14: a txt msg poM June 17, 2009

In 2001, I won a prize in the Guardian’s text message poetry competition with this poem …

14: a txt msg poM

his Is r bunsn brnr bl%
his hair lyk fe filings
W/ac/dc going thru.
I sit by him in kemistry
my @oms  split
wen he s @ me.

(Translation? 14: a text message poem / His eyes are bunsen burner blue / his hair like iron filings / with the current going through. / I sit by him in chemistry /  my atoms split / when he smiles at me.)

It went all over the place, this poem – in a fresco on the Arts Council office wall, in a German text book, in this book about text linguistics. These are the people I love the most – the ones who asked me nicely if they could use it. By putting this golden oldie here on my site, I’m making it easy for you to find me if you want to ask me too!

Covent Garden April 12, 2008

The meeting has run on.

It’s late, he’s lost, a little bit.

I offer that I’ll walk him to the tube

I lodge near here, it’s on my way.

 

I say It’s great, this route –

it takes you past a flower stall

that’s packing up this time of night.

They flog their stock so cheap it’s practically free.

He holds on while I dither picking daisies

marked at 50p a bunch.

 

A man sat by the stall is knocking back a can.

 

That’s Loz I say. His dog is Rosielove.

He told me that his wife fucked off

but he stays here, necks Woodpecker

which takes him to a sweeter place.

 

Rosielove is champing at a pigeon on the kerb.

 

Where d’you stand on city birds? I say.

Rats on wings with feet like spat-out gum?

Or do you like their blushing backs of necks

and wonder where it is they lay their eggs?

 

Pigeon pairs are roosting on the station roof.

 

At the entrance

underneath the moon and planes in tiny triangles of sky

he could kiss me as a scrumper steals a plum.

See these lips, would you not say they’re like the hips and hawes

that fruit in hedgerows when the winter’s coming on?

 

The street is all corners and shine.

Traffic stutters on the clutch

where people wait to cross the road

and each belisha flash is like a flower

picked apart to calculate

if love is true or not.

Five Years Trying to Win the Flower Show Vegetable Animal Class April 12, 2008

Five Years Trying to Win the Flower Show Vegetable Animal Class

 

Highly Commended: a large baking potato –

   its shape already reminiscent of the humpback whale –

   set on a plate, surrounded by cabbage

   shredded from the centre of the head

   where its waves are tightest.

   Eyes for a blowhole, and also for eyes.

 

Highly Commended: a crocodile

   in cucumber, a sliced out wedge

   for a gaping mouth, radish teeth and feet,

   and winding down its curving spine,

   a double crest of battlements, contrived

   from cocktail sticks and arrow-heads of swede.

 

Highly Commended: a glossy purple eggplant

   as the body of a bird of paradise,

   wings from tiers of rocket, mint and carrot tops,

   comb from sprouting mustard seed and dill.

   Beak a nutshell, tongue a nut,

   side-dish of summer fruits, its song.

 

Third Place: the coconut gorilla.

   A corn dolly armature whose stooky thighs

   and sloping head are covered

   in the cracked off shells of coconuts,

   the pile of the coconut fibres

   precisely a match for the nap of gorilla pelt.

 

Highly Commended: an aquarium of fish.  

   Goldfish, guppies and angelfish whittled

   from melons, peaches and artichokes.

   Highly skilled engraving suggests drift and flurry,

   fins and scales. A year’s work wasted on the system

   which blows bubbles fat as berries from their mouths.