You knew I’d worm my way inside.
Coffee? Somehow I feel obliged.
After all it’s cold out.
I stomp the soil and snow from my shoes
On the doormat,
Then sprawl out comfy on the sofa
As you plop in lumps of sugar.
No milk, sorry.
You bend down to present the dirty brew.
I take it, meet your eyes, and then you know.
You slide on like a squid, enveloping and slow,
My bellowing hands swallowed by a wall of marshmallow.
It takes a while to find the hole;
An awkward one-handed amateur fiddle,
And an absent stranglehold.
You cram yourself in, face above me white and taut,
Frantic buttocks beating like a moth at a light,
Pumicing breasts with your chin
Until eyes thank God and teeth clamp closed –
I unload.
Off I roll, but you won’t let it lie
And with the knife that cut the cake I drive
Your lustreless face to ecstasy.
Your juices glove me, overflow,
Assault the front-room floor.
23/07/00
First published in The Frogmore Papers, 03/04
About Me
Thursday 30 April 2009
Dignity
After the decision is made, the first thing that’s done
is to thumb the Yellow Pages, which discreetly
cross-references to clinics. Not so bashful,
the double-page spread bulges with boxes; each proclaims
Abortion
in bold.
You are informed by the nurse that you can’t milk it –
back to work the same day. Then
you wait
in a basement lined with women on plastic chairs
who intermittently shuffle to the toilet,
fidget with their hair, or ferret in their bags for
something lost they won’t find there, each crushed
by the weight of her own fecundity.
My turn.
I lie like an up-turned beetle,
legs dangling untidily from tethered ankles.
The Doctor broaches my transposed squat
to numb my cervix with a glot of cream on a spatula.
Then he passes on to whoever is next in the
production line of exposure, leaving me
marooned.
He’s back and
there’s no overture, just
the clang of a metal dish
by my ungainly gape then
a slick excavation like
the final scrawp of the bowl before
you lick the spoon.
I try to squeeze
all my attention upon
the tinny emanation – I think
it’s Lionel Ritchie – and
not on my contraction.
Not the contraction.
He hums along as he makes
a second pass I’ve been alone
with you inside my mind my
outraged womb coaxed
to expel too soon
Hello… is it me you’re looking for
and then a third.
And then it’s done.
A couple of Paracetemol and I’m on my way,
blinking in the daylight, wondering on the bus
if they took an important piece of me?
03/03
is to thumb the Yellow Pages, which discreetly
cross-references to clinics. Not so bashful,
the double-page spread bulges with boxes; each proclaims
Abortion
in bold.
You are informed by the nurse that you can’t milk it –
back to work the same day. Then
you wait
in a basement lined with women on plastic chairs
who intermittently shuffle to the toilet,
fidget with their hair, or ferret in their bags for
something lost they won’t find there, each crushed
by the weight of her own fecundity.
My turn.
I lie like an up-turned beetle,
legs dangling untidily from tethered ankles.
The Doctor broaches my transposed squat
to numb my cervix with a glot of cream on a spatula.
Then he passes on to whoever is next in the
production line of exposure, leaving me
marooned.
He’s back and
there’s no overture, just
the clang of a metal dish
by my ungainly gape then
a slick excavation like
the final scrawp of the bowl before
you lick the spoon.
I try to squeeze
all my attention upon
the tinny emanation – I think
it’s Lionel Ritchie – and
not on my contraction.
Not the contraction.
He hums along as he makes
a second pass I’ve been alone
with you inside my mind my
outraged womb coaxed
to expel too soon
Hello… is it me you’re looking for
and then a third.
And then it’s done.
A couple of Paracetemol and I’m on my way,
blinking in the daylight, wondering on the bus
if they took an important piece of me?
03/03
Diseased
It took everything I could have been. It took me.
At university, It ate my brain. They listened politely
While I tried to explain, but everyone was a bit embarrassed
And surprised to recall
Ambulances in secondary school.
They want to push me into the black hole –
Psychiatry, who sucks in all that isn’t His,
And swarms like vultures to pick the flesh from my brains.
When I was little and nobody looked, He saw me
And was my companion.
A twinge here, a stab there, the odd collapse
Was not strange, it was what I knew.
Familiarity breeds – after all, Mars is home for Martians.
I was six when He hollowed me out and moved in;
I was too small for him, then.
Now I seem to contain Him, somehow
Nothing gets out, or at least
Nobody sees,
Just the peak of permanent pregnancy
That dwarves foothill breasts in profile;
Not the pressure that leaves my panting lungs
No space to inflate.
Anyway, as time went by, he moved up and broke
Into my skull and ate my brain,
Scooped big bear pawfuls, smacked His chops,
And left the bees in my head with the rest.
And he gave me, or did I give him?
My own little monstrous envy, oh how it must be
To be at home in a body; to have been me.
Now I live to serve his needs.
And they won’t see.
In science, bees can’t fly .
In 20 years, He’ll be a disease.
In 20 years, it’ll be too late for me.
At university, It ate my brain. They listened politely
While I tried to explain, but everyone was a bit embarrassed
And surprised to recall
Ambulances in secondary school.
They want to push me into the black hole –
Psychiatry, who sucks in all that isn’t His,
And swarms like vultures to pick the flesh from my brains.
When I was little and nobody looked, He saw me
And was my companion.
A twinge here, a stab there, the odd collapse
Was not strange, it was what I knew.
Familiarity breeds – after all, Mars is home for Martians.
I was six when He hollowed me out and moved in;
I was too small for him, then.
Now I seem to contain Him, somehow
Nothing gets out, or at least
Nobody sees,
Just the peak of permanent pregnancy
That dwarves foothill breasts in profile;
Not the pressure that leaves my panting lungs
No space to inflate.
Anyway, as time went by, he moved up and broke
Into my skull and ate my brain,
Scooped big bear pawfuls, smacked His chops,
And left the bees in my head with the rest.
And he gave me, or did I give him?
My own little monstrous envy, oh how it must be
To be at home in a body; to have been me.
Now I live to serve his needs.
And they won’t see.
In science, bees can’t fly .
In 20 years, He’ll be a disease.
In 20 years, it’ll be too late for me.
Cat
So black
When he shuts his eyes
All black
An absence
God forgot to colour in.
A Galactic density
Whirled
Asleep
In an armchair.
But he’s a fraud.
From the hairs left
In the dint
on my Black velvet
Dress where he was
Nap against nap
You can see he’s dark brown.
06/03
When he shuts his eyes
All black
An absence
God forgot to colour in.
A Galactic density
Whirled
Asleep
In an armchair.
But he’s a fraud.
From the hairs left
In the dint
on my Black velvet
Dress where he was
Nap against nap
You can see he’s dark brown.
06/03
Creating the World
I have written six poems this week.
Also,
It has been six days since I shat.
I am creating the world.
My belly grows and I get further away.
Revolt.
Fill the page fill the page fill the page
17/11/06
Also,
It has been six days since I shat.
I am creating the world.
My belly grows and I get further away.
Revolt.
Fill the page fill the page fill the page
17/11/06
Circumspection
I couldn’t say what it was
That made a little girl
Shut up.
Some are maybe born quiet.
Stuff slides off their stillness
Because it’s natural, not a process
Of internalising, cramming, keeping, and cherishing it
All. Becoming denser;
A black whole. A process
That began
With simple circumspection
And ends
With cannibalism;
The corrosive cargo has finished the voice and now swallows
You from the inside out – and it ends
With nothing.
22/11/03
That made a little girl
Shut up.
Some are maybe born quiet.
Stuff slides off their stillness
Because it’s natural, not a process
Of internalising, cramming, keeping, and cherishing it
All. Becoming denser;
A black whole. A process
That began
With simple circumspection
And ends
With cannibalism;
The corrosive cargo has finished the voice and now swallows
You from the inside out – and it ends
With nothing.
22/11/03
The Curse of the Adjective
I hate them.
They lurk and tempt me
To write badly.
Adjectives:
They’re fucking…
17/11/06
They lurk and tempt me
To write badly.
Adjectives:
They’re fucking…
17/11/06
A walk after lunch in the snow
The world accepts the blizzard’s mute,
Complicit and quiescent.
The ghost of a bird. Creak underfoot.
The warmth and parp are stolen
Even from my redolent fart.
2004
Complicit and quiescent.
The ghost of a bird. Creak underfoot.
The warmth and parp are stolen
Even from my redolent fart.
2004
Ablutions
a.m. the sink
Turn on the taps. Put in the plug.
Adjust flow until temperature is just so.
Examine hollows beneath eyes in mirror.
When basin is full, stop the water.
Rub on soap and ablute vigorously.
After washing, apply make-up – remember those bags –
and do note: less is more.
p.m. the bath
Turn on the taps. Put in the plug.
Select comfortable temperature and proceed
to remove, and fold, clothes. Memorize reflection.
N.B. Do not allow to overflow – be mindful of the clean-up
tomorrow. Climb in. Recline.
To prevent mess on the tiles, keep limbs confined.
Open vein lengthways and allow to drain till hollow.
06/03
Turn on the taps. Put in the plug.
Adjust flow until temperature is just so.
Examine hollows beneath eyes in mirror.
When basin is full, stop the water.
Rub on soap and ablute vigorously.
After washing, apply make-up – remember those bags –
and do note: less is more.
p.m. the bath
Turn on the taps. Put in the plug.
Select comfortable temperature and proceed
to remove, and fold, clothes. Memorize reflection.
N.B. Do not allow to overflow – be mindful of the clean-up
tomorrow. Climb in. Recline.
To prevent mess on the tiles, keep limbs confined.
Open vein lengthways and allow to drain till hollow.
06/03
The African Burial Ground
to those who built Manhattan
everything depends
upon
the black en-
slaved
paved with lash
scars
beneath the white
money
20/05/03
First published in Orbis May '04
Shortlisted for Montreal Poetry Contest 2015
I don’t usually expand on my work, but for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, I’m inclined to make an exception in this case. It’s one of my favourite pieces.
In short, I was inspired by a fascinating documentary on the recently discovered African burial ground in Manhattan. It seemed a really good tool to highlight the ridiculousness of society’s attitudes to race and immigration, underpinned as they are by flawed ideas about who ‘belongs’ and who’s an incomer. I was excited by the physical presence of remains showing people of African origin to have been in the US from the very moment Europeans were.
This I collided with the iconic William Carlos Williams poem ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’; kind of an American poetic institution:
Williams’s writing is textbook perfection - delicate juxtaposition of detail; first line emphasizing the importance of the precisely focussed image; the mirroring of the wheelbarrow’s actual use in the language; the line breaks controlling how we see the scene, mimicking the manner in which our brain attends visually, etc. 1
However, I have reservations about the brand of realism showcased in this type of work. I admire the virtuosic precision, which appeals to my own slightly autistic tendencies, but I am wary of an inherent self-referential vacuousness. Poetry that is about poetry. Or even writing that is geared purely to show how well you write, when what is written - the content - is weightless. It’s a concern that pops up with regularity in my work (Malkovich, Real Big Poems, and Behind the White Picket Fence immediately come to mind) and also dovetails with my further post-structuralist worries regarding language, communication, and epistemology (poncy language aside, that’s a wee mission statement for another day!).
I am aware that I am consistent in my inconsistency. I am so seduced by ideas and conceptual celtic knots. I take such pleasure in the craftsmanship of a philosophy - how is it rendered? How have they subverted the medium with which the idea is transmitted? How beautifully is it expressed? How many layers of the onion can I peel? That is what has always delighted me in writing, and in intellectual pursuits. It’s like a game. But it is belied by a nagging anxiety I can’t ignore - is there substance? Is there a wisdom that can be revealed in this manner, or do we beaver with language and concept in a universe that is frustratingly parallel yet never intersects. In truth, I have come to suspect that all art is only ever about its creator and art itself and, as artists, strive as we might to communicate actual content, we can only fool ourselves in this regard. What I put into the world may be a political piece on racism - what the world receives can only be an attitude to politics and to art, embodied in an offering.
Thus, in this poem, I attempt a little artistic rebellion against my own reluctantly-held belief, and deceive myself that I make a meaningful point. (I do keep writing my futile little poems with tragic disregard that they can’t escape their medium and limitations. But how else am I to speak to you?)
Anyway - the poem references the Williams word for word, taking the same degree of precision and accuracy, a respectful pastiche, but with the (attempted? deluded?) addition of meaningful content outwith the self-referential context of writing, making the political point about African American ‘belonging’ (as well as expressing the wider concerns about the nature of art and poetry expressed above).
(I find the above process of expressing these kind of ideas longhand tortuous and painful. I still have to miss out a lot. And at the end I realize how dismally my inarticulate prose fails at communicating. Is it any wonder I express myself in poetry? I can distill worlds of complexity to a tiny near-perfected nugget, just as the ideas are in my head, before I bastardize them by rendering to a communicable medium. The problem is, unless I build a window and explain one from time to time, I suspect they’re hopelessly opaque to you, the world of minds at large...)
1 nods to Matthew Sweeney and John Hartley Williams, whom I am sure I must have paraphrased here.
Here’s the gist of the documentary about the recently-discovered African burial ground in Manhattan:
Most people are unaware of the city’s history of slavery, and the discovery of the burial ground hightlighted that this wasn’t just something that happened in the South, and not just on the plantations, but in the North, and in the city. The black presence in NY goes back right to the very beginning, indeed to before it was NY. They were there building a society and were essential in building the economy.
Many black people are made to feel as if they have no roots in NY, or N America. In fact they were here from the start; they were the early builders of many US cities. Ironically, the first immigrant to the shores of Manhattan was a black slave, dropped off by the Dutch to claim the land (it became New Amsterdam).
It was, from the beginning, built for profit. The Dutch West Indian Company came to trade for furs. The marshy wilderness was hard to cultivate and labour was in short supply, so they imported slaves. Black slaves working for the Dutch West Indian Company could be granted freedom when they had worked for 20 years, or they could gain it by fighting against the Indians – then they were given a small plot of land. For a period of time there was a small population of free black people. However, the British soon put paid to that when they took control (rebranding the city New York), requiring the slave trade for their expanding empire.
The sheer number of slaves in NY made their masters nervous. This fear led to the slave codes, which were laws designed to control every aspect of a slave’s life. One of the harshest of these laws forbid enslaved Africans to be buried in the graveyard of Trinity Church in Manhattan (even though they had built it!). This was when the African burial ground was established. The enslaved Africans could not hope for freedom through Christianity, either. The Colonies were always debating whether slaves should be baptized. Some felt that if they were read the ‘right passages’ of the bible this would be a good thing – they could be encouraged to obey their masters. Others felt that reading the bible may be problematic – what if they stumble across the story of Moses? There was much legal debate about this in the 1670s-90s. Eventually it was written into law that the baptism of a slave did not alter their status. By baptising them, you were not making them Christians, but ‘Christianizing’ them – teaching them about the role of Christianity, yet they could not partake of it. There was now the situation whereby white Christians could own black Christians as slaves. (Note that Christianity is not the distinguishing element here – it is not religion but race. And gotta love self-serving legal semantics: ‘Christianizing’, indeed!)
Under the Dutch, slaves could work their way to freedom, be granted land, and even be buried in Dutch churches. But under the English, slavery became institutionalized, and outlets to freedom were blocked.
By the late C18th, almost half the white households in NY had slaves. Then came 1776, the American revolution, and the Declaration of Independence. It speaks of freedom for all Americans – all Americans except slaves, that is. Jefferson said “All men are created equal”, but what he meant was that he believed in equality for white men.
Black people were caught up in the war from the very beginning. The British were quick to offer slaves their freedom if they would fight for the king. George Washington, the commander of the patriot forces didn’t want black in his army. He noticed whites and blacks mixing together as soldiers in the opposing forces and could not accept this. He pushed for congress to ban blacks from the military. As the war went on, Washington’s objections were overtaken by the desperate need for manpower – freedom was on offer to any slave who joined the patriot cause. So there were blacks fighting on both sides. Washington’s decision to let black men join up was an important tactical turning point in the war – the patriots began to take the upper hand. Without black soldiers, Washington would not have won the war.
Slavery ended in NY in 1827, after the brutal civil war. The African burial ground had continued to be used until 1792. By the early 1800s, the cemetery was lost under the new metropolis and the black community was pushed further North to Harlem. There are no monuments to the people who built this city. There are statues of George Washington, and the founding fathers, and early white settlers, etc. Artist Frank Bender is making [has probably now made] a memorial sculpture dedicated to those who lay in the African burial ground, using facial reconstruction of 3 of the skulls to form the basis of the work. It will be put in the building that now stands on top of where the bones were found. The human remains are being put in coffins from Ghana and buried behind the building in the small portion of the African burial ground that still remains.
everything depends
upon
the black en-
slaved
paved with lash
scars
beneath the white
money
20/05/03
First published in Orbis May '04
Shortlisted for Montreal Poetry Contest 2015
I don’t usually expand on my work, but for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, I’m inclined to make an exception in this case. It’s one of my favourite pieces.
In short, I was inspired by a fascinating documentary on the recently discovered African burial ground in Manhattan. It seemed a really good tool to highlight the ridiculousness of society’s attitudes to race and immigration, underpinned as they are by flawed ideas about who ‘belongs’ and who’s an incomer. I was excited by the physical presence of remains showing people of African origin to have been in the US from the very moment Europeans were.
This I collided with the iconic William Carlos Williams poem ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’; kind of an American poetic institution:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
Williams’s writing is textbook perfection - delicate juxtaposition of detail; first line emphasizing the importance of the precisely focussed image; the mirroring of the wheelbarrow’s actual use in the language; the line breaks controlling how we see the scene, mimicking the manner in which our brain attends visually, etc. 1
However, I have reservations about the brand of realism showcased in this type of work. I admire the virtuosic precision, which appeals to my own slightly autistic tendencies, but I am wary of an inherent self-referential vacuousness. Poetry that is about poetry. Or even writing that is geared purely to show how well you write, when what is written - the content - is weightless. It’s a concern that pops up with regularity in my work (Malkovich, Real Big Poems, and Behind the White Picket Fence immediately come to mind) and also dovetails with my further post-structuralist worries regarding language, communication, and epistemology (poncy language aside, that’s a wee mission statement for another day!).
I am aware that I am consistent in my inconsistency. I am so seduced by ideas and conceptual celtic knots. I take such pleasure in the craftsmanship of a philosophy - how is it rendered? How have they subverted the medium with which the idea is transmitted? How beautifully is it expressed? How many layers of the onion can I peel? That is what has always delighted me in writing, and in intellectual pursuits. It’s like a game. But it is belied by a nagging anxiety I can’t ignore - is there substance? Is there a wisdom that can be revealed in this manner, or do we beaver with language and concept in a universe that is frustratingly parallel yet never intersects. In truth, I have come to suspect that all art is only ever about its creator and art itself and, as artists, strive as we might to communicate actual content, we can only fool ourselves in this regard. What I put into the world may be a political piece on racism - what the world receives can only be an attitude to politics and to art, embodied in an offering.
Thus, in this poem, I attempt a little artistic rebellion against my own reluctantly-held belief, and deceive myself that I make a meaningful point. (I do keep writing my futile little poems with tragic disregard that they can’t escape their medium and limitations. But how else am I to speak to you?)
Anyway - the poem references the Williams word for word, taking the same degree of precision and accuracy, a respectful pastiche, but with the (attempted? deluded?) addition of meaningful content outwith the self-referential context of writing, making the political point about African American ‘belonging’ (as well as expressing the wider concerns about the nature of art and poetry expressed above).
(I find the above process of expressing these kind of ideas longhand tortuous and painful. I still have to miss out a lot. And at the end I realize how dismally my inarticulate prose fails at communicating. Is it any wonder I express myself in poetry? I can distill worlds of complexity to a tiny near-perfected nugget, just as the ideas are in my head, before I bastardize them by rendering to a communicable medium. The problem is, unless I build a window and explain one from time to time, I suspect they’re hopelessly opaque to you, the world of minds at large...)
1 nods to Matthew Sweeney and John Hartley Williams, whom I am sure I must have paraphrased here.
Here’s the gist of the documentary about the recently-discovered African burial ground in Manhattan:
Most people are unaware of the city’s history of slavery, and the discovery of the burial ground hightlighted that this wasn’t just something that happened in the South, and not just on the plantations, but in the North, and in the city. The black presence in NY goes back right to the very beginning, indeed to before it was NY. They were there building a society and were essential in building the economy.
Many black people are made to feel as if they have no roots in NY, or N America. In fact they were here from the start; they were the early builders of many US cities. Ironically, the first immigrant to the shores of Manhattan was a black slave, dropped off by the Dutch to claim the land (it became New Amsterdam).
It was, from the beginning, built for profit. The Dutch West Indian Company came to trade for furs. The marshy wilderness was hard to cultivate and labour was in short supply, so they imported slaves. Black slaves working for the Dutch West Indian Company could be granted freedom when they had worked for 20 years, or they could gain it by fighting against the Indians – then they were given a small plot of land. For a period of time there was a small population of free black people. However, the British soon put paid to that when they took control (rebranding the city New York), requiring the slave trade for their expanding empire.
The sheer number of slaves in NY made their masters nervous. This fear led to the slave codes, which were laws designed to control every aspect of a slave’s life. One of the harshest of these laws forbid enslaved Africans to be buried in the graveyard of Trinity Church in Manhattan (even though they had built it!). This was when the African burial ground was established. The enslaved Africans could not hope for freedom through Christianity, either. The Colonies were always debating whether slaves should be baptized. Some felt that if they were read the ‘right passages’ of the bible this would be a good thing – they could be encouraged to obey their masters. Others felt that reading the bible may be problematic – what if they stumble across the story of Moses? There was much legal debate about this in the 1670s-90s. Eventually it was written into law that the baptism of a slave did not alter their status. By baptising them, you were not making them Christians, but ‘Christianizing’ them – teaching them about the role of Christianity, yet they could not partake of it. There was now the situation whereby white Christians could own black Christians as slaves. (Note that Christianity is not the distinguishing element here – it is not religion but race. And gotta love self-serving legal semantics: ‘Christianizing’, indeed!)
Under the Dutch, slaves could work their way to freedom, be granted land, and even be buried in Dutch churches. But under the English, slavery became institutionalized, and outlets to freedom were blocked.
By the late C18th, almost half the white households in NY had slaves. Then came 1776, the American revolution, and the Declaration of Independence. It speaks of freedom for all Americans – all Americans except slaves, that is. Jefferson said “All men are created equal”, but what he meant was that he believed in equality for white men.
Black people were caught up in the war from the very beginning. The British were quick to offer slaves their freedom if they would fight for the king. George Washington, the commander of the patriot forces didn’t want black in his army. He noticed whites and blacks mixing together as soldiers in the opposing forces and could not accept this. He pushed for congress to ban blacks from the military. As the war went on, Washington’s objections were overtaken by the desperate need for manpower – freedom was on offer to any slave who joined the patriot cause. So there were blacks fighting on both sides. Washington’s decision to let black men join up was an important tactical turning point in the war – the patriots began to take the upper hand. Without black soldiers, Washington would not have won the war.
Slavery ended in NY in 1827, after the brutal civil war. The African burial ground had continued to be used until 1792. By the early 1800s, the cemetery was lost under the new metropolis and the black community was pushed further North to Harlem. There are no monuments to the people who built this city. There are statues of George Washington, and the founding fathers, and early white settlers, etc. Artist Frank Bender is making [has probably now made] a memorial sculpture dedicated to those who lay in the African burial ground, using facial reconstruction of 3 of the skulls to form the basis of the work. It will be put in the building that now stands on top of where the bones were found. The human remains are being put in coffins from Ghana and buried behind the building in the small portion of the African burial ground that still remains.
Wednesday 29 April 2009
Amnesia
We parted, then.
Then I knew her intimately,
Biblically.
While victors craft their histories
I scrawl a mockery of her face
With a crayon.
More than her cheeks have more than a hint of rose.
She’s still leaving me.
Others are left too,
But left with
A face,
Indelible as a Cheshire Cat.
She was colourful, I’m sure of that.
The past was my mistress.
Aah, the times we had when I had her
And we both had time.
Each grain on her powdered face is
A tear
Meticulously dried, a taxonomy of sorrow.
And I can feel her, oh yes, her breath
Freezes my chest –
Condenses, a mist
My roots fix.
I can’t see her.
My past is a painted Geisha,
Hair high and dry, arms akimbo,
Kimono enfolding her skeleton and her secrets
And I see her in the distance
Make-up blurring to a rainbow
– She is bobbing
Goodbye.
She’s always leaving me.
16/02/01
First Published in Orbis, May '04
Then I knew her intimately,
Biblically.
While victors craft their histories
I scrawl a mockery of her face
With a crayon.
More than her cheeks have more than a hint of rose.
She’s still leaving me.
Others are left too,
But left with
A face,
Indelible as a Cheshire Cat.
She was colourful, I’m sure of that.
The past was my mistress.
Aah, the times we had when I had her
And we both had time.
Each grain on her powdered face is
A tear
Meticulously dried, a taxonomy of sorrow.
And I can feel her, oh yes, her breath
Freezes my chest –
Condenses, a mist
My roots fix.
I can’t see her.
My past is a painted Geisha,
Hair high and dry, arms akimbo,
Kimono enfolding her skeleton and her secrets
And I see her in the distance
Make-up blurring to a rainbow
– She is bobbing
Goodbye.
She’s always leaving me.
16/02/01
First Published in Orbis, May '04
Billy Snaps
Billy snaps:
she’s tethered to the open moment,
buttocks prized, backward glance;
focus not on anaesthetized eyes,
but the depthless face.
Billy breaks a sweat; Big Mike snaps
his fingers: Stop.
Someone brings biscuits and fat glasses festooned with dewdrops.
The boys eye their cards, jean crotches lolling, smokes cocked on their lips.
Billy mops
his brow, shuffling shots; Big Mike notes
You’ve captured her.
She’s sunk on the bed, sucking
juice from a straw, in a waking nap.
She doesn’t look up.
And it’s go again; More lube, make it snappy.
Big Mike grasps a prop; Billy’s lens stops short
of those eyes, and their drugged twanging deepness.
Big Mike plunges and it sounds like soup, slaps and sucks,
and he snaps: Crocodile tears so Billy snaps
and Big Mike’s done, Let’s wrap; Billy holsters the camera, proffers a tissue,
and looks at her,
and she smiles,
and Billy snaps.
29/09/05
she’s tethered to the open moment,
buttocks prized, backward glance;
focus not on anaesthetized eyes,
but the depthless face.
Billy breaks a sweat; Big Mike snaps
his fingers: Stop.
Someone brings biscuits and fat glasses festooned with dewdrops.
The boys eye their cards, jean crotches lolling, smokes cocked on their lips.
Billy mops
his brow, shuffling shots; Big Mike notes
You’ve captured her.
She’s sunk on the bed, sucking
juice from a straw, in a waking nap.
She doesn’t look up.
And it’s go again; More lube, make it snappy.
Big Mike grasps a prop; Billy’s lens stops short
of those eyes, and their drugged twanging deepness.
Big Mike plunges and it sounds like soup, slaps and sucks,
and he snaps: Crocodile tears so Billy snaps
and Big Mike’s done, Let’s wrap; Billy holsters the camera, proffers a tissue,
and looks at her,
and she smiles,
and Billy snaps.
29/09/05
The Bridal Salon
Every day I dust the dummy arms –
a pair of arms on the floor that stretch, fingers erect, sheathed in sequined satin.
Breathless women peer in, picturing their own limbs trussed thus,
their torsos corseted, legs swaddled in rustling petticoats.
I um and ah as they twist their necks to scintillate tiaras.
“Divine”, I murmer, lacing them in, hauling tight enough to leave them winded,
then slink off as they glint in the mirror before triumphantly presenting.
As the assembly bestow approval, I dust, and can’t help conjuring up
a girl,
petrified,
left in an oubliette,
filled in with cement.
Eureka.
One day, after cashing up, when the hard rolls of notes have gone upstairs in bags,
the portcullis grate is heavy-lidded, and only the last light is on,
I will rescue those fossilized arms that implore from the floor,
and, far from here, compensate some semi-naked classical femme, missing something.
Every day, as I bundle the fat wads and turn out the light,
I chuckle at the thought of noble white marble with plastic prosthetics.
Then I turn the key and lock her in.
21/10/05
a pair of arms on the floor that stretch, fingers erect, sheathed in sequined satin.
Breathless women peer in, picturing their own limbs trussed thus,
their torsos corseted, legs swaddled in rustling petticoats.
I um and ah as they twist their necks to scintillate tiaras.
“Divine”, I murmer, lacing them in, hauling tight enough to leave them winded,
then slink off as they glint in the mirror before triumphantly presenting.
As the assembly bestow approval, I dust, and can’t help conjuring up
a girl,
petrified,
left in an oubliette,
filled in with cement.
Eureka.
One day, after cashing up, when the hard rolls of notes have gone upstairs in bags,
the portcullis grate is heavy-lidded, and only the last light is on,
I will rescue those fossilized arms that implore from the floor,
and, far from here, compensate some semi-naked classical femme, missing something.
Every day, as I bundle the fat wads and turn out the light,
I chuckle at the thought of noble white marble with plastic prosthetics.
Then I turn the key and lock her in.
21/10/05
Burning Towers
Burning towers boxed safely in the TV
Repeated endlessly etching
Grooves deeper in
fascinated
02/06/06
Repeated endlessly etching
Grooves deeper in
fascinated
02/06/06
Tuesday 28 April 2009
What Ho, Fellow Colonizers
I am in Sri Lanka, in case any enquiring minds were wondering. I had intended to post back wee reports from the front, but the internet connection is none too friendly here. I’ll be back with you all next week anyhow, but it still seemed worth dropping a quick note. Apart from anything else, there have been a couple of bombs whilst we’re here, which probably didn’t get reported internationally, but in case they did: relax – am still alive it would appear. Although even as a sequestered tourist, you can’t help notice the intermittent gun towers and constant presence of armed soldiers – a bit unnerving. Apparently one gets stopped often by the police, but in fact this is usually because they want a lift.
Jez is good – a bit pink and stripey after an accident involving a snooze and variable shade on the sun lounger on day 2. This has proved fruitful ground for keeping me entertained, so I feel it was a happy accident, although he may disagree. I have remained cheerfully white under a permanent cement mix of factor a-gazillion. I am ok too, despite a coldsore, which feels grosser to me than is outwardly apparent – I feel I should have somebody go before me with a bell crying “Unclean: Unclean”. And I know the question on all of your lips: Yes, I have managed to poo. On day 4, no less, which is very good showing for a long-haul Annabee.
It’s been quite a weird holiday. Good experience to have seen Sri Lanka – amazing country. Hotel a sort of tourist compound/stalag, with gates and little men in berets and many (I imagine) self-awarded medals walk around with torches. Am not sure who they’re trying to protect us from, but locals hound us with trinkets from the beach fence nevertheless. There are not many guests here at the moment – a tough year – but it means one is constantly hovered at. They are very nice, and very helpful, but the concept of privacy is not known here. I’m also kicking myself for not learning my mantra of “I am allergic to dairy” (which I can now say in Portuguese, Greek, Spanish, Italian, French…) in Singhalese, cos it mostly induces a blank look, followed by the presentation of some dairy-laden dish. Meals are also served to tinny renditions of ABBA in Singhalese on the radio, apart from Saturday nights, when we are treated to a pub singer with a Casio keyboard circa 1986 (beats and all). Impressively he appeared to have learned all the lyrics phonetically, by which mangling allowed songs I thought I knew to take on a whole new light. “Please Release Me” and “My Way” will never be quite the same again.
The TV’s only English channel is a snow-filmed Al Jazeera, which I’ve really been enjoying. It’s nice to see news and comment with a more global perspective. I think I may take to watching it at home if I ever get satellite, although it does remind me of Dad’s visits, where any time you turn on the TV it is pre-set to some 24 hour news channel or other. Music-wise I’ve mostly been listening to Kris Drever on my ipod, and become increasingly convinced that he’s the singer/songwriter of his generation. Bizarrely, his music seems to go perfectly with the landscape here. I keep wondering if it’s ever crossed his mind that someone is listening to his music in Sri Lanka. Am sure the absurdity would surprise and please him.
We are right on a conservation beach, so I got to release baby turtles into the sea at sundown, which I have to say was pretty special. Also went in a glass bottomed boat right above many wizened turtles. They are big and old and somehow give off a sage vibe as they chomp seaweed obliviously. Had a great river safari, and got up close and personal with monitor lizards, which was rather like slipping through a wormhole to several million years BC – they are the most prehistoric things I’ve seen outside sci fi movies and expensive BBC reconstruction documentaries about dinosaurs. Also went on a lagoon trip on one of the catamarans that the locals use around here, which are basically a plastic hollow tube, tied by way of two branches and some rope to a large parallel log. I got to sit at the front and feel intrepid by sweeping aside creepers in the mangrove swamps, and ducking as we went under railway bridges, coming eyeball to eyeball with the aforementioned monitor lizards, who appear to co-exist in prehistoric harmony with the modern mobile-phone wielding people.
It rains a lot – apparently monsoon is a bit early this year. It pleases me, but Jez hates it. We get a dramatic storm every night. Feels like sitting in an amphitheatre watching the Gods rumble. Keep expecting popcorn and ice-hockey organ.
Driving is certainly an experience (and not one I would embark on myself). If you’ve ever seen footage of Calcutta, it’s much similar. About 17 pieces of traffic abreast on a two lane road. Trucks overtaking cars overtaking hay-lorries overtaking tuk-tuks overtaking mopeds overtaking bikes overtaking pedestrians overtaking dogs – all at once, as thin cows roam the entire carriageway with impunity. It’s rather like dodgems without the bumping. I learnt quickly to close my eyes and go to my special place. Entire families of four regularly pile ant-hill-mob-style on the back of a single moped – eventually one stops cringing every time a baby goes by perched in the handlebars. Mostly we’ve ridden about in tuk-tuks, sharing the odd coconut with a straw in it.
If you’re a bit, er, delicate like me, it’s actually a really difficult place to be. There’s a high degree of poverty, particularly after the tsunami and, as with many Asian countries, you are constantly pestered to buy things. Everybody waves and smiles as they pass, and mostly that’s genuine goodwill – they are a really lovely people – but also many are trying to reel you into conversation to get something from you. The beggars will tear your heart out, and learning that you simply can’t give to everyone is a lesson I’m perhaps not yet tough enough to take on board. You just feel sort of futile and guilty and frustrated. I veer from being irritated that I am besieged every time I leave the hotel, to feeling like a guilty corn-fed westerner and buying mercy tat that I don't want, whilst trying not to mourn my lost anonymity.
It’s not very relaxing, actually. I feel quite on edge all the time because I literally can’t just ‘be’ anywhere, either in the hotel or without. In fact, you can’t really leave the hotel without a guide of some sort. I find that I go to bed and have anxiety dreams about being in a big cage, pursued by tuk-tuks and turtles. (Just to add to my ongoing terror about the global economic situation and whether we’ll all end up standing for 4 days outside soup kitchens for stale crusts - Al Jazeera gleefully keeps me abreast of things lest I should forget whilst I'm away.)
There is a real culture of service here, which I guess is nice, but makes me feel quite uncomfortable at times. There is the whiff of servility about it, and one feels there is not nearly so much resentment about the colonialization as there should be. You have to tip everyone for everything, which for someone who feels a bit awkward about tipping a taxi driver at home, is moderately excruciating. I eventually got over myself – I mean, they’re just glad of the money, and who cares about my delicate social sensibilities? But when you do start becoming au fait with it, you really do start to feel like some kind of colonial God. (Remember that scene with C3PO and the ewoks…?)
I’ve been doing a little opportunistic photojournalism as well as the usual annabee satire and travel oeuvre, just to dip my toe in the water, and am moderately pleased with the results. I talked to people about the tsunami and took some pictures. It's a type of work that suits me, being a rather political person, and always keen to talk to people about their culture and political situation. It’ll take a while to process as I won’t tackle it before I get a new PC, but will post eventually on my website (along with more typical Annabee travel output).
On a contrastingly frivolous note, I had an ayurvedic facial, which was actually very good, although much of it consisted of a small Singhalese man manually picking my spots. This meant I couldn’t stop giggling for the duration, which left the poor man rather non-plussed.
I managed to read a whole book whilst I was here, so I can feel virtuous about that. And it didn’t have either pictures, or entirely comprise sudokus. I’ve been saving up my Douglas Coupland, and it duly performed, proving to be exactly as inspiring as I wanted it to be, and now it’s gone I feel slightly bereft and disinclined to start another. Always the mark of a good book when no other book will do.
Anyway – that’s the news from the roving Annabee. Back before you know it.
First posted on Facebook, 19th October 2008
Jez is good – a bit pink and stripey after an accident involving a snooze and variable shade on the sun lounger on day 2. This has proved fruitful ground for keeping me entertained, so I feel it was a happy accident, although he may disagree. I have remained cheerfully white under a permanent cement mix of factor a-gazillion. I am ok too, despite a coldsore, which feels grosser to me than is outwardly apparent – I feel I should have somebody go before me with a bell crying “Unclean: Unclean”. And I know the question on all of your lips: Yes, I have managed to poo. On day 4, no less, which is very good showing for a long-haul Annabee.
It’s been quite a weird holiday. Good experience to have seen Sri Lanka – amazing country. Hotel a sort of tourist compound/stalag, with gates and little men in berets and many (I imagine) self-awarded medals walk around with torches. Am not sure who they’re trying to protect us from, but locals hound us with trinkets from the beach fence nevertheless. There are not many guests here at the moment – a tough year – but it means one is constantly hovered at. They are very nice, and very helpful, but the concept of privacy is not known here. I’m also kicking myself for not learning my mantra of “I am allergic to dairy” (which I can now say in Portuguese, Greek, Spanish, Italian, French…) in Singhalese, cos it mostly induces a blank look, followed by the presentation of some dairy-laden dish. Meals are also served to tinny renditions of ABBA in Singhalese on the radio, apart from Saturday nights, when we are treated to a pub singer with a Casio keyboard circa 1986 (beats and all). Impressively he appeared to have learned all the lyrics phonetically, by which mangling allowed songs I thought I knew to take on a whole new light. “Please Release Me” and “My Way” will never be quite the same again.
The TV’s only English channel is a snow-filmed Al Jazeera, which I’ve really been enjoying. It’s nice to see news and comment with a more global perspective. I think I may take to watching it at home if I ever get satellite, although it does remind me of Dad’s visits, where any time you turn on the TV it is pre-set to some 24 hour news channel or other. Music-wise I’ve mostly been listening to Kris Drever on my ipod, and become increasingly convinced that he’s the singer/songwriter of his generation. Bizarrely, his music seems to go perfectly with the landscape here. I keep wondering if it’s ever crossed his mind that someone is listening to his music in Sri Lanka. Am sure the absurdity would surprise and please him.
We are right on a conservation beach, so I got to release baby turtles into the sea at sundown, which I have to say was pretty special. Also went in a glass bottomed boat right above many wizened turtles. They are big and old and somehow give off a sage vibe as they chomp seaweed obliviously. Had a great river safari, and got up close and personal with monitor lizards, which was rather like slipping through a wormhole to several million years BC – they are the most prehistoric things I’ve seen outside sci fi movies and expensive BBC reconstruction documentaries about dinosaurs. Also went on a lagoon trip on one of the catamarans that the locals use around here, which are basically a plastic hollow tube, tied by way of two branches and some rope to a large parallel log. I got to sit at the front and feel intrepid by sweeping aside creepers in the mangrove swamps, and ducking as we went under railway bridges, coming eyeball to eyeball with the aforementioned monitor lizards, who appear to co-exist in prehistoric harmony with the modern mobile-phone wielding people.
It rains a lot – apparently monsoon is a bit early this year. It pleases me, but Jez hates it. We get a dramatic storm every night. Feels like sitting in an amphitheatre watching the Gods rumble. Keep expecting popcorn and ice-hockey organ.
Driving is certainly an experience (and not one I would embark on myself). If you’ve ever seen footage of Calcutta, it’s much similar. About 17 pieces of traffic abreast on a two lane road. Trucks overtaking cars overtaking hay-lorries overtaking tuk-tuks overtaking mopeds overtaking bikes overtaking pedestrians overtaking dogs – all at once, as thin cows roam the entire carriageway with impunity. It’s rather like dodgems without the bumping. I learnt quickly to close my eyes and go to my special place. Entire families of four regularly pile ant-hill-mob-style on the back of a single moped – eventually one stops cringing every time a baby goes by perched in the handlebars. Mostly we’ve ridden about in tuk-tuks, sharing the odd coconut with a straw in it.
If you’re a bit, er, delicate like me, it’s actually a really difficult place to be. There’s a high degree of poverty, particularly after the tsunami and, as with many Asian countries, you are constantly pestered to buy things. Everybody waves and smiles as they pass, and mostly that’s genuine goodwill – they are a really lovely people – but also many are trying to reel you into conversation to get something from you. The beggars will tear your heart out, and learning that you simply can’t give to everyone is a lesson I’m perhaps not yet tough enough to take on board. You just feel sort of futile and guilty and frustrated. I veer from being irritated that I am besieged every time I leave the hotel, to feeling like a guilty corn-fed westerner and buying mercy tat that I don't want, whilst trying not to mourn my lost anonymity.
It’s not very relaxing, actually. I feel quite on edge all the time because I literally can’t just ‘be’ anywhere, either in the hotel or without. In fact, you can’t really leave the hotel without a guide of some sort. I find that I go to bed and have anxiety dreams about being in a big cage, pursued by tuk-tuks and turtles. (Just to add to my ongoing terror about the global economic situation and whether we’ll all end up standing for 4 days outside soup kitchens for stale crusts - Al Jazeera gleefully keeps me abreast of things lest I should forget whilst I'm away.)
There is a real culture of service here, which I guess is nice, but makes me feel quite uncomfortable at times. There is the whiff of servility about it, and one feels there is not nearly so much resentment about the colonialization as there should be. You have to tip everyone for everything, which for someone who feels a bit awkward about tipping a taxi driver at home, is moderately excruciating. I eventually got over myself – I mean, they’re just glad of the money, and who cares about my delicate social sensibilities? But when you do start becoming au fait with it, you really do start to feel like some kind of colonial God. (Remember that scene with C3PO and the ewoks…?)
I’ve been doing a little opportunistic photojournalism as well as the usual annabee satire and travel oeuvre, just to dip my toe in the water, and am moderately pleased with the results. I talked to people about the tsunami and took some pictures. It's a type of work that suits me, being a rather political person, and always keen to talk to people about their culture and political situation. It’ll take a while to process as I won’t tackle it before I get a new PC, but will post eventually on my website (along with more typical Annabee travel output).
On a contrastingly frivolous note, I had an ayurvedic facial, which was actually very good, although much of it consisted of a small Singhalese man manually picking my spots. This meant I couldn’t stop giggling for the duration, which left the poor man rather non-plussed.
I managed to read a whole book whilst I was here, so I can feel virtuous about that. And it didn’t have either pictures, or entirely comprise sudokus. I’ve been saving up my Douglas Coupland, and it duly performed, proving to be exactly as inspiring as I wanted it to be, and now it’s gone I feel slightly bereft and disinclined to start another. Always the mark of a good book when no other book will do.
Anyway – that’s the news from the roving Annabee. Back before you know it.
First posted on Facebook, 19th October 2008
Sunday 26 April 2009
Snow Days
The news from the Annabee front: Went to Celtic Connections. Had time of my life. Is unutterably shit to be home. Got snowed in. Sledged. Got withering glances from children too old to sledge.
Strange few days watching people trying to dig their vehicles out of drives, or abandoning cars mid-journey at the sort of jaunty angles that we British are usually loathe to do. (When was the last time you saw a car not at a nice crisp right-angle? Why is it that depresses me? But then I am the sort of person who makes it their policy to drive around supermarket carparks against the arrows’ diktats. My own little suburban rebellion...) My whole estate is like a giant slush puppy. (They’re not called that anymore, are they? They’ve been raped by rebranding and given names like ‘Ice Blast’, and sterilized by having all the real sugar removed, and forced to dwell only with cinema junk food.) Anyway, as I’ve been watching my neighbours’ futile revving from my desk at the window, I too have been spinning my wheels. (Gie us a fucking job, mate. Go on...)
There’s that strange air of deflation that happens after snow, and its clean excitement, have left the party, and you are left only with sludgy dregs and come down. I think there is a collective recognition that snow engenders a kind of child-like abandon. Even in a quiet British adult sort of way. People start talking to each other again - even in London, where we all tacitly acknowledge the massive invisible sheet of cling film we must puncture if we are to communicate with ‘strangers’. Snow is a clean white leveller - it makes the landscape uniform, and bright, and strangely happy, and it takes away unfriendly human impositions like flat surfaces and right-angles. I think it has a similar subconscious resonance. Just for a day or two we get a friendly blanket over all the dark nasty stuff of humanity, of life, grit, emotion, and subconscious - we get a free pass of clean start, sins temporarily pardoned. And we embrace it, euphorically. God, but we need it, no? Fucking wasps...
And then the slush and come-down.
First posted on Facebook, 7th February 2008
Strange few days watching people trying to dig their vehicles out of drives, or abandoning cars mid-journey at the sort of jaunty angles that we British are usually loathe to do. (When was the last time you saw a car not at a nice crisp right-angle? Why is it that depresses me? But then I am the sort of person who makes it their policy to drive around supermarket carparks against the arrows’ diktats. My own little suburban rebellion...) My whole estate is like a giant slush puppy. (They’re not called that anymore, are they? They’ve been raped by rebranding and given names like ‘Ice Blast’, and sterilized by having all the real sugar removed, and forced to dwell only with cinema junk food.) Anyway, as I’ve been watching my neighbours’ futile revving from my desk at the window, I too have been spinning my wheels. (Gie us a fucking job, mate. Go on...)
There’s that strange air of deflation that happens after snow, and its clean excitement, have left the party, and you are left only with sludgy dregs and come down. I think there is a collective recognition that snow engenders a kind of child-like abandon. Even in a quiet British adult sort of way. People start talking to each other again - even in London, where we all tacitly acknowledge the massive invisible sheet of cling film we must puncture if we are to communicate with ‘strangers’. Snow is a clean white leveller - it makes the landscape uniform, and bright, and strangely happy, and it takes away unfriendly human impositions like flat surfaces and right-angles. I think it has a similar subconscious resonance. Just for a day or two we get a friendly blanket over all the dark nasty stuff of humanity, of life, grit, emotion, and subconscious - we get a free pass of clean start, sins temporarily pardoned. And we embrace it, euphorically. God, but we need it, no? Fucking wasps...
And then the slush and come-down.
First posted on Facebook, 7th February 2008
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