Tag Archives: Robert Garnham

My Set Last Night in Torquay

Hello, here’s what I got up to in Torquay last night. The poems I performed were:

Badger / EastEnders

I Wish I Lived In A Bungalow

Seaside Soul

Instructions for my Funeral

Light Verse

Made For Each Other

Blue Walnut, April 2024

Ode to a Poet Called ‘Tom’

Let’s face it, there are far too many spoken word artists and poets called Tom. This poem was written about six years ago and it’s about one of them. Or maybe all of them. Or none of them. Anyway, you decide!

It was filmed about six years ago, too, by John Tomkins.

Tom

Chisel-chinned trendy wordsmith
All teeth and tan and hair
That looks like it could be easily quiffable 
So young and clean he's probably easily sniffable 
Thou hipster Ginsberg with a 
Conscience so hot it can
Warm the coldest day with the
Fires of righteousness,
Whose words ooze sensibility,
How pained his outlook, this
Zeitgeist-bending Twitter-trending
Hot young thing, this
New kid on the writer's block, this
Prototype Byron with exuberant facial expressions
This slam-winning rhyme-spinning nonchalant
Thin thin slip of a lad with a gob that spews
Perfect indignation in just the right amounts
With controlled anger
And lots of dramatic




Pauses.

Oh god, I wish he was me.

I wish I could be him, I wish me and him
We're mutually interchangeable,
He's so brilliant, like the brightest object
In the known galaxy, a supernova,
A thousand fires of phosphorus force
Brilliant at what he does,
Brilliant at capturing souls 
Brilliant at poetry
I bet he's brilliant at everything
I bet he's never lost a game of Buckaroo.

He's brilliant and sexy and worthy and oh so right
And sexy and coolly infused into the very now
And sexy and young with the most perfect skin
That he should merely stand at the mic and open
His mouth and utter two syllables for me to become as blustered 
As a Victorian gentleman whose just
Caught his first glimpse of ankle.

And I want to speak to him, I want to commune with him,
I want to tell him: good stuff, man,
You've opened my mind to new possibilities 
And then trampled on it with your youthfulness,
In your trendy converse all stars with no socks,
As you lift the night completely to the very pinnacle
Of absolute truth
And by turns reminded me that my own youthfulness
Is now as relevant and erroneous
As turning up at an otter convention
With a stoat.

Oh, this slippy hippy snake-like lad,
All very subtle and very emotey 
If you didn't know any better
You'd think him a bit scrotey,
So slight and wild in the night,
Afire with the rhythms of poets past,
I want to speak to him
Whisper so subtly into his ear,
Blow me,
Blow me away with your words.
I love your body
I love your body
I love you body
Of work.

And at the break, people are talking,
Eulogising, rhapsodising 
And it's all about him, oh,
For he's so intense and righteous and theatrical
And oh,
He's so vibrant and ravishing and clever 
And oh,
He's so visionary and brash and emotional
And oh,
Not only that but he's got the kind of forearms
That could easily operate a butter churn with
Hardly any trouble at all,
(This gig being in an arts centre in Dorset,
Where butter churns are obviously still a thing).

I follow him,
Through this crowd of admirers and acolytes 
Tiptoeing on the periphery
Of a youthful mini mob
Suddenly aware that I'm the only one there
Who remembers the millennium
Or tamagotchis
Or the 1984 Olympics,

He makes a break for the bogs,
And now we're at neighbouring urinals,
The Fluorescent tubes of this magical wazza 
Gently caressing the soft hairs of his delicate chin,
His eyes scanning the blank tiled wall,
His sensitive nostrils
Taking in the pungent earthy aromas
In a venue where the Patrons are mostly
Vegetarian and as such
Relish the most intriguing bowel movements.
(As for myself, I've never
Had much of a sense of hummus).

His eyes almost feral and yet
With deep intelligence
As he concentrates in the matter at hand
With the same kind of intensity
He demonstrates at the Mic,
His pee stream strong,
And healthy, and forceful, 
It sounds like the Trevi Fountain
And certainly just as aesthetically pleasing.
He doesn't even fart.
Is there anything
He's not good at?

And I want to tell him
That I loved his poems.
All of his poems.
His poem about oxygen
Was such a breath of fresh air,
His poem about raspberries
Was surprisingly bitter,
His poem about the Mona Lisa
Was a masterpiece,
His poem about the perfect serve in tennis,
I couldn't fault it,
His poem about being woken by the smoke alarm,
Such an eye opener,
And I want to tell him
That I got the joke he put in
About de ja vue,
Even though I'd heard it before

And I want to tell him
That he's changed the way I look at the world.
And I want to tell him
That he speaks with a clarity of conscience so concise
He makes the Dalai Lama look like a mardy
Self-centred premiership footballer,
And I  want to tell him
That his voice is so silky smooth,
Listening to him is just like 
Nuzzling a mallard
And I want to tell him
That I'd pay him thirty quid and a packet of Frazzles
For just a very brief snog
And I want to tell him
That his skinny jeans  really
Leave nothing to the imagination.

And I want to tell him
That his work evokes such feelings within,
Destiny and timelessness,
The sheer manic dance of life,
Magic in the mundane,
A pounding euphoric oneness
That weaves us all into that
Inescapable yet brilliant tapestry of life,
This is what I want to tell him,
But instead I stare at his nob.

We wash our hands at the sink
And as I wait for the hand dryer
Which has all the power of
A gnats fart,
I say

Hey, good set,
And he says,
Cheers


Tomas – A Poem About Not Falling In Love

Tomas

I shouldn’t let it happen,
It really is quite stupid.
The way I sense in any man
The beating wings of Cupid.

You came and sat right next to me
And smiled and something passed.
Passengers both on a pleasure boat,
By its nature it couldn’t last.

We spent the day having adventures
In Fjords and on frozen seas,
Coupled by fate in a makeshift date
So relaxed and totally at ease.

I’ve always had a romantic side
And a lust for far-off places.
And a dream to find my one true love
Amid the world’s anonymous faces.

Oh Tomas, there was something strong
Between us, we each were a cure.
But I knew all the time there was something wrong
Love is seldom so convenient or pure.

It wouldn’t have worked, it couldn’t have worked,
There was no sense in trying.
If I were younger I would have stressed,
Said nothing, and spent the whole night sighing.

So I held back and let you go
And pretended it wasn’t worth it.
Sometimes life comes in monstrous waves
And all you can do is surf it.

We arrived at the dock in the harbour,
My heart beat its pumping refrain,
Left the boat on the gangplank together
Knowing I’d never see you again.

Slam Dunk Bill’s Big Hair, Weston-Super-Mare

Poem

Biscuit donkey chocolate eclair.
Weston-Super-Mare.
Traffic light pomegranate Yogi Bear
Weston-Super-Mare.
Slam dunk Bill’s big hair.
Weston-Super-Mare.
Almost bought a pair of trousers there.
Weston-Super-Mare.
Don’t look Timmy it’s rude to stare.
Weston-Super-Mare.
Weston-Super-Mare.
Weston Super, Weston Super, Weston-Super-Mare.

Guess where the villain has his secret lair.
Weston-Super-Mare.
Debonair kitchenware chemical warfare
Weston-Super-Mare.
Can I take your photo? Don’t you dare.
Weston-Super-Mare.
I lost my virginity there.
Where?
Bournemouth.
Who wants to be a millionaire?
Weston-Super-Mare.
Have you got a ticket pay your excess fare
Weston-Super-Mare.
Don’t move you’ve got something crawling in your hair.
Weston-Super-Mare.
Weston-Super-Mare.
Weston Super Weston Super Weston-Super-Mare.

Underwear everywhere ready to wear 
Weston-Super-Mare
Thoroughfare deckchair devil may care
Weston-Super-Mare
Solitaire questionnaire update on your software
Weston-Super-Mare
Can I take your photo? Don’t you dare.
Weston Super Mare
My sheds in a state of disrepair
Weston super mare
Loose floorboard on the twenty third stair
Weston super mare
Elton John once sneezed on the mayor
Weston-Super-Mare.
Weston-Super-Mare.
Weston Super Weston Super Weston-Super-Mare.
Weston super mare (oi!)
Weston super mare (oi!)
Weston Super Weston Super Weston-Super-Mare.


Tell Her I Said ‘Hello’

Poem

I was chatting to a friend.
Yes, I have friends.
And this one was called Adam.
And I said to this friend, this Adam,
I’m off to see Vanessa tomorrow,
Because she’s another friend,
And Adam said,
Tell her I said hello.

What am I, I thought,
Your hello outsourcing service?
Offering hellos by proxy
Retrieved with none of the actual feeling
Of a proper hello?
I thought, I didn’t actually say this
Because I’m not like that,
I thought, if you want to say hello
So badly,
Then bloody well say hello yourself.
But I was off to see Vanessa.
And Adam said,
Tell her I said hello.

But he didn’t actually say hello.
He just said,
Tell her I said hello.
He didn’t say,
Hello,
That was for Vanessa.
Or, hello, that’s what I’d say
If I saw Vanessa.
And you can tell her that
I’ve just said hello,
Which strictly speaking would have been lying,
But anyway I said I would.

Vanessa was in a real crabby mood.
Her latest money-making venture,
Selling fake moustaches to people
As they enter the sexual health clinic,
Had failed,
Because as a society we are more open now
About such things,
And anyway,
The police had told her to move along,
And we had a row,
And she told me that
I was about as usual as an
Air vent on a submarine,
And I told her that if intelligence
Skipped a generation
Then her kids would be geniuses
And she said
That I couldn’t possibly be as daft
As I looked,
And I said up yours,
Because I’d run out of insults,
And then I said,
By the way, Adam says hello.

I saw Adam the next day.
Did you say hello?, he asked.
I said hello, I said.
And next time you want to say hello, I said,
Don’t get me to say hello, I said.
Go to the person you want to say hello to,
And say hello, I said.
And he said,
Did she say hello?
And I said,
Actually, no, she didn’t.
Robert Garnham, performance poet

An Ode To Simon Reeve

Poem

I stepped into a tropical bar.
Simon Reeve was there in a slow dance,
And I lost myself to his floppy fringe
Whose sweat-soaked flappy fronds would
Tickle my blushing cheeks,
Whose stubble scraped at the twilit skies
Like a cat’s claws on anaglypta,
Whose come-to-bed eyes betrayed none
Of the entitlement of his classical features
But a yearning for a sweetness so virile
That he could have been a treacle tart
And I ached, how I ached,
To be the custard.

Backpack merely decorative,
Naive tone a faux Theroux,
Poor man’s Palin,
Cargo-trousered doyen of sand dunes
And jungle trains,
No armchair droner he,
Riven with Reevisms, river crossings,
Barrier reef rovings,
Now gyrating for my pleasure in the aptly named
Club Flamingo.

Simon Reeve whose dimpled smile
Hauls in the night like a Titicatan net-lobber,
Whose unblemished skin betrays the
Goodness of various restorative unguents,
Whose manly chin is jutted like the
Bulbous bow of a speeding Shinkansen 
And probably twice as purposeful,
Whose sensitive eyebrows are seldom parabolic,
Yet neither do they quiver intense for
Reevsie is an empathic soul,
Whose backpack is admittedly superfluous,
Whose torso is Michaelangeloian in its
Sculpted accommodation of his lean yet
Muscular frame on whose bounty I would
Willingly consume a quadruple-decker cheeseburger
Dipping a chip in a reservoir of mayonnaise
Stored for convenience sake in his belly button.

Action man for aunties.
Secret poet banging sand out his boots.
Earnest and eager though neither over with either.
Mortal enemy of Professor Brian Cox.
No world-weary Whicker he, but a clamorous compassion
And the kind of face
That would make even Vladimir Putin
Contemplate a five minute fumble
In the broom cupboard.

Simon Reeve, whose tousled locks hold
Within their definitely un-dyed verdantness 
A vitality that would put Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson to shame,
Whose rich deep Colombian coffee coloured eyes 
Might penetrate x-ray-like beneath layers so effectively
As to pass right through the earth’s core every time
He bends down to pat a puppy.
Whose nostrils hardly flare.
Whose afterthought goatee clings on like
A countryside hilltop copse stunted
By the choking emissions from a nearby pig farm
Yet in whose branches barn owls berate the night
With their haunted warbling,
Whose luscious lips have tempted many a plastic surgeon
To bemoan the artifice of their own creations
And now before is delicate tongue-moistened plumpness,
Whose sturdy shoulders in their perfect powerful paralleogramatic 
Precision
Would easily raise a live rhinoceros clear out
Of the Serengeti mud hole
Into which it had stumbled probably distracted
By the beauty of Simon Reeve’s face in the first place.

And I,
Simon Reeve,
I am that rhinoceros
And this ain’t no mud hole,
It’s the Club Flamingo
And our song has now ended
And our dance has now ended
And you’ve picked up your backpack
Which definitely doesn’t contain
Just a couple of pillows to make it look full for the cameras,
And off you go.

Torquay 2, The Other Team 2 – A Poem About Torquay United FC

Torquay, 2 – The Other Team, 2

Three hundred or so low guttural individual voices
Combine into a cohesive whole, a chorus of
Feral anticipation as these custard coloured titans
Skip on to the pitch, the first among them kind of
Punches limply through a paper hoop
Emblazoned with their team sponsor’s logo,
J. Arthur Bowyer’s Synchro-Boost Houseplant Compost,
Three half-hearted palm slaps and then the paper gives way,
These athletic specimens of masculinity and matching socks,
Shiny blue polyester shorts a-gleam under the spotlights,
Back slaps and star jumps, half-hearted jogging,
While the opposing team, who must have had an
Awfully long bus ride, kind of slouch on to the field,
Mooching along the sides of the pitch like slugs around lettuce.

I’d brought a book to read assuming there would be seats.
Instead I was pressed up against the lanky frame of an
Ever so friendly thought unusually potty-mouthed
Scrote of a lad whose replica custard coloured shirt
Had last year’s sponsor, McClintock’s Polystyrene Coving Ltd.,
And who suggested at top column that the home team
Might like to consider breaking the fucking legs of the opposition.
Someone then tried to start a chant going,
‘Oh we do like to beat them beside the seaside!
We’re gonna beat you by two or three!’
But it kind of got drowned out
To a chant of ‘Put them all in intensive care!
Put them all in intensive care!
Put them all in intensive care!
Captain Ollie’s got great hair!’

I have come with a friend who’s there for the football
But also to show me the football and he
Made a kind of grimace when I said I’d brought a book.
The home team did some warm up exercises.
‘They’re dancing!’ I said, ‘it’s all a bit camp, isn’t it?’
Number 32 is just my type, bleach blond hair, stubble,
Long legs and snake hips.
‘Coooo-eeeee! Over here! Yoooo-hooooo!’
My pal said, ‘He’s on loan from Bournemouth’.
I said, ‘That’s okay, I’d give him back in one piece’.

The stadium announcer extols the virtues of both teams
And attests to the veracity of
J. Arthur Bowyer’s Synchro-Boost Houseplant Compost,
And the game begins, number 32’s elegant fingers splayed
As he dribbles the ball, like he’s a ballet dancer,
Or a gymnast balancing on a beam, though even
The home team audience yells that he’s a useless
Time wasting tossbag who gets the ball and does fuck all,
Go back to Bournemouth you useless waste of space.
He’s got lovely eyes.

The ground rumbles and thuds as they race from one end
To the other, kicking up clods of grass and winning
The applause of the audience who shout encouragement,
These lads in custard who aim at the goal at the other end,
Someone misses a sitter, someone else scuffs it,
And then the ball goes in the corner and two opposing players
Prance and dance around it like Torville and Dean.
My eyes kind of wander off to the other side
Where twenty or so or the away team supporters chirrup
And you can just make out the faded lettering of
Last years sponsor showing through under a new coat of paint,
McClintock’s Polystyrene Coving Ltd. Is Better Than Any Competition.
Only the word ‘tit’ is still showing.

My pal has already told me in advance
The skill of number 10, whose speciality is
Less the sublime and precocious nature of his craft,
More his knack for falling over at just the right moment,
Now he goes down like a sack of spuds and the
Audience erupts, apparently this is a good thing,
He’s allowed to aim a ball at the keeper and boom,
In it goes, I almost spill my cup of tea
As I’m jostled and the lad next to me flings
His arms around my neck, jumps up and down, the
Tea oscillates as I breathe in his Lynx Africa antiperspirant,
I must say I enjoy it a lot.
And now I want number 10 to fall over again.

Wouldn’t you know it, he does, never fails to disappoint,
Fortune smiles twice in the low setting sun,
Achilles in his death throes, Icarus mid melt,
Our hero is downfallen and rolling in the mud like a hippo,
The ref’s cheek bones inflate as his blows his whistle.
Boom, scores! The audience is enraptured once again,
Another clingy embrace of Lynx Africa,
I’m a cuppa carrying eucalyptus and he’s my own personal koala,
Number 32 looks down wistfully as if jealous, I hope,
Oh, I hope, of me and my new found tame delinquent
Who sips a surreptitious beer from a paper bag and
Chinks against my half spilled Darjeeling, cheers!
Caught up in the joy of the moment I attempt to start a chant
Based on the third movement of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony
But it doesn’t take hold.

Really, I’m only here for my pal who’s brought me along.
This is his culture and I’m an interloper.
But I want to show that I understand life
Beyond the cliche, broaden my mind and experience
Every nuance of our shared cultural history.
‘We’re winning ‘, he says during the interval
As we queue for pies sold from a shed
Next to the unoccupied press box.
‘Well, they are’, I point out, ‘We’re just watching’.
I’m taking him to a drag show next weekend.

And then the announcer wants us all to sing happy birthday
For Little Liam, whose favourite player is number ten.
And Little Jimmy, whose favourite player is number ten,
And Little Jack, whose favourite player is number ten,
And he reminds us that we can all vote for the
J. Arthur Bowyer’s Synchro-Boost Houseplant Compost
Man of the Match, which is usually won by number ten.
‘I’d like to vote for number 32’, I say, perhaps too loudly,
And everyone around me laughs and says how funny,
They love my sense of irony.

Two more goals soon after the interval.
Perhaps the audience has tired itself out,
I’m the only one who seems excited, and my new friend
In the McClintock shirt hardly seems inclined at all
To repeat his usual celebratory hijinx, no doubt
Enervated by his enthusiasm and the two litre bottle of cider
Stuffed down the front of his trackie bottoms,
And when the ref calls a halt to the show I pat
My pal on the back and ask whether four nil in some kind
Of club record.
It was two all, he says, they switched ends.
They did what?
Why didn’t the announcer explain this
Before I got excited over nothing?

Oh, this communal kickabout, this colossal crowd clapping
This unified oneness this matey definitely not homoerotic bonding,
This celebration of the hunter’s skill this
All-encompassing rough and tumble this slippery sport a spurt on the turf
With spurious curiosities this worship of the physical
This proof of prayer this spectacle this weird excuse
To suddenly bellow ‘Nice tackle!’ and no one bats an eyelid
This playing out of certain urges but would they ever let me
Join in? No, probably not, and number ten has got mud all over him.

What did you think?, my pal asks
As we file like clocked-off factory workers
Into the adjacent streets, not that he’s interested really,
Immediately he then adds, shall we get some chips?

I think of number 32
Isolated
In the dressing room.

Cul-de-sac : A Poem

Cul-de-sac

No sense of closure from that dream last night.
You were back and dancing sublime and you said
That those who live in cul-de-sac places
Feel nothing but anger when the dreams refuse to come.

You would never have been so philosophical in real life,
Though we both lived in dead-end places,
Cul-de-sacs leading nowhere and bungalows of derision.
There’s no place to go when there’s only one way in.

I’d like to be more adventurous and
I'd like to take chance.
I’d like to live, but just being with you
Was adventure enough, and you said that you needed more
Than love and security, and that defined our difference.

Only the one way in, and one way out, and you felt
Hidden away from the world, and your dreams were on a
Larger canvas, a widescreen for the soul,
You said my focus was too narrow, that I was

Easily satisfied with the status quo, which is to say,
The comforts of a life hidden from potential harm.
And yet I’d dream the same dreams as any damn fool,
And I’d write them in a notebook, closure or not.

And now those very same dreams exclude a man
Who never sought finality. I look out at my cul-de-sac,
Hidden off from the main road where dreams often die,
Narratives which end far too neatly for my tastes.

Just for a minute I’d like to fall asleep and dream
Of neat resolutions, and maybe from time to time,
You’ll pop up and say hello, and wave, and we’ll be
Ever so cosy in our cul-de-sac, with the world calling,
But we won’t answer, and we’ll both be laughing.

No sense of closure from that dream last night.
No sense of closure from that dream last night.

‘Roswell was an Insurance Job’ : A Message from a Space Alien for the Human Race



Greetings puny earth people.
I come in peace.
Take me to you leader!
Actually, maybe not,
I’ve seen him in action.
Take me to the most
Significant person,
According to your Earth transmissions
Take me to Rylan!

I am Zignor,
Of the planet Pupaluvious 5,
Which orbits a star
Which until recently was called
PUV 621R
But
Thanks to someone on your planet
Buying its name as a fiftieth birthday present
It’s now called
Barry Jenkins.
All hail Barry Jenkins!
May death come quickly to his enemies.

I arrived just after lunch
And I shall now attempt
What appears to be your common greeting
As it was the first thing said to me
When I arrived.
‘You can’t park that there, mate’.

I have come to spread a
Message of peace
And if anyone says I haven’t then I’ll
Punch their lights out.
I saw your planet from
Across the vast emptiness of space
While lying in a field on Pupaluvious 5
And my first thought was,
Oh, I’d love to go there
And my second thought was
Someone’s nicked my tent.

Pupaluvious 5 has eight moons.
You’ve only got the one.
Half of it was in shade tonight.
I suppose
It’s just a phase it’s going through.

Your puny planet is
Ripe for alien invasion.
We just don’t want to.
It’s a sleepy backwater
With terrible parking.
It’s kind of the solar system’s equivalent to
Newton Abbot.
And every time we visit
We feel we have to have a damn good shower.
As I say,
It’s the solar system’s equivalent to
Newton Abbot.
It smells a bit.
Newton Abbot.

I suppose on your planet
I’m known as an ET.
Oh look, I heard someone say just now,
An ET.
Someone else said,
What’s ET short for?
And he replied,
Because he’s got little legs.

I offered to take him
To see Jupiter.
He replied that if he wanted
To see a gas filled giant,
We’d visit his Uncle Darren.

But here I am,
I come in peace.
Here I am
Don’t call the police.
I’ve travelled far
In an interdimensional zone
On a spaceship made for one
I was very alone
I tried telepathy on Donald Trump.
All I got was
The engaged tone.

I leave you now, my interstellar friends.
Once again, sorry about those
EarthLink satellites I hit on the way down.
Roswell was an insurance job.
Let me finish with this saying
From my home world,
‘Flooga zappy looppa-looga’,
Which roughly translate as
‘Geoff, your
Tentacles are showing’.
Doreen,
Beam me up, Doreen!