a rhyme i wrote to get a kick out of.

The people of Twodee
are small and thin
and obscenely right-angled.

(insert lines
i haven't thought of)
and painfully new-fangled.

They drink all day
and they work all night;

till one day
a nuclear bomb drops,
and they sink out of sight.

i may write something weird like a four-part poem, with a different season for each part. for now, here's summer:

summer’s here when
you’re sated, and you’re sleepy,
and you can’t see further
than the knowing spring and call
of the cuckoo clock. it leaves us
sweet and sweaty
with ants wandering
up our haltered backs and

johnny wearing his girlish shirts,
smoking his cigarettes
for the wind to carry
remnants of love letters, april showers
and citronella-smelling pyjamas at night.

what is this that blurs so beautifully

the servings of blankets and breakfast
and draws faintly the edges of a smile?

a knock on the door
from the girl who can’t spell madness
but sits in a boat
and fishes for your heart.

jack has eyelashes
like soft moths
with prickly feet that tickle
and crawl
and scar him blind.

because of this, he paints pictures
like he makes love, wildly skimming
fingers over white

he turns into skies and skin.

(on apathy)

it’s funny, you say,
how rain has burned
a hole in the asphalt

and funny how
the tall man raped the girl
while reading out stories
from a fairy-tale book

and funny how
war shoots bee-stings
over aprons
and into the hearts of mothers

while the buzz-cut boy
snores with his mouth open
and shoots chinese dragons
into himself.

still, the way your lips crinkle
like a king
tasting blood for the first time

is even funnier to me.

The Mistake

“so i’m standing in this glass elevator,
twenty seconds to heaven. you can just about
see the fluffy pavement and angel hair
that isn’t spaghetti. i’m standing still, because
there’s this mirror in there that could very well
be used for priests to gape at me – i bet they're going
'This must be a mistake. If he so much as
lights a cigarette in here..’ – but then
i see a massive sailing ship. it’s got
a skull and crossbones for a flag
and is bobbing up and down
on some mercury. there’s a girl being sick
but when she sees me she straightens up. i’ve never
seen her before, unless you believe in déjà vu, but
she begins waving madly and shouting something.
you can see her lips forming Os. come to think of it, it
might have been my name. next thing i know,
the white carpet gives in and i’m falling through
a tunnel that doesn’t end
till i'm screaming and sitting up in bed
with that kid Damian poking me.”

Emily

Emily, your days begin quiet, rotting slowly
like bruised peaches
you roll your tongue against. They won’t heal
till you slip off your shoes
and let them rest
in the cotton basket of your white arms.

You’re stained with sweat-droplets
of yellow dew
that look golden if you
narrow your eyes into slits.
You let them. Till they split open to reveal
larvae
that sting your lips red and buzz off
in ungrateful motorcycling swarms.

Soon you’ll be hanging out laundry
on your telephone lines,
while the night crawls as heavy
as the throne of your bed.

The hungry animals at the back of your head.