Collected Poems Read online

  on toilet paper

  signs a decree

  deporting immigrants en masse.

  Salutes the mob

  then wipes his ass.

  There are fascists

  there are

  fascists

  pretending

  to be

  humanitarians

  like

  cannibals

  on a health kick

  eating only

  vegetarians

  Vegetarians

  Vegetarians are cruel, unthinking people.

  Everybody knows that a carrot screams when grated.

  That a peach bleeds when torn apart.

  Do you believe an orange insensitive

  to thumbs gouging out its flesh?

  That tomatoes spill their brains painlessly?

  Potatoes, skinned alive and boiled,

  the soil’s little lobsters.

  Don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt

  when peas are ripped from the scrotum,

  the hide flayed off sprouts,

  cabbage shredded, onions beheaded.

  Throw in the trowel

  and lay down the hoe.

  Mow no more

  Let my people go!

  There Was a Knock on the Door. It Was the Meat.

  There was a knock on the door.

  It was the meat. I let it in.

  Something freshly slaughtered

  Dragged itself into the hall.

  Into the living-room it crawled.

  I followed. Though headless,

  It headed for the kitchen

  As if following a scent.

  Straight to the oven it went

  And lay there. Oozing softly to itself.

  Though moved, I moved inside

  And opened wide the door.

  I switched to Gas Mark Four.

  Set the timer. And grasping

  The visitor by a stump

  Humped it home and dry.

  Did I detect a gentle sigh?

  A thank you? The thought that I

  Had helped a thing in need

  Cheered me as I turned up the heat.

  Two hours later the bell rang.

  It was the meat.

  Cabbage

  (after ‘I like that stuff’ by Adrian Mitchell)

  Humphrey Bogart died of it

  People are terrified of it

  cancer

  I hate that stuff

  Peter Sellers was laid low with it

  one in five of us will go with it

  heart attack

  I hate that stuff

  Monroe’s life turned sour on it

  Hancock spent his last half hour on it

  sleeping pills

  I hate that stuff

  Jimi Hendrix couldn’t wait for it

  Chemistshops stay open late for it

  heroin

  I hate that stuff

  Mama Cass choked on it

  Blankets get soaked in it

  vomit

  I hate that stuff

  Women learn to live with it

  No one can live without it

  blood

  I hate that stuff

  Hospitals are packed with it

  Saw my mother racked with it

  pain

  I hate that stuff

  Few like to face the truth of it

  We’re all living proof of it

  death

  I hate that stuff

  Schoolkids are forcefed with it

  Cattle are served dead with it

  cabbage

  I hate that stuff

  Soil

  we’ve ignored eachother for a long time

  and I’m strictly an indoor man

  anytime to call would be the wrong time

  I’ll avoid you as long as I can

  When I was a boy we were good friends

  I made pies out of you when you were wet

  And in childhood’s remembered summer weather

  We roughandtumbled together

  We were very close

  just me and you and the sun

  the world a place for having fun

  always so much to be done

  But gradually I grew away from you

  Of course you were still there

  During my earliest sexcapades

  When I roughandfumbled

  Not very well after bedtime

  But suddenly it was winter

  And you seemed so cold and dirty

  That I stayed indoors and acquired

  A taste for girls and clean clothes

  we found less and less to say

  you were jealous so one day

  I simply upped and moved away

  I still called to see you on occasions

  But we had little now in common

  And my visits grew less frequent

  Until finally

  One coldbright April morning

  A handful of you drummed

  On my father’s waxworked coffin

  at last it all made sense

  there was no need for pretence

  you said nothing in defence

  And now recently

  While travelling from town to town

  Past where you live

  I have become increasingly aware

  Of you watching me out there.

  Patient and unforgiving

  Fidgeting with the trees.

  we’ve avoided eachother for a long time

  and I’m strictly a city man

  anytime to call would be the wrong time

  I’ll avoid you as long as I can.

  and the field screamed ‘TRACTOR’

  harvesttime

  the sky

  the inside of a giant balloon

  sky blue

  someone’s yellow finger sticking through

  late birds screech

  wormless

  waiting to be threshed

  within an inch of its life

  the field trembles

  the pain

  ohthepainoh

  the pain

  The Scarecrow

  The scarecrow is a scarey crow

  Who guards a private patch

  Waiting for a trespassing

  Little girl to snatch

  Spitting soil into her mouth

  His twiggy fingers scratch

  Pulls her down on to the ground

  As circling birdies watch

  Drags her to his hidey-hole

  And opens up the hatch

  Throws her to the crawlies

  Then double locks the latch

  The scarecrow is a scarey crow

  Always out to catch

  Juicy bits of compost

  To feed his cabbage patch

  So don’t go where the scarecrows are

  Don’t go there, Don’t go there

  Don’t go where the scarecrows are

  Don’t go, Don’t go…

  Don’t go where the scarecrows are

  Don’t go there, Don’t go there

  Don’t go where the scarecrows are

  Don’t go…

  The Birderman

  Most weekends, starting in the spring

  Until late summer, I spend angling.

  Not for fish. I find that far too tame

  But for birds, a much more interesting game.

  A juicy worm I use as bait

  Cast a line into the tree and wait.

  Seldom for long (that’s half the fun)

  A commotion in the leaves, the job’s half done.

  Pull hard, jerk home the hook

  Then reel him in. Let’s have a look…

  A tiny thing, a fledgling, young enough to spare.

  I show mercy. Unhook, and toss it to the air.

  It flies nestwards and disappears among the leaves

  (What man roasts and braises, he too reprieves).

  What next? A magpie. Note the splendid tail.
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br />   I wring its neck. Though stringy, it’ll pass for quail.

  Unlike water, the depths of trees are high

  So, standing back, I cast into the sky.

  And ledger there beyond the topmost bough,

  Until threshing down, like a black cape, screams a crow!

  Evil creature! A witch in feathered form.

  I try to net the dark, encircling storm.

  It caws for help. Its cronies gather round

  They curse and swoop. I hold my ground.

  An infernal mass, a black, horrific army

  I’ll not succumb to Satan’s origami.

  I reach into my coat, I’ve come prepared,

  Bring out my pocket scarecrow – Watch out bird!

  It’s cross-shaped, the sign the godless fear

  In a thunderflap of wings they disappear.

  Except of course, that one, ungainly kite

  Broken now, and quickly losing height.

  I haul it in, and with a single blow

  Dispatch it to that Aviary below.

  The ebb and flow: magpie, thrush, nightingale and crow.

  The wood darkens. Time to go.

  I pack away the food I’ve caught

  And thankful for a good day’s sport

  Amble home. The forest fisherman.

  And I’ll return as soon as I can

  To bird. For I’m a birderer. The birderman.

  The One About the Duck

  This duck walked into a pub

  and went straight up to the bar.

  The barman made a joke about

  not serving ducks under eighteen

  and tried to shoo it out.

  But the duck would not be shoon.

  It waddled around to the back bar

  quacking as it were last orders

  to the few remaining customers

  in the Sun Inn that afternoon.

  So the barman fetched the barmaid

  who tried to show the duck the door.

  But the duck would not be shown.

  So the barman fetched the manager,

  but the three of them had no luck.

  Seeking guidance from above, the manager

  brought down the landlord and his wife,

  and all five, armed with tea towels,

  cornered the duck between the Ladies

  and the fruit machine and overpowered it.

  They were gentle, they were kind,

  and their concern was for the welfare

  of the web-footed intruder, the green-headed

  alien away from his loved ones

  and longing for home, Quack Quack.

  So the landlord, followed by the landlady,

  the manager, the barman and the barmaid

  carried the duck, swaddled in tea towels,

  across the High Street to the pond

  that lies in the middle of the green.

  ‘There you go, Donald, you naughty duck,’

  said the landlord setting it free.

  And his staff were pleased with their good deed,

  and so, totally unprepared for the commotion

  that followed. The sudden violence and murder.

  Angels at four o’clock. While two fastened

  on to its bill keeping it closed, the others

  pecked and stabbed, turned it over

  and dragged it under. Helpless, the rescuers

  watched it drown in a bullseye of bubbles.

  Stunned, they returned to the Sun

  and tried to make sense of it all.

  Synchronized drowning, bloodlust or justice?

  Heads down, tails up, dabbling free.

  Have you heard the one about the duck? No joke.

  Honey and Lemon

  Jogging around Barnes Common one April morning

  when a rat crossed my path twenty metres ahead.

  A fat, furry fist spelling danger from the tip

  of its pointed nose to the end of its pointing tail.

  Dogs daily, magpies frequently, rats? Never.

  So, curious, I swerved left into the undergrowth

  and took the overgrown path back to where

  the beast (it had doubled in size) had scuttled.

  Three strides along and there it was, barring

  my way like a rival gang of football hooligans.

  Red-eyed and snuffling, PLAGUE written all over it.

  Motionless, I tried to stifle the fear rising within.

  Having read in one of those survival handbooks

  that rats love lemon, I spat the honey and lemon

  pastille I was sucking straight into the bushes,

  and sure enough, the brute dived in after it.

  Unfortunately for the rat, a huge grizzly bear,

  mad for honey, came crashing through the trees

  and tore the creature to pieces with its iron claws.

  By then, I was back on the road sprinting for home.

  Five Ways to Help You Pass Safely through a Dark Wood Late at Night

  1. Whistle a tune your father whistled

  when you were a child

  2. Cross the first two fingers

  of your left hand

  3. If you lose sight of the moon

  hold it in the mind’s eye

  4. Imagine the colours that surround you

  waiting for the first kiss of morning

  5. Keep a Kalashnikov in the glove

  compartment

  a cat, a horse and the sun

  a cat mistrusts the sun

  keeps out of its way

  only where sun and shadow meet

  it moves

  a horse loves the sun

  it basks all day

  snorts

  and beats its hooves

  the sun likes horses

  but hates cats

  that is why it makes hay

  and heats tin roofs

  Trees Cannot Name the Seasons

  Trees cannot name the seasons

  Nor flowers tell the time.

  But when the sun shines

  And they are charged with light,

  They take a day-long breath.

  What we call ‘night’

  Is their soft exhalation.

  And when joints creak yet again

  And the dead skin of leaves falls,

  Trees don’t complain

  Nor mourn the passing of hours.

  What we call ‘winter’

  Is simply hibernation.

  And as continuation

  Comes to them as no surprise

  They feel no need

  To divide and itemize.

  Nature has never needed reasons

  For flowers to tell the time

  Or trees put a name to seasons.

  Sap

  Spring again.

  No denying the signs.

  Rates bill. Crocuses on cue.

  Daffodils rearing up

  Like golden puff-adders.

  Open to the neck, voices

  Are louder. Unmuffled.

  The lid lifted off the sky.

  In the air, suddenly,

  A feeling of ‘je sais quoi’.

  I take the dog into the park.

  Let myself off the lead.

  Conservation Piece

  The countryside must be preserved!

  (Preferably miles away from me.)

  Neat hectares of the stuff reserved

  For those in need of flower or tree.

  I’ll make do with landscape painting

  Film documentaries on TV.

  And when I need to escape, panting,

  Then open-mouthed I’ll head for the sea.

  Let others stroll and take their leisure,

  In grasses wade up to their knees,

  For I derive no earthly pleasure

  From the green green rash that makes me sneeze.

  Green Piece

  Show me a salad

  and I’ll show you a sneeze
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br />   Anything green

  makes me weak at the knees

  On St Patrick’s day

  I stay home and wheeze

  I have hay fever all the year round.

  Broken-down lawnmowers

  Bring me out in a sweat

  A still-life of flowers,

  in oils, and I get

  All the sodden signs

  of a sinus upset

  I have hay fever all the year round.

  A chorus of birdsong

  makes my flesh creep

  I dream of a picnic

  and scratch in my sleep

  Counting pollen

  instead of sheep

  I have hay fever all the year round.

  Summertime’s great

  (except for the sun)

  Holly and mistletoe

  make my nose run

  Autumn leaves and I swoon

  it’s no fun

  Having hay fever all the year round.

  Behemoth

  Be he moth

  or be he not

  He be noth

  ing when I swat

  The Fly

  I’m sorry, God, I cannot love

  The fly

  No matter how I try.

  Floaters, bloated on dead flesh

  And faeces

  Lovers of the stale and the excreted

  A species

  I wish could be deleted.

  I’m sorry, God, but why oh why

  Did you create

  The common fly?

  Spiders I can abide when they approach