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Jodie-Elaine Jun 2020
I’ve been loving you
for at least three minutes.
I’ve been waiting oh-so-tentatively for
your two backward left feet by the
warm microwave light, for
a waltzily slip
of ultimate falsehood out of the fridge.
Oh darling, yo-ooo-ooo-ou
send me.
You, you, youuu
waltz with me in the warm
kitchen light,
across the checkerboard floor.
Darling, yoo-ooo-ou
fold me up and
toss me
oh-so-lovingly into the microwave.
My legs, oh my marigold legs!
Pop out the funny sides,
false and daintily.
Your limbs with no mouths
but light fingers and a thorough
set of skills with the hoover.
I saw the sink disembodied
in the light wearing
a pretty ‘do.
My hair on all the faucets.
Dear Mother, I…
Jodie-Elaine Jun 2020
Josephine, the train carriage in front of me wobbles and it is eerie, I wonder what it would be like to press my hand into its rubber sides, testing out for some sign of reproach. I love you something rotten. Like a stuffed bear toy with the nose chewed off, a book dropped in the bath, something where my toes won’t dare stop to uncurl and sighs, slow down into somewhere around the place of deep, warm comfort. Eric Clapton’s Layla played slowly, Elvis hasn’t stopped, can’t stop falling in love with the way your eyes close, Fleetwood are still waiting at the bus stop where we left, and the Lumineers croon in the voice of Cleopatra. You’re crying on a train listening, thinking ‘Oh dear. I can’t get enough of this’, it’s like burying my head in the sand. It’s a nice crinkle in the corner of his eyes, it’s like coming home to everywhere at once. Like seeing it all hug you into one, the place where you lost everything welcomes you home, you find your house keys, your blue scarf, the basket of odd socks. Josephine, you seem like the road sign for stop and road works and this way to the Midlands all at once. You’re the last human left.
Jodie-Elaine Jun 2020
Big fluffy dressing gowns keep misbehaving and stuffing themselves into un-rounded empty spaces and the spaces are shrinking so excuse me BUT I’M A LITTLE STUCK OVER HERE like the nightmare about losing teeth, about being too small and driving a big van, a massive van down a long hill, it gets steeper and THERE’S NO BRAKES. MAYBE IT’S THE MARRIAGE OF TWO PERFECT ENTITIES, ME AND THE DRESSING GOWNS, that is. But I’d expected it to pan out a little differently than end in the middle of a Bridget Jones film or some other badly frequented metaphor glued together with lollipop sticks. Who are these people who don’t find themselves biting into deep pure, gross, clogged nothing when they have an empty wall in front of them? I bet THEY DANCE FABULOUSLY with toasters.
Jodie-Elaine Jun 2020
THE PIANO KEYS. KEEP STEPPING. ON MY TOES. THEY DO IT WITH A LOW, GRAVELLY, DOMESTIC APPLIANCE VOICE LIKE THE DAY I CAUGHT YOU DANCING. DANCING SO BEAUTIFULLY. IN THE VIOLET ROOM WITH THE SHAGGY. DRUNKEN. HOOVER. OH. ONE-EYED CARPET FACE I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING. I SWEAR MY TINNITUS IS ACTING UP. THE ROOM HASN’T STOPPED RINGING SINCE YOU OPENED YOUR MOUTH THE FIRST TIME. WHAT AN UPSIDE-DOWN BLUES CLUB I WALKED INTO. I ORDER A DRINK FROM THE SINK. IT TOLD ME STRAIGHT OUT TO **** RIGHT OFF. I THINK I JUST LOST ITS NOTEBOOK. THE ROOM OF BACKWARDNESS. OUTWARD. HANDS. THUMBS. I THINK I MEAN. PLEASE DEAR GOD. STOP CROONING. SIGHS THE RUG. TIRED OF STEVEN. STEVEN DOESN’T KNOW EITHER. ANYTHING. NOT EVEN. ABOUT THE CARPET.
Jodie-Elaine Jun 2020
Beach tunes happy-go-lucky spins around the living room the way you catch me when I launch myself at the kitchen tiles, I just wanted to catch something right like a childhood home and things won’t stop lobbing themselves at the walls like sad, falling existential poets eye rolls bad yarn fingerprints track loosely around this domestic space come in for a slow dance, I’ll tie my hair up and we’ll use the lawnmower as a kitchen table chasing our dinner down the street microwaved bats keep coming through the windows Happy Halloween, my love. Slow lips touch themselves together tiredly at the end of the words fall off the face sliding slowly drum beats pleasantly thoughts die here in this greeting card poster perfection ohh, how nice it would be to have a shootout in a 50’s diner with baguettes the same tune it lollops around the room a little glamorously nothing has ever been this perfectly balanced before I fall off my chair it knows something we don’t.
Jodie-Elaine Jun 2020
It was a few days after it all
when I clung
to the ship that wasn’t really a ship, or you told me so
I,
I would have believed it could have been anything
a block of cheese, a fandango,
that old porch
I’ve been dreaming of for a few years
the scene doesn’t end but
Frank, the jumper wearing fellow-
he’s shaped a little oddly- he
told me to leave the fridge open
and you see I got a little distracted the world wasn’t quite there
and the machines weren’t quite machines
and I couldn’t pull things off the walls like I could pull
fishes
fishes out of my eyes- something a little backwards
didn’t we used to keep this behind the teabag jar?
I,
I thought the lid was
superglued with something a little tougher than
soft touch
blues
the melody calls out from one of those dog-eared
spitting instruments and we
look at each other in shock-
it knows something we don’t.
Jodie-Elaine Jun 2020
Things are falling out onto the floor, bits and stuff- old hoover batteries
doing a bit of a jazzy buzzcut dance like jam hand sandwiches that moment where your
hands can’t skate fast enough and can’t stop tying themselves in knots
elephant trunk knots protruding precariously like weird plate show tunes breaking the moment, wave, pebble beach, ugh.
What a lovely space question mark, it is?
I thought you were blocks from fake eyebrow movements
the childhood adverts like many sided shapes  Michael Landy sheds his dose
Mavis plays the harmonica cha-cha-cha
the floor caves in but you don’t need it
you’re held up by sheer, pure spite, very little
IKEA scrambled eggs on toast this is how I scramble it, like bad cement mix
eyelid blink pin drop sounds like not fitting I hate your shoes, put them in the kitchen bin
and move me to the top of the wardrobe, I like to be very, very far from
the floor.
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