the heel of the boot iv

toggle be,
the jazziest beaver
i am untartened,
a border reiver
amaro montenegro,
an iron brew
why am i feart
of mosquitos
i’ve already been
bit like 40 goes
got one back
like cracking
human blood goo
from a winged black egg

my girlfriend likes to wear neck scarfs, so i got her a toggle, a bit like i used to have when i was in cubs. i left long before i got to scouts, where i would have been outed re my lack of a clan tartan, being a border reiver by birth. for long us benns have walked in the wilderness, reading aloud our poetry, making love under the king’s moon on english wildflower meadows, and pinching livestock. always getting bit by insects.

the heel of the boot iii

morning lag,
saddle bag snag
locked up rear
momentary fear
east is beast
west for rest
the church by the wine bar
they ring the bells
to summon up
the ghosts from hell
until they have
a quorum
to discuss matters
ecclesial
in their
worthy forum
there was
anarchic popelessness,
the vatican
was hopeless with
erratic sin
and soulless stress
you understand
the mess we’re in!

we had some funny luck with our bikes on the holiday. the crank arm was threaded and the pedal fell off. we got a different bike. and we had a little difficulty with balancing above, rather than on, the tarmac. the saddle bag strap on my bike snapped and the bag fell into the wheel and the strap got stuck in the brake caliper. although the first i knew of it was a noise and the wheel locking up. quite scary but kept it upright.

the heel of the boot ii

the roman tricolore
basil, tomato and cheese
and the teal from the sky
to the seas
post ride,
ride the tide to ankle deep
eat the weans’ white ices
except
oor wan wean’s
nae teethen’ yet
a semi colon;
then we slept

but then we were on the holiday and it wasn’t stressful. the food was great. the weather was great. i made new friends, including a cheerful baby who had just learned to wave.

a short poem about a short cycling holiday in argyll

a hot heat,
awestruck, fading
but you won’t get rid of me
a lizard in argyll,
a long goodbye,
hyper-palatability
confused saint mungo,
road chicken strut
and tut. and tut.
sent the pint back
and got a new one
just the same

there’s the road ahead
and the music in my ears
an idea in my head
called the gilet years
it’s the beep of the derailleur
greeting the last cog
march on, forward, onwards,
towards our epilogue

i am always thrilled to see a lizard, all the more so if it’s in scotland. you don’t see a lot of lizards here. i’ve seen more red squirrels than i’ve seen lizards here. three squirrels. two lizards. oh i ordered a pint of st mungo and it was dead nice. in the bar. then i ordered another one, in the restaurant. but it tasted different, not as nice as the first, so i assumed they had given me the wrong thing and sent it back. anyway, the exact same flavour of pint came back. i think maybe they gave me the wrong pint at the first bar.

under his eye iii

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.

under his eye i

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’

if i wasn’t called n n benn i’d have gone for red blaes

a pontiff
post-pontificating
has a point if hope remains
but dust will
surely settle
on his line in the blaes
departure
led suggestion
ask always ‘what is right?’
rather than
the usual
‘what did we do last time?’

with the changing of the popes i was thinking a lot about religion i guess. the last pope was alright. definitely better than ratzinger. but i have a lot of hope for pope bob. not that i’m a catholic. but a pope is a powerful man. i wish the president was more like pope bob.

red blaes was a sort of surface that used to be common for football and hockey pitches. i skinned my knees on it many times. a sort of pink dusty cinder with little jaggy stones in it. there is still some of it about. anyway, you could draw a line on it, like sand.

and its good that the future isn’t like the past. let’s not give up yet on making the world a bit better for the next generations of earthlings, plants, animals and mushrooms alike.

various male relationships

i overheard a brother 
from the proclaimers
smoking on the step 
discussing the anal invader.
modern men coagulate 
into half-brother run clans
garries nu and old 
face-off ying and yang
they hope their hauners 
will do the honours
alpha of the man gang

i had been at the studio practicing with my band when i stepped outside for whatever reason and the one of the brothers from the proclaimers was there and i just overhead him say, ‘they call him the anal invader apparently.’

then i think i saw a photo of a run club on instagram and all the guys looked the same. like half siblings maybe. and my friend i.h. told me he was going to get a yin-yang tattoo of the gary numan and gary oldman. he still hasn’t got it yet as far as i know.

very grammable

from the whangie we frolick
gleeful down the hill
passions may contract
but others will swell
glow up and gentrify
come good in quick time
blow up my mentions
like and subscribe

the whangie is weird rock formation in the campsies, north of glasgow. we went on a trail run there. it was fun running down the hill but i was sore for days after.

i seemed to be doing a lot of thinking about social media this time a year ago. i was posting regularly to instagram at the time. i was wholly unsuccessful at creating my market there! man i hate zuck.

introducing (a stupid idiot)

i’m n.n. benn
that’s benn
with two n’s
i don’t claim
be an artist.
multidisciplinary
autistic typist
is what it says
on my passport
though sadly
i’ve been convicted
and sentenced
to hard poetry,
for infinite years
in both practice
and theory

this bit is a little tribute to the early 21st century glaswegian hip-hop duo, the stupid idiots. sadly, none of their music seems to be online any longer, and a new band is calling itself the stupid idiots on spotify. i presume the original stupid idiots’ lawyers will have been in touch.

once described by the nme as ‘gleefully profane’, i think its fair to say they were my favourite band of all time. just pipping a three way tie for second between bob dylan, enya and the archers’ theme song.