frigid lager
on the balcony,
the sun is blaring
and when
i’m deckchairing
i feel i could lean out
and shout
to my neighbours
in baghdad
havana, chicago,
moscow, haw vlad
agent trump is dreamin’
of escape from alcatraz
agent trump thinks he’s quite the comedian. with all his silly nicknames. that do tend to stick and be quite good, much to the dismay of me and many. so i’m going to nickname him from now on. agent trump. really was looking in to reopening alcatraz.
arbitrary justice
is not justice
power exercised without
reason tends to evil
nobody talks about
harvey weinstein anymore
or the panama papers
we need new ideas
not new scandals daily
razed to the ground
confused me
for so many years,
until i saw it written down
it feels cruelly ironic
beneath war’s fog
the fog of war, said hegseth. after instructing his navy to explode a fishing boat. then firing again upon the survivors. we must make a point of remembering these crimes. if america doesn’t hold its villains to justice, once the madness is over, the message of might is right could dominate the remaining decades of humanity’s global colony.
so, pope bob the communist,
riddle me this
if all of life
is formed of carbon,
ejected from the factory chimney
which i understand it is
are the two poles
of the toothbrush moustache,
mirth and antimirth?
matter and antimatter
genocide and love
and why does the church
always make things worse?
so i think i like pope bob. obviously, he believes in all the bad catholic stuff like homophobia and sexism. but at least he is against war and generally against poverty and for love, of some sort. so yes, i like him fine as pope. but not enough to tempt me to transubstantionate with him.
then i was home for the
first year of high school
alienated, scared,
quietly unusual
with no idea
what was wrong with me
needing people,
passions and a method of being
a year later,
on a coach to france,
i met k and c
and then p and s and g
(most of whom i fell in love with,
one of whom i am still in touch with)
who accepted me
when i rang their doorbells
every day
i am not sure how normal or otherwise it is to simply ring someone’s doorbell in the modern day. i suspect that most people now are like me now, and get the fright of a lifetime if someone unexpectedly rings the doorbell. but from age who knows eight, maybe, to at some point in midteenage, i would just go to the pal’s door and ring the doorbell and see if they were in if i wanted to hang out. even if nobody was in at least i got a walk.
also, remember to vote.
crying to my mother
in the phone booth
an undiagnosed autistic
immature youth
unable to verbalise,
understand, explain
the abhorrent situation
i was in…
i had no way to pray
for succour
no deus ex machina
from the kirk
i seem to think about the pope more than most catholics. i always found church confusing as a child. jesus was a hippy peacenik sort of character. church people seemed much more stern. fundamentally uncool. it’s hard to imagine jesus ordering the burning of witches, or driving a land rover, or paying his workers a subsistence wage, or speculating in capital. or coveting wealth generally. yet so many rich people claim to be christians. like, as if they think the lower orders are too thick to spot the contradiction.
since the pope died,
i’ve had religion on my mind
child protection and it’s opposite,
no child’s left behind
i endured the kirk
and a ton of bunk
in the mid nineties
on a coach trip
to innsbruck
some older kids and me
i only joined the club to play football.
how did i end up here?
i’ve been on a bit of a poetic frenzy recently. i feel an urge to overproduce poetry, to give me some spare time to do other things. but then i have a spare moment and i work on some more poetry. because it’s fun. so maybe i’ll never finish the bloody novel i’m working on. it’s called ‘the san estaban mayoral election of 2016’, subtitle ‘a historical novel by n.n. benn’
see the month out
with a crow loop,
swelter on the juliet
manifest strength
and stability
unemployed and full e it
get tucked in for the gilet years
keep it strong and stable
despite hopes and fears
a pudding waits
at the end of the repast
let’s hope we get there
at last
i had quit my job! i hadn’t yet started my new job! i was sunbathing on the juliet balcony. life was good. see you next month when, you’ll never guess, the poem continues.
a trio, sub-mantric
cerulean bohemian
utilitarian
sub deeper, throwaway
discount viscount
shagatha christie
sing along, sing aloud,
twirl in the street right now
a human positioning system
a global grid
of great big bricks
reggie regular
or reggae reggae
i’ve somehow
run out of chilli powder
it is important to personal branding to know your style. the meme is that you should have three words that describe your style, and you should only invest in new clothing assets if they are coherent with your stockpile. my summary trio is ‘cerulean, bohemian, utilitarian.’ hope that helps if you are considering buying my clothing. size xs/s depending on brand.
anyway, i won’t bother explaining any further of what is mostly an indulgent nonsense poem. please don’t unsubscribe (unless you don’t want to receive further emails from me).
o index finger
like a long toe
my pinky also
unusually small
little wonder
my handwriting’s unclear.
correction fluid
another go, please
i subtract seven letters
and get left with rect o fud
register my domain
with the nineties web dial up
to bravenet guestbooks
and fansites and bandsites
try and capitalise
on the dot com boom
all you need is a brand
profits will come soon
the scars of hubris
are born by us
inferior designers
and i wear them fine
i’m not sure if my little pinky actually has any impact on my handwriting. but if you remove enough letters from the ‘correction fluid’ we had in lieu of tip-ex in school, you could make it say rectofud. so they nearly all said this. pass me the rectofud, one might say, after an egregious spelling error.
as a 13 year old boy, i thought, i will set up a record label called rectofud. i made the website. it was the dot com boom. i figured that was all i needed to do to make my millions. it was fun anyway. the web was new and exciting and fun and i had my own little place on it, before myspace and bebo came along and gave everyone their own little webpage and none of my school friends had any need to post on the rectofud guestbook any more.
i go to bed early
i wake up late
french kissing won’t be tolerated
on this date
a collegiate day
leaves me rough
in my navel
looking for fluff
two roles away
on down the hill
wine and dine
(and sixty nine)
on a jagged little pill
this is mostly just silly, but i have been thinking a lot about belly button fluff recently. there used to always be fluff in my belly button if i had been wearing clothes that day. most days if not all that would be. but there is never ever fluff in it any more. i still usually wear cotton tee shirts. i still have a belly button. and i’ve been basically the same size for 30 years at this point. i don’t understand what has changed. if anyone knows, please let me know.
the love epochal. n.n. benn 