new pair, I said.
No, she replied,
They’re here somewhere.
Are you sure you didn’t nick them
For one of your crazy shows?

All year long without them.
Bifocals too, she said.
I remember having them
At Christmas.
It’s a problem which really
Does vex.
Seriously, what have you
Done with my specs?

All year long without them.
They’d hang on a chain round her neck
So that she couldn’t lose them.
And then she lost them.
And anyway,
At what point during my act
Would I need a pair of glasses on a chain?

It’s not like I’m a drag act.

All year long without them.
And do you know where they were?
In the Christmas decorations box,
Sitting atop tinsel having been
Packed erroneously
Eleven months before.

Another Christmas miracle,
Another Christmas delight.

Seriously, though, I protest,
I wouldn’t have just taken them.
Jeez.

Adventures in Swindon

I just thought I’d write a quick blog about the gig I had in Swindon this last week. I’ve always got on well in Swindon, ever since a slam I entered there many moons ago and managed to come second, performing a poem about the town that I’d written during the interval. I’d headlined or featured in Swindon three times over the last few years, at Oooh Beehive twice and at Rusty Goat’s Poetry Corner. I’ve managed to build up a small fan base, you might say. So Swindon has always felt like friendly territory for me and I’ve always loved going there.

It must be said that what Nick Lovell and Clive Oseman have created in a small backstreet pub in Swindon is really quite amazing. Oooh Beehive, (the name a not so subtle pun on the name of the pub), is that rare thing : a well attended and enthusiastic poetry night in front of a non poetry audience. Over the last few years, Nick and Clive have got some of the biggest names on the spoken word circuit to come along and perform at the pub and the nights seem to be going from strength to strength.

I suppose I am a little biased. As I say, I seem to have a loyal fan base in Swindon, and my poetry always goes down best with non poetry audiences. But the fad that the drinkers at the pub are so enthusiastic is all down to the efforts of Clive and Nick.

It took me five hours to get to Swindon from Paignton, due to the wonderful insertion of a rail replacement coach service from Tiverton to Bristol. You have to wear seat belts in coaches now and the seat belts on this particular coach strapped me to the sit with very little room to manoeuvre. I couldn’t even bend down to get my iPad or a book out of my bag, so I was consequently strapped there for the whole two hour ride up the M5.

Shortly after leaving Tiverton, I noticed the good looking young man across the aisle from me. I’d seen him getting on the coach and I marvelled at his incredibly symmetrical face. Indeed, he looked almost like a robot, a created idea of what a human should be. His skin was smooth and his hair clipped and blended at the sides and back. His eyes were a luscious blue and he had the most amazing eyebrows of any man I had ever seen. And there I was, strapped in to my seat, unable to move and unable to concentrate for the next two hours.

As is often the case in such situations, I thought I’d try and figure how he lived his life. He could have been a male model, and would not have looked out of place on the pages of a magazine, or perhaps he was an actor, with his Hollywood classical looks. But then I happened to notice his hands. I’d never seen such bruised, battered, misshapen hands, with the dirtiest fingernails. How can his face be so beautiful, and his hands be so disgusting? A part of me felt appalled. This bizarre mix of the sweet and the sour, like carrot cake served with sour cream. And then I noticed his mobile phone. He was swiping through Google search images of tractors and farm equipment. Ah, I thought, he’s a farmer. That would explain the hands. And then I started thinking about his life, a country lad, chugging along on his tractor.

I stayed in a very cheap hotel just round the corner from the Beehive pub. It was run by three young Indian men. One of them let me in, and led me to the reception where the next greeted me warmly, and we exchanged a joke or two, but then he turned to the young man who’d let me in.

‘You haven’t finished preparing the rooms yet! Look, it’s four o clock and our guests are arriving! Go! Go and finish the rooms, you are lazy!’

The receptionist then turned to me and smiled as if in apology, as his assistant scampered away. And I found myself smiling in agreement with him, as if sensing his frustration. People, eh?, I felt like saying.

That night, as I prepared for the gig, I heard a fierce row break out downstairs, accompanied by the slamming of doors and one of the men yelling, ‘we’ll see! We’ll see!’ A part of me felt glad that I would only be staying there for a short while, though I was keen to know more about my hosts, as I felt it might even be the basis for a sitcom. What with that, and the sign on the wall telling guests that if they brought anyone back to their room, then the police would be called.

Things got even weirder the next morning when I left early to book out, to be greeted by the assistant who was standing at the door to the breakfast room in the most amazing hotel uniform, resplendent and stately, as if this cheap bed and breakfast were now a high class London hotel. He even bowed as I came down the stairs.

As I say, the Oooh Beehive gig went very well. About a third of the way into my set I became conscious that I had the attention of everyone in the pub, even those in the next room, and they were attentive and appreciative in a way that other audiences tend not to be, or at least, tend not to be with me. And once the evening was over, myself and Tom Sastry, who had been the other feature act, were treated like poetic kings, titans of the spoken word scene, by the audience, who were genuine in their excitement and gracious with their praise.

The next morning I went to Primark and then to the station to catch the train and coach back to Paignton, and I told myself not to be too complacent, that gigs will not always be as good as this one. The scene that Nick and Clive have fostered in Swindon is unique and loving, accepting and open minded, and both of them are people for whom I have a lot of time. I would recommend anyone with an interest in spoken word to get along to Oooh Beehive at some point.

Horse

https://youtu.be/NQdDlilcQ0Y

Poem

I always wanted to meet a horse
And last night I did!
My word
You’ve got big nostrils.

The horse said.

It’s not every day you see
An equestrian pedestrian.
He had the grooves.
He had the moves.
He couldn’t work the cash machine
With his clumpy hooves.
The Neon shone in his flanks.
I felt something move in my
Soul.

Psssssst!
I’ve always thought there was
Something equine about me, myself.
My favourite TV show is
Neighhhhhh,
Which is Horse for Coronation Street.
I said to my ex, Floyd,
Whack a saddle on me
And ride me round the bedroom,
Now whinny for me, Big fella!
Whinny for me!
Whinny like there’s no tomorrow!
Since then I’ve been
Desperately lonely.

Give me a call some time, I said
To the horse.
I can’t, he replied.
The mobile phone is too short
For my big head,
Plus,
I’m in a stable relationship.

We went to a bar.
The barman said,
Why the long face?
Ohhhh,
Just the usual ennui, I replied.

Why have you got that horse anyway?
Are you going to race him?
No, I replied, he’s much faster than me.

Clipperty Clipperty clop
With my horse I did trot
I could have such fun with one
I would buy a bun for one
My friend Ben is hung like one
That’s why we call him
Dobbin.

Ohhhh, horsey!
I want to take off my shirt,
And grab hold of his tail,
And twirl it around my nipples
And feel its thick horse strands
Sending me into raptures of heavenly oblivion.
It’s how I got banned
From ascot.
Naughty horse!
Naughty horse!

Briefs or boxers?, I ask,
Boxers or briefs? I say.
Briefs or boxers, boxers or briefs?
What are you wearing today?
He replied,
Usually, just jockeys.

We’re meant to be together,
But oh, the smell!
The rancid putrid smell,
I’m sure the horse will get used to it.
The two of us, having happy fun,
So carefree so rampant , the night comes undone,
Happy beyond belief,
The bit between my teeth
Life in all its horsey beauty falling in on us
A stirrup for the senses,
Love sublime every day
From the moment we wake up
To the moment we hit the hay
But instead
The horse did say,
Nay.

Oh look,
There he goes now!

Year of the Cassowary

So recently I found the manuscript of my first ever home made collectin, Year of the Cassowary. These poems were written during the first couple of years of my spoken word career. I thought I’d post them here for your delectation.

The book was home made, printed and stapled by myself, and it offers a fascinating snap shot of my preoccupations at the time!

Robert Garnham

Year of the Cassowary

Contents:

Poem (Lines Written Inspired by Somerset)
Plop
Barn Conversion on an Accident Black Spot
On the Subject of Mister Shaw’s Private Life
Poem Which Starts with the Words ‘ Pull Up a Chair, Philip Larkin’
Matt’s Duvet
On Air Trapped in a Parisian Radiator
Doc
Nowhere Near Magnetic North
The Jacket of Agnes
Llama-Trekking with Kim Jong-Un
I Am The Wardrobe Man
Poem
Mister Purposefully-No-one-wish-I-Was-Someone-Man
Poem
Frank (1-1=0)
Karaoke in the Departure Lounge
Love Poems Love Poem
Lament of a Noted Brazilian Anglophile

Poem

Alack! Do some settle
In Somerset.
Sunset’s set, sat un-set
And stomach upset.
Somerset.
Somersaulting vaulting sum of
Greater parts. Haunting dauntless Taunton,
Summer parks.
I’d settle soon in Somerset,
Besotted thus with summer sex,
Haystack fumbles, aching, wet,
Hanging round at nights with the badger set.
Think of all the joy I’d get
In Somerset.

Although, I do suspect
A seldom sudden thought remains unsaid.
I don’t like barns. Or farms.
Or country vets.
And that is why I’ll settle not in Somerset.

(written on a train just outside of Taunton, 2010)

Plop

I have probed the depths of literature.
But my friend Mark only remembers
The one poem I wrote.
The one called ‘Plop’.
And it goes something like this:
Plop.
Pah-lop.
Plop.
At nights I reach right in and thrust my hand
Deep into the fiery furnace of metaphor,
And I grab the human condition
And I throttle it.
And I squeeze the truth out of it.
And I tear the words from the sky.
And I wrestle with sentences like a demon.
I am the king of ink, monarch of the pen.
My nib moving faster and faster as my fingers
Grip the shaft of the biro,
Spilling on to the page beauteous visions,
Truth, honesty, existential angst
And what it means to be alive.
And yet Mark’s favourite poem of mine is
Plop. Pah-lop. Plop.

(Paignton, 2011)
Barn Conversion on an Accident Black Spot

Our love was like a barn conversion
At an accident black-spot.

We’d took time to transform decrepitude
Into something quite hot.

Aesthetically-pleasing,
Occasionally teasing.

A place of comfort in which to reside
And yet, on the road outside

There was carnage on a nightly basis.
Our beautiful home, once a quiet oasis

Tarnished, ruined, a private hell
Amid the chaos of tearing metal.

Perhaps, we reasoned, architecturally-speaking
The drivers of the cars, continually seeking

Perfection, driven mad by our decadence and style
Had kept their foot off the break just a while

Too long.
(Brixham, 2009)

On the Question of Mister Shaw’s Private Life

For years, carved in hot melted tarmac
In the suburban commuter town where I grew up, the words
Mister Shaw is a Tosser
A permanent memorial to a teacher
Long since, having passed through, forgotten by most,
His name a mystery to succeeding generations.
He lived in a flat tacked to the side
Of the church hall. I suppose it came with his job
In our C of E middle school.
The place might even have seemed exotic, bohemian
Divorced from the humdrum of growing up,
Though, a deeply religious young man,
Probably he disapproved of anything remotely bohemian.
A bachelor.
My dad said he walked as if he had
A roll of lino under his arm.
Jutting chin, and the Alex Hurricane Higgins hairstyle
Of the early 1980s.
Was Mister Shaw a tosser? No, he was reasonable.
He encouraged me to write, and for that,
I shall never inquire as to what he got up to
In his church hall bachelor pad,
Scene of nativity plays and jumble sales,
Whether tossing or not.
(Cairns, 2010)

Poem Which Starts With The Words ‘Pull Up A Chair, Philip Larkin’.

Pull up a chair, Philip Larkin.
Help yourself to some cheese and onion Hula Hoops.
Stop frowning, I wont hurt you.
Tell me, Philip Larkin, is it true that you couldn’t work out how to use the self-service machine at Tesco’s?
Or that you lost your glasses while jumping on an inflatable bouncy castle?
Help yourself to a fondant fancy.
Oh, Philip Larkin!
You looked so glum when I suggested we go clubbing and then when we got there you shocked everyone by asking for a cup of tea at the bar.
That reminds me, shall I put the kettle on?
How did it go last night, by the way?
Taking on the Americans in an impromptu tug of war.
You and WH Auden and Christopher Isherwood
Verses the Beats – Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs.
Trounced, you say?
You let go of the rope to pick up the 50p coin?
And Alan Bennett called you a knob?
He’s got a point.
Is it true, Philip Larkin, that you stayed up late last night to watch Wrestlemania?
Would you like a jam tart, Philip Larkin?
Would you? Would you? Would you really really?
Is it true that when you met Princess Anne you sneezed all over her?
I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were allergic to horses.
Is it also true that you put stones on the railway lines to see what happened when the fast train came through but you got arrested by the Transport Police?
Is it also true that you fancy Sarah Palin?
Well, we must meet again some time, this was nice.
You’ve got a bit of something just . . . Just there . . . That’s it . . . No, to the left . . . Never mind.
(Paignton, 2011)

Matt’s Duvet

I see you
In that photo message you sent
Wrapped in your duvet.
Why do they
Say that our love should be
The way that it should be.
Heteronormativity.
I see you
In that photo message you sent
I now repent
My life has been spent
It’s such a cruel day.
I wish I was there with you
Wrapped in your duvet.
(London, 2011)

On Air Trapped in a Parisian Radiator

Last night I dreamed, initially,
Of Paris
And then of those plastic keys
One might use to bleed a radiator.

Post-midnight, REM-induced fluctuations
Bubble and spurge into my psyche
Tinkling like the sound of bubbles trapped
In the central heating system.

The spotlight on top of the Eiffel Tower
Illuminates rusted metal
And the thermostat throws crazy shadows across the wall.

I wonder what it is in my life
Which needs such adjustment
That I should dream so sullenly
Of radiator keys.

Mind you, it was cold
And the last time I was that cold
I was in Paris.

A turn of the screw and things hiss out like air.
A turn of the screw and its all much warmer.
A turn of the screw and the relief is gradual.
Flower-patterned wallpaper and 1950s chintz,
Gurgling pipes, rusted controls, non-traditional plumbing.
Flaking, stippled ceiling, subsidence cracks
Ill-fitting sash windows and damp duvets.
So much work, so much work needs doing
But a turn of the radiator key is the very least I can do.
And it becomes a little warmer
Like my love for you.

Oh! That’s what the dream was about!
(Paignton, 2012)

Doc

Doc and I ran to pee
Before the river ferry left.
We had two minutes at the most.
We aimed for a small copse of trees on the riverbank.
We didn’t realise until we ran into it
That we’d waded into a swamp.
Ideal crocodile territory.
The relief was fleeting.
Bladder pressure replaced by a sudden swarm
Of mosquitoes biting eating feeding,
Slapped blood splotches on itchy exposed skin.
We ran back to the backpacker’s van along
The jungle road, arriving swiftly
To high-fives and exuberant cheers,
But at what price?
Eaten alive in twenty different places at once
And we’d not had time to wash our hands!

But, as Doc, who is wise in outback lore explained,
You never know when you’re going to get another chance
To visit the bathroom.
(Cairns, 2010)

Nowhere Near Magnetic North

Hallowed be thy onion rings.
Now the yoots have big hair.
And you with your M
Increasingly, slaphead : Forlorn.
The line dissecting forehead constant frown.
No wonder they think you’re the boss,
You always look so cross.
Answering the phone with a packet of crippens.
Infatuated with Doctor Hotch!
You hate it when I say ‘calm down’
Or say things like, ‘You only know you’ve got a dose of the Hotch
When you’ve got it’.
Talk about obssessedness!
(Paignton, 2011)

The Jacket of Agnes

I wonder whether she’ll be wearing the same old coat again.
The green felt long one with the big green buttons.
And the compartments in which she keeps
Ocelot.

She looks like a walking
Prairie.
And the coat is slightly hairy.
And she often gets lairy
In her coat, the one that she wears.

It’s got a hood.
The hood isn’t very good.
When she talks she can’t be understood.
On account of the hood.

She looks like a barn.
She looks like she should live in Chard.

The zip zips up but it doesn’t zip down.
The often causes her to frown.
Going up and over in an endless zip
Of zip-pulling rip-cord zip-rip-torn
Zip-a dee doo-dah
Zebadee zip slip knot zip not
Stuck fast zippy zip zip
But in any case she’d got those big green buttons on the front there
That I spoke about earlier in this poem.

She often wears a scarf with the coat.
But the scarf is the same colour and you can’t see it
Like a Patagonian mule falling into a castle moat.
I seldom gloat at her coat.
She’d grab me by the throat.
I’d probably choke.

And the shoulder pads.
Like boulders. Balanced on other boulders.
She once broke the nose of a postman
While turning around a tad too quickly.
Whacking him across the mush with those boulder-like shoulder-pads.
He’s been off work.

I wonder if she’ll be wearing that coat.
It’s grubby at the hem.
And every now and then
She’ll tug on a sleeve
In a kind of compulsive manner.
And its inner lining
Puts me in mind of 17th Century Czechoslovakian porcelain
In that you hardly ever see it
Unless she wears the coat inside out for no reason.

Have you seen her coat?
Have you seen her coaty-coat coat?
Have you seen her coat coat coating coat
Coat coat coatily-throatily
Coat coat coca-cola-coaty coatie coat coatilly coat?
It’s from New Look, or one of those other high street fashion retailers.
(Paignton, 2012)

Llama-Trekking with Kim Jong-Un

I went llama-trekking along the Dorset coast
With Kim Jong-Un.

On the edge of a cliff
With our llamas in tow
He confessed to me he’d never seen an episode
Of The Only Way Is Essex
And it ate at him inside.

I said, now look here, Jong.
You’ve got to be true to yourself
And approach life as if it is a picnic basket
Because one day, when all the mini-pork pies have gone
And the last fondant fancy consumed
You’ll be left with nothing but angry wasps and the washing-up.
Jong just looked perplexed.

The waves broke below us, and the wind whistled
As we made our way over dale and hill
And at one moment we stopped and Kim Jong-un made
As if he meant to reach across and peck me on the cheek,
But then he changed his mind.

The grass was tall and wet with dew
And it made his trackie-bottoms sag.
And he told me that rather than being the
Supreme Commander of the North Korean Army and
Prepared at all moments to strike down with venom
The imperialist West,
He’d rather be bouncing on a trampoline.

We headed back to base, it was late
And our llamas were weary
And Kim Jong-Un was keen to show me
His collection of staplers.
And that’s when I decided that if I were ever going to change the world,
This was the right time.

Jong, said I.
Put down that pot noodle,
Stop fondling that llama,
Grab your anorak and listen.

Should we march in unison,
Should we maim and kill
Should we divide and rule
Should we conquer, should we judge, should we frame,
Will it ever be the same, Kim Jong-Un?

Is it all a silly game, Kim Jong-Un?

Are you a freak or a peacemaker, a geek or a ruthless dictator,
A monosyllabic slab, a leader wrapped in glum,
Are you coming undone Kim Jong-Un?

Are you pliable by nature, a first-rate hater,
A war-widow maker, an atomic risk-taker,
Have you ever seen the sun, Kim Jong-Un?
Would you like a cream bun, Kim Jong-Un?
Is it really so much fun, Kim Jong-Un?

Will you grab at the truth or will you let it fly by you?
Will you reach out towards the absolute screaming necessity of peace?
What do you have to say for yourself, Kim Jong-Un?
What do you have to do?
What does the future in all its
Pounding incessant ever-so fragile easy-gone
Quivering army-painted atomic
Parallelogramatic sensomatic
Button-pressing most-depressing dissent-oppressing
Nation-starving one-heart-beat away from senseless oblivion
Have in store for you?

To which he replied,
Let’s go for an ice cream.
I Am The Wardrobe Man

Big hulking presence.
I loom in your room.
I am the Wardrobe Man.

On uneven floorboards I lean
Ever so slightly at an angle
As if politely implying deafness.
I am the Wardrobe Man.

Fling my doors with gay abandon.
Like arms releasing coats and jackets
Faintly, the smell of mothballs.
I am the Wardrobe Man.

Flat-packed self-built
And not nearly as solid as my
Oak veneer might otherwise indicate.
I am the Wardrobe Man.

Shift me uneasily
It’s a two-man job
To get me moving.
Coming out of the closet that I am anyway.
No-one is in the least surprised.
I am the Wardrobe Man.

Oil my hinges!
Mister Carpenter!
Or else I’ll squeal for England!
Opening my doors
Like the parting of the flasher’s mack,
I am the Wardrobe Man.

I linger
And hide from your acquaintances.
All of your mess, your transgressions
The squeaky scratchy scrape of coat hanger on steel pole
Like the inner protest of one who is so often so profoundly wronged.
I am the Wardrobe Man.

Get those coats out of me!
I can’t stand it any more!
And the chest-of-drawers keeps winking!
I am the Wardrobe Man.
(Brighton, 2011)

Poem

I only asked you to show me round several districts of your home city.
The Icelandic district.
The Museum of Badgers.
The building that’s so tall they don’t let anyone go up it
Unless they’re scared of heights
Because they know that they wont get further than three storeys up.

You showed me the Museum of Dust.
The cremated remains of my Aunt Peggy
Being perpetually sucked up a vacuum cleaner
From a rug, and then the whole lot emptied back on the rug
And the process repeated. How ironic.
She was always complaining about the mess.

You showed me the Tesco’s Metro.
You showed me the World’s Largest Dartboard.
You showed me the atomic bomb shelter
To protect the city’s strangely large giraffe population in the event of nuclear annihilation.
You introduced me to the fishmonger who swears she got a text message from
Vincent Van Gogh.
The blind Morse code operator who swears he transcribed last year’s Booker Prize winning novel by decoding
The twenty-four-hour tap-dancing competition upstairs.

You showed me the bus station and you said.
You see all this?
You see all this?
What’s all this about, then?
What the bloody hell is all this about?

And that night we went to the zither recital,
The duck philharmonic
The wardrobes-on-ice show
And when we went to kiss in the underpass I strangely shied away.

The next morning, when I caught the train
From Platform 3, out of the city and off to somewhere else,
The whole place looked more or less like any other.
(Brighton, 2011)

Mister Purposefully-No-one-Wish-I-Was-Someone-Man

You stride, purposefully
With keys jangling from your belt
Like a caretaker or a taxi driver
Bereft of that which would otherwise mark you out from the moment.
Perhaps you should fashion a natty moustache,
Mister Purposefully-No-one-Wish-I-Was-Someone-Man.

You effect, without reason
The odd opinion, then guffaw
As if it had meant nothing at all.
How apt, Mister Purposefully-No-one-Wish-I-Was-Someone-Man.
That you should disappear in a crowd of your own invention
When you’d rather be chasing squirrels
Across Platform 3 of Exeter St. David’s station,
Mister Purposefully-No-one-Wish-I-Was-Someone-Man.

You tell jokes. You are not a joker.
You tell jokes, and each one falls like a conker
From the horse chestnut of incomprehension.
And those who laugh do so because your flies are undone,
Mister Purposefully-No-one-Wish-I-Was-Someone-Man.

And when you effect a jolly demeanour
No-one thanks you, Mister Purposefully-No-one-Wish-I-Was-Someone-Man.
But when you add a tad grumpy
You encounter a strangely hostile, singularly perplexed and not a little affronted
Grouping of pensioners, who then laugh at you.

Once, Mister Purposefully-No-one-Wish-I-Was-Someone-Man,
You fell down the stairs in KFC.
The perfect somersault,
Your hand-held carton of diet coca cola
Perfecting a neat parabola in the air.
Individual globules of carbonated soft drink crystallised like jewels
Before splattering on the sticky tile floor.
It was the prettiest thing you ever did,
Mister Purposefully-No-one-Wish-I-Was-Someone-Man.
And then, Mister Purposefully-No-one-Wish-I-Was-Someone-Man,
You were fired from your position in the office
For drinking in the work place.
Alas, it was not alcohol on your breath they smelled,
But a lunchtime banana sadly fermenting on the windowsill.

Do you remember, Mister Purposefully-No-one-Wish-I-Was-Someone-Man,
That time you met the perfect woman
And you poured out your heart
And you told her your feelings
And the state of your life
And your sincerest motivations
And your penchant for strawberries
And your fear of death and of dying alone
And your fears in general
And your philosophy that the world exists somehow as a kind of personal affront
And of your years of crippling horrific tedious soul-draining mind-numbing loneliness
And she looked you in the eye,
Mister Purposefully-No-one-Wish-I-Was-Someone-Man
She looked you in the eye and said,
Enthshuldigung, mein Englisch ist nicht so gut.
You hardly saw the funny side, Mister Purposefully-No-one-Wish-I-Was-Someone-Man.

Oh, Mister Purposefully-No-one-Wish-I-Was-Someone-Man.
You looked in the mirror once
And saw me staring back at you.
It freaked you out. And I’ll tell you what.
It freaked me out, too.
(Paignton, 2010)

Poem

If the most obvious explanation
Is the most likely
Then why do I presume the worst?

Apricots.

Admiring the smaller moments over the large,
And always being optimistic,
That all the small moments build up and become the large.

Thunderry showers.

I bland into the blandground,
Overlooked and quite bland
In the blanding bland bland of the bland.

Maroon.

Grabbing at several things simultaneously.
Surreptitiously.
Bland.
Obvious.
Optimistic.

Badminton
Shuttlecock.
(Paignton, 2011)

Frank (1-1=0)

One minus one equals zero.
One times one equals one.
One divided by one equals one.
One plus or minus the square root of one divided by a half percent of one plus one equals one.
And a bit.
One divided by infinity equals nothing but not quite.
One divided by infinity equals almost nothing, very nearly, hardly a speck.
Nothing therefore exists, not even one.
One equals zero plus a smidgen.
(Paignton, 2010)

Karaoke in the Departure Lounge

Deep beneath so many layers
Of postmodernist subterfuge
Like an accidental Wotsit in a packet of Frazzles.
A glistening gem, a rhyming couplet
A misaligned toupee on the crown of a slaphead.
There once there once there once
Was a man from Newton Abbot
Who did nothing funny or clever, nor did anything he do rhyme with Newton Abbot.
Deep beneath so many layers
The poetry,
Like honey dripping from the claws.
Of a monster.
In Poundland.

(Paignton, 2011)

Love Poems Love Poem

When I gaze into your eyes
I think of all those poems written
About gazing into someone’s eyes.

When I stroke your skin
I think of all those poems written
About stroking someone’s skin.

When we make love
I think of Wagner,
Which is a little odd.

When I feel the magic in the air with you
I think of all those poems written
About someone being with someone and feeling the magic in the air with them.

I’m always thinking of different things
More or less connected to what I’m doing.
(Paignton 2012)

Lament of a Noted Brazilian Anglophile

The fire chief of Jakarta,
Solitary in his quieter moments,
Playing chess with the station porters,
And dreaming, dreaming
Of the rural English countryside.

Of barns and church steeples
And farm implements
And hot rampant rumpy pumpy
With a milk maiden while inexplicably
Someone plays bagpipes,
And knights in shining armour
Move like Jagger
In the rural English countryside.

The fire chief of Jakarta
Resplendent in his uniform,
His brass buttons blazing in the hot Brazilian sun
(Or wherever the hell Jakarta is),
Dreams of Newton Abbot
With its market
And its culture
And its skyscrapers
And its metropolitan nuance.
With Robert de Niro in the local Costa Coffee
And crocodiles in the River Teign
And Manchester United playing
On the local village green.

The fire chief of Jakarta
Taking time out from squirting his hose
At a bush fire near a shanty town
To daydream of bowls tournaments
And maypole dancing
And sausage butties
And tractors toiling the soil
And doing all their tractory toil.
And Betjeman playing hopscotch in a pub garden
And Elton John balances a Cornishware jug on his head.

Snap out of it,
Fire Chief!
The favelas are aflame!

He sees
Contrails in the evening sky.
Hot air balloons vibrant in the sun.
Ducks lifting en masse from the village pond.
Hedgerows and barns
Hedgehogs and farms.
Afternoons in Chard.
Broad-meadow swamp-monsters.
Cluster-thatch mis-match cottagey
Cottages two-storey stone-wall
Two-up two-down cottage-type things
Combine harvesters
Harvesters
Harvesters
Harvesters
Harvesters
Harvesters
Harvesters
Harvesters
Harvesters
Harvesters
Combine bloody harvesters!
He sees all of this and he aches within
And his heart pines for the metaphysical
Dread-beat nuance of one who is enraptured, trapped
By his own dark imaginings,
Oh what a fool you are
Fire Chief of Jakarta!

What a fool you are!
With your National Geographic magazines
And you dreams
And those endless TV repeats
Of Last of the Summer Wine
What a blazing fool you are!

Or are you?
I’ve been to Newton Abbot and it sucks.
I like your version much better.
(Exeter, 2012)

Limerick

There once was a man from Aberystwyth
Who was an existentialist.
While eating some ham
He said ‘I am’.

(can’t remember when or where)