we don’t need fasces, just a bundle of souls

it seems to me
there must be
a shadow gang of hoodlums
in every nation
ready to put on uniforms
to torture and abuse
waiting for a bully government
to empower them
and this is such
a lonely, alienating thought.
i’m not sure you,
fascist sympathiser,
will read this poem
but it is not strong
to stand up for the powerful
strength is to accept
we are weak
alone we are at
the mercy
of forces
we can not control
we can just hope that by sheer benevolent numbers
we can crowd the villains out
each of us forever vulnerable
as a bundle, indestructible

trump is the embodiment of a generation who, facing down the barrel of their mortality, have decided to turn the gun on everyone around them, cohorts and descendents alike.

he is a stuck up entitled snob who has made the critical error of conflating his wealth with his personal ability. he is a caricature of a generation who had the luck to grow up in a time of economic growth. they benefited from the social democratic, egalitarian societies that the generations before them had created after living through the wall street crash, the depression and the second world war.

they came of age in a time of full employment, strong trade unions, high wages, generous employer funded pensions and low housing costs – in britain due to massive postwar social housing programs.

and then as they reached their thirties, if they were lucky not to have worked in one of the many industries that were closed down, they benefited from the privatisation of social housing, and then of all the other things the government used to monopolise and provide as a service (gas, electricity, water, trains, buses), all of which generated one-off receipts for the government, made a lot of capitalists rich, but created a long term problem for future generations by incentivising profit at the cost of quality.

so anyway, now they own all the stuff, and they are rich, because when they were young you could have a job working in a factory and retire with a decent pension and have maybe even made half a million quid or so just by moving home a few times during a time of unprecedented asset price appreciation.

and they think they are really smart because the system has worked fine for them. and that we should appreciate their wisdom as they foist fascists upon us.

n.b. this poem should only be read upside down in blue pencil

i’m an autistic on
the poetic spectrum
i want a microphone
but have accepted i can’t sing
there are two types
of words, it seems to me
words that rhyme with
and words that mean the same as
i’m a rabble douser
a sub-intellectual
active on the couch,
always ineffectual
in vest and briefs
and sandals and socks
trying the door knobs
testing the locks
thinking of
five minutes mary,
so called because she always
wants five minutes mair
i’m up her street
rinse and repeat
bring down the government
no bobbies on the beat

i heard a nonsense poem on radio 4 once maybe 20 years ago that i’m sure had a line that someone’s name must be spelled upside down in blue pencil but i have searched high and low (ok, i asked claude) and i haven’t been able to identify the original inspirational work. maybe it was dadaist? maybe the pencil wasn’t blue? perhaps it was a crayon? if anyone has any ideas, i would welcome them.

the butler problem

since i made my billions
i just can’t stay asleep
i bet so big on brexit
i swapped the water i used to keep
by my bedside as water
does not befit
an ego and a grift
as overbig as this
so if i wake late in the night
i demand to have
vintage champagne
from a fashionable brand
cool or tepid
just won’t cut it
only ice cold
refreshes with subtlety
yeah it’s got to be
outwardly sublime
and there is no time
to pop a cork
when one is parched
every second’s delay
is a failure in the quest
for perpetual and delicious
prime hydration
so jeeves pours fresh
on anticipation
of each occasion
popping champagne corks
all night long
so as i said
i can’t stay asleep
since i made my billions
on brexit, betting deep

in 2016 i had the grand plan to write an epic poem about brexit. this is that poem. so i need to bring brexit it up every now and again. brexit has created many problems, and being woken up by the constant popping of champagne corks is one of the worst, although it is seldom talked about for some reason.

poetry needs to suck sometimes

i sing a duet
with my teenaged heart
love may tear
us apart
it’s hard to
believe
i’m in my 40s
and haven’t got
any better
at poetry (poe aught ree)
cry in the bath
for auld lang syne
you’ve got to believe me
that i tried this time
we always knew
it would come to this
the universe is so small
and poetry, so big

i really loved the song, love will tear us apart, when i was younger. i don’t revisit early obsessions much. then sometimes i listen to 90s music and i’m like ah man culture was so much better in the 90s. 

i can’t remember the last time i listened to joy division though. but i recorded two covers of love will tear us apart between the ages of about 15 and 18 and i listen to them every now and then and try and imagine being that age. i think i felt broadly the same, but much more insecure. no idea what job i would have, where i would live, would i find love. it’s scary being young.

life under actually existing capitalism ii

the problem with capitalism
it seems to me
it’s impossible to live
with dignity,
when everything
including me,
is exchangeable
for money
i bequeath my possessions
to my financial relations
the house and pension
to the administration
of the barclays banking
corporation
and the poems will
have to be
security
for lloyds tsb

that’s almost it
for the gilet years
a window of calm
between crises
it’s the unseemly quiet
amidst the tempest
when the storm is over
what will be left?

i am channelling the manic street preachers here – natwest…. natwest barclay midlands lloyds…. black horse apocalypse… i love the manics. i do not know if it is ironic or not. i guess the guy did kill himself. probably not.

the last antipasti v

i remember
when i was young sprout
thinking that if i was the first human
it would never have occurred to me
to eat food
or make love
that was an absurd thought
for a cruciferous vegetable, i know
but come on and eat me,
end this limbo
let me go
my whole life
flashes before my florets
i’m sliding off the plate
into the wastebasket
into the bin
a cardinal sin
and you know
i don’t see any chips in here,
you philistines.
i am a prize!
how did this happen to me?
am i weird looking,
or weird being?
you reach the top
you’re hot
and then you’re not
just one shot
then you’re compost.
it’ll happen to you too
one day.
memento mori.
i regret nothing.

have i written about the reverse columbo before? in columbo, the detective series, detective columbo presents as a bit dim. like a c.i.d. rocky balboa. but then at the end, he would be half way out, and he’d raise his finger – just one more thing. and he would point out a little detail, immaterial probably, but it would be just enough to tell the suspect that he may as well have been caught red-handed.

the reverse columbo is when, at the end of a presentation or discussion, you ask a question that reveals that you haven’t understood anything. why did the statue of liberty on planet of the apes not depict an ape though? perhaps they revered humans.

the last antipasti iv

perhaps i can attract
one of your more
stylish companions
i grew in the alluvial
soils of campania,
learned english from hollywood movies,
reared on volcanic aqua minerale
and the sun’s patterns
you, with the specs,
you don’t wanna eat yet?
i can feel i’m cold.
was it yesterday? really yesterday?
bathing in the sunshine
when yanked,
quite jolted,
held tight in a gauntlet
flung in a crate,
i’ve been in the shade,
a day, who knows
they seared me!
and i’m here,
with the almonds,
but the plate’s cold.
all the sundried tomatoes are gone
the salami too
even the mortadella

oh, love may be king
in napoli
but fortune favours
brocolli
yes someone will
come back for me

napoli is weirdly important to my poetry. i really do love the dean martin song. i came up with the title of this poem (the love epochal) in napoli. see stanza 7 (part two, getting there: a brexit prayer, july 24/25) if you are interested in looking back into the lore of this very long poem.

if you do, you will find this anecdote:

in the queue at the starbucks in edinburgh airport, a young black woman was in the line ahead of me. she ordered a hot chocolate. the (white, timid, young, male) barista asked her name, and she said ‘hot chocolate’. obviously, this made the barista quite uncomfortable, but the woman who ordered the drink clearly found it hilarious.

then i ordered my soy flat white. but i just said my name was benn. poor boy.

the last antipasti iii

trust me,
flake almonds upon me,
indulge in fulgent greens
i confound your troubles
with salubrious sheen
there is no knowledge
but sensation
so slide on in
to my dm’s
the merlot refill
unexpectedly chilled,
effervescent on your tongue
makes you cry yum, yum

confidence is recklessness
incarnate
so crunch my fibrous branches
so delicate
are you here for sublime?
or did you get lost looking for
the beige light district?
over by the camp
but closeted quarter?
oh yeah have another breadstick,
fill up on brie
i know you’ll be back for me

yum is a good word. the whole -um series is exquisite actually. bum. cum. dumb. gum. tum. what happened to fum? i guess it became thumb over time. ho hum. it sums. crumbs, what to make of the -umb paraseries?

it plumbs new depths of um phraseology. in this example, necessarily, to differentiate from plum. i wonder though, if there is something vulgar about the -um. u’s generally, feature heavily in the vulgar (fuck, cunt etc.). i feel someone thought – i don’t want anyone associating crums of bread with sex – let’s spell it with a subtle silent b – gentrify it a bit into crumb.

that’s my theory.

the last antipasti ii

mind the time
you over-ordered carbohydrates
a panicked salad reprobate
arancini, croquettes and chips,
you had a need that i could sate
pumped with protein
and polyphenols
light and taut
and a little bit special

june is a good month. may, the month of invitation, is my favourite month. but june is the month of the yawning day. it is a very special time in northern latitudes. happy memories of walking home from being out nightclubbing and the sun is up already and i’ve not even been to bed. after work, i can go out riding my bike in the country side. and, as i write, it’s warm. there is sunbathing to be had. tan lines to be burned. brocolli to eat.

the last antipasti i

broccoli can’t be a prize,
everyone says,
or would say
if inquired of.
but my stem’s tender
as a lover’s thighs,
crunchy with salt,
drenched in rendered
fat, yum
pair me with focaccia
and dipstick me
in extra virgin
verging on
extravagant…
a celebrity
of humble bent

hello, welcome to june and the final stanza of part 3 of my epic poem, the love epochal, ‘giletdonism’. i know that pride comes before a fall, obviously, but i think this is the best month of poetry by any poet ever and you, dear reader, are very lucky to get to read it all. the month, obviously, starts with a five part series about a tender stem broccoli.