glaswegian hospitality

@ poet’s corner. 12 nov 25

in about 2016 i had an idea to write a very long poem about brexiit called toblerone. but i didn’t know where to begin. eventually it clicked and i started work on ‘toblerone, a brexit poem’ in january 2024. and this became part of a larger work called the love epochal sometime later. i’m currently working on part 4, tentatively called this is techno. i have split it up into poetic chunks and try and post to my blog three times a week.

i’m going to read three on theme-ish extracts

this first bit is called ‘vulvic pud’

i was out for dinner with my girlfriend and some other couples at celantano’s, and honestly, the dessert was so absurdly vaginal it could not have been an accident. luckily we were are liberal, open minded people and we were not offended.

it was also a very rainy day and i could had a feeling my on again off again girlfriend was going off again.

vulvic pud

fruit forward vulvic pud, touched,

lingered upon, picasso pubic crumb

a tender rebirth, but is this the beginning or the end,

reprise: why does your love hurt so much?

——

this next bit is called green. the link to glaswegian hospitality is a bit less clear, but it was inspired by my pal n. n. (no relation) back in the early days of the millennium he had a weed dealer in ibrox. he would go around and buy his stuff and part of the transaction was that you had to awkwardly hang out with the guy and do a bong with him.

one time, at a loss for conversation to make, his pal d. made the horrible mistake of inviting the dealer round to theirs for a party.

the guy turned up with about 100 bams who promptly trashed the whole place and stole the few things of value.

n. n. came around from a blow to the head to find a policeman leaning over him. is that yours, son? he said, pointing at a piranha flopping about in a puddle in the close, surrounded by broken glass.

i’ve been working on a novella largely based on mad anecdotes n. n. has told me and that i have stolen, and this little piece will be the introduction.

Green

is the colour of the dear green place

and behind my ears

so are my salad days

like the herb in the bowl…

green, green, green

and ashen faced

the colour of money

washing corporate sin

green, green, green

with jealousy they will say

like envious, wretched souls

as they are prone to be

——

this last bit’s called ‘wet salty hotdog’

my girlfriend had just bought a flat and started doing the place up. she is very handy. she had had the key about two minutes by the time the floors were up and the sander was out. i got there and was greeted by lungfuls of sawdust.

i was getting in the way.

earlier, while out running, i had a sudden recollection of waiting to get into the cafeteria at lunch in primary school. i usually had a packed lunch so it was novel to get hot food. the hot food was terrible. it was notably briney. a flavour that has echoed discordantly through the epochs.

wet salty hotdog

i believe in a sativa, coffee and jog

to cut through the morning fog

primary cafeteria, inchoate aroma

of wet salty hotdog

you get the key to a new place of great significance

brompton over, you invite; but take your moment first

i get there and the floors are up

circular saw sounds erupting

drag a trail through the dust

alone, together, us two and all of us

christmas cheer from ear to ear

i was sent from outer space

to complain about the traffic here

with christmas cheer from ear to ear

and elephants never forget new year

there is finite information

in any place at any time

but my question relates to the data

pertaining to time past

i mean, i feel the breath leave my body:

how can i get it back?

the last couple of years, my friends from university have sent me a christmas cars which is a picture their son drew. they are always quite absurd, and i hope to receive more of them. being, essentially, and adult child, i like to try and reply with something on theme. so last year my christmas card was an elephant wearing a santa hat standing next to its igloo. i hope the tradition carries on, but d and k’s eldest son is in high school now so perhaps he will outgrow it. i certainly have no plans to outgrow drawing my own christmas card in response to anyone who sends me one they themselves have drawn.

no ai pish though.

chorus of the lost weekend

are you ready for your advent wafer,

manger wean?

‘tis the season of debt and accumulation

i have a theory an arbitrary line

divides the mad from the sane

different but the same

that was the last of stanza 11. part two concludes in stanza 12, from tuesday 2 december. new poetry every tuesday, thursday and saturday. and don’t worry, part 3 starts on 1 january 2026. the love epochal just continues.

embiggened by a little soul

be lovers on standby,

not friends with benefits

celeste’s carnation

in the barrel, in the gun

chuck your moveables in

for a risk-free freebie

even a little soul

embiggens the forgiven

it was the lost weekend. my lover and i were on a break. considering our options. but i knew fine what i wanted. then celeste caeiro died and i wanted to commemorate her. she was a portuguese communist who was working as a waitress in 1974 when the fascist regime was overthrown by mutinous soldiers. she placed carnations in the soldiers’ rifles, and this became the visual motif of the revolution.

embiggened is, of course, a simpsons reference.

returning the oversized funglasses

can you come to terms with who I am?

can i?

in d2k i rhymed ‘if soon i don’t die

i’ll wonder why’

and still i wonder why –

the complexity infinitely expanding

reluctantly giving it all my attention

beat up and run down

an ex murder victim…

i wish i was more confident

but i am returning the oversized funglasses.

i wanted a pair of yellow lensed glasses, so i ordered the only pair on the ray bans website but when they arrived they were of a scale hitherto thought improbable. i seriously considered it, took a few selfies, but there is a limit to how silly i am comfortable looking.

oh and i once worked with someone who described their baby daddy as an ‘ex murderer’

typist, poet, athlete, hi

get jacked up,

no imposter testostero-monster

typist poet athlete spy,

i wonder why i have this tie

to the human condition

a horny cowboy,

clit eatswood on a mission

it took me forever to realise

what consequences were

and remain

i’m still not sure i really get it

as we stand on the verge of

nuclear armageddon

let’s discuss commodity fetishism

from an original position

rejargonise my vocabulary,

please, textbook on notation

i was trying to find a balanced way of living. making money, while also being creative. it was creeping up to the new year, when i would start publishing my poetry, and i had a lot of nerves and apprehension regarding this. i still do.

i also remain anxious about nuclear war. and i was starting to try and learn about music theory. a year on, i can just about bash a tune out of a piano. i’m better at melodica. haven’t got long enough fingers for the piano really. really crap at guitar.

oh and some of these lines were originally ‘funny’ ideas for my online dating profile.

the inhospitable hospital

i’m much more comfortable

dwelling on failure

success is trite.

just comes down to luck

it’s in the losses

that we make our bones

wandering in sonder

through other souls’ stories

in a shared bubble of

mutual miscomprehension

five leafs left, so i turn one over

the motorized spaghetti moat

keeps patients at an asthmatic gap

i try and remind myself that success, victory, achievement – is fleeting, and brings with it new pressures. the more we achieve, the more we expect. both of ourselves, and also on a societal level. expectations creep, yet we, the humans, remain exactly the same. limited. at the mercy of chance.

so i am always just trying to find a way to live that is sustainable.

thinking about public executions on the subway

a higgledy-piggledy queue

of spewing machines

an unexpectedly bustling tube

with elastica from the high rises

stretching out rope for hangmen

pickpockets do operate

in the gallows’ courtyard

the good souls forgive,

but are they influential

with headsment?

since the new trains have been on the subway, there have been some issues. maybe its sorted now. i don’t use the train that often. i’d had dinner with my parents then got on the subway home, its maybe 9pm on a weeknight, and its unexpectedly madly busy, standing room only. i think maybe some earlier trains had been cancelled. anyway, i was thinking about how capital punishment isn’t really an effective deterrent.

hat!

chapeau, cav,

did never ever

cross your mind?

you’ve earned intense relaxation

and benign mischiefs

after a slight return

prepare to overcome;

my melodica fingers play

an old faithful tune

like riding a bike?

but am i charming anyone?

chapeau, cav!

mark cavendish retired with the most tours de france stage victories of anyone. his first in 2008, his last in 2024 – a long career, that saw a long draught as he battled illness and depression. i’ve always adored cav. he cries all the time. i can relate. so passionate and unguarded in interviews. i got into cycling in about 2009, more seriously in 2012 when i finished uni and had weekends free of work for the first time. at first i didn’t really care so much about the sprint stages, but cav made them essential viewing. so many moments of joy he provided. who wouldn’t cheer for cav?

self-care weekend

search term “gumtree”

eight hundred items

cried three times

in a basic way,

people are just

what they do and say…

cold dry, hot dry,

hot wet, wet wet

transcendental massage

happy tears ending,

middle,

and a bit near the start

when she took my feet

like yeshua of nazareth

then clasped my palm

like the virgin mother

i was really worn out, i’d been busy in work, i’d had a big disappointment after missing out on a job i really wanted. i spent a weekend sorting emails and then went for a sauna and massage and it was just what i needed. i am a tense person and i have a lot of neck and shoulder pain as a result. and when i’m sore and burned out and incommunicative, i want a deep sports massage delivered with firm certainty.

but there’s also something very intimate about contact with the palms and soles of the feet. a lot of nerves there i suppose.