it's all good,
Van Gough reprints on the walls,
tact in,
type writer on the carpet floor,
a boxelder bug hides in between 'U' & 'I'
I've got a dollar in my wallet,
hair on my face,
and the dog waits at the door for me to be wild,
the room is cold,
the heater is off,
the electrician is drunk,
i hand him a bottle of wine,
we end up painting the walls,
with the left over blue buckets of paint in the basement,
"now it's like we're in heaven"
the bellyed drunk brown eyed electrician,
his hands face hair clothes covered in paint,
"now you are heaven"
and we laugh,
lighting cigarettes that taste like women,
and the Television screen is cracked and leaks out Volume 3 News
some how we are free at this moment in time,
when the color of the walls are pointless,
when the television screen says nothing,
when the bathtub is broken,
and the water pipes whine,
and the mind is fairly crazy,
fairly drunk,
fairly mad,
but it's all good,
because rent is paid,
and the world's fist is taunting me,
to see how long i can go without eating,
and how fast i can create.

The fireside retreats
into the wall
as another TV Christmas special repeats,
with its sound echoing in the hall.

Tangerine,
Satsuma,
Clementine-Orange
peel litters the tabletop;
orange runway for the action figures,
plastic arms, moulded hairs.

Nina Simone plays loud,
'Nobody Knows When You're Down And Out',
Christmas is over,
and now there's nowt to do.

What did you do to your hair?

It is not fashion or regarded as a
good sight, for sightseers whom fight
for the best sight to see.

Nor is it complementary to your main meal face,
no condiment would ever accompany you,
let alone a boy in a start of the month, moon-a-new,
relationship-race.

It is not natural, nor be it an attempt to
blend into your surroundings at large,
as a red and blue fringe
will never be camouflage.

So, what did you do to your hair?

Hooked and hung to the chair,
tethered by a strap-
colour akin to your hair-
you sat and stared
at another essay to be handed in
by three pm, next-week-Wednesday.

A-future-whatever is another
lustful thought, failed and
let down by little taught.
Again! Why a wife is so hard to find
in brambled streets or box hedged
squares, rectangular and receipt like?

Give up and give in,
walk drunk drinking sloe gin.
That way love is but blackthorn berries
the controversial, speechless adversaries.

Society mourns bodies
6 feet deep,
But I preserve
My livid tears
For Death
That lives.
Bodies that shift,
Corpses that wheeze,
While their souls
Choke and thrash,
Desperate to breathe.

Alkaline eyes
As if pierced by some awl,
As if hallowed by some blunt axe,
As if to juxtapose
Bee stung lips.

Cabaret music,
Dead souls,
Dancing corpses.
Ella Enchanted:

Swinging, Swirling, Swaying, Swabbing
Sick, Suffering, yet
Sauntering;
Sweaty Socage with
Scummy Suede-heads,
Stocking
Satan’s Sweet Sibling.
Swollen Skeleton,
Skin Shunned and Shivering,
Shadowed, her face;
Shock-less eye Sockets

Tired grow her limbs,
Unction bottled in her heart.

Unaware, her clientele,
Zeal in their eyes.

So where does she go when
she's been fingered and drugged,
abused and sexed up?
That's right, the end of the bar
where they'll never find her,
let alone kiss her.*

Tucked behind her right ear,
blonde hair fell as if a tear
from cheek to chin,
bowling ball to bowling pin;
stacked at the other end.

This poem is for you long-blonde-hair-behind-the-bar-girl, written down by paper and pen.

Your quilted jacket,
leather in material,
won't keep the cold out;
only a white-stick-arm
will warm, guide and
ignite you home.

Fill the wardrobes back up again        
with hangers plucked and picked from the
carpeted floor.
                        Lay the lover down amongst the sheets
                        only the whisper sweet thoughts and memos and
                        kind words in low tones
                        into her ear.
                                           Kiss her neck and grace the thigh,
                                           build
                                           up
                                           the
                                           courage
                                           to
                                           last
                                                 all
                                                    night.