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.

ecolalia iv and chorus 5

cross loss harvey gen
brung ecolalia home
from work again
a day of laundry,
chores.
scrub scrub
this our funereality,
a jumped up
anxious principality
scrub harder
peasant
yes, m’lord
much and many
scrubbings, sire

memento mori
never hits as hard
as a diagnosis
forever strong and stable,
and taking it on our noses

there’s the road ahead
and the music in my ears
a dream 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

ecolalia is the neurodivergent pleasure in repetition of phrases. this is where a lot of my poetry comes from. i was back from holiday. doing my chores. before some work travel. i had such a busy summer of travel and may was insane. i started a new job and spent 15 nights of the month in various travel accommodation outside scotland. i was struggling to find the time for my art. but it was also quite exciting. trying a different life. spoiler: it’s going to be quite stressful for a while. double spoiler: but it seems to be fine now, a year on. i’ve worked out how to do it now. see you next month when there will be yet more poetry.

the heel of the boot v

she drives
so i can faff
do you know
you hoove
with a hoover
and you put
loash on
overtake a wobbler
driver’s drinking a beer
with the phone to his ear
a green flash
from the monoxide meter
and an electric shock
from the wall socket
another laptop tizzy dash
stranded at the front
while the crew all pee
with the woman
from yesterday’s cafe
then reunited in aisle six
iron oxide
on duck egg gasometer
queues likely
on the way into town
best do some health
whole meal dinner
with broccoli prizes
should have had a taco,
chickened out

eventually, you know, you will hoove with a hoover. or the robot hoover will hoove the house. much like an apron used to be called a napron, words necessarily get perverted over time. i could care less! literally. that was a really nice holiday. then i had a brocolli prize dinner. i sort of had one last night on a train as well. whole grains, fat, brocolli. i really like brocolli. i don’t understand the low regard with which its generally regarded. this is a theme i will return to next week.

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.