#soho
some are only touching hands
on ferocious streets in Soho
red leather on black skin
drink. **** it. repeat.
leave the litter of thoughts here
a full nothingness redefines them
a woman spits out a leave-me-lone
another one greets the waist of a lover
"what's your story?", I am asked on the sidewalk
but I don't have a story tonight
the night throws its colourful grip on the arrested lips
of a beautiful sub saharan woman
don't be a lady be a legend, they say
all over here
Feb 21
Feb 21, 2026 at 7:09 PM UTC
Beyond the shimmering window sashes
And Santa-dashing
Of Dean Street
Darling
Your eyes
Anchor me
In a hot bay of
Brandy butter.
Your flashing emerald eyes
Splash
Their
Emerald ice
Onto my stunned salmon.
As you slip back into Soho
Will this moment
Spill over into now
Beginning
Or like a thought
Keep on spinning
Spinning?
Dec 22, 2023
Dec 22, 2023 at 7:45 AM UTC
We start in Greek Street.
Not any night,
But the end,
A grand finale;
Last orders,
At the Coach & Horses,
Before the corporate boyz move in to whitewash,
Where inky Boho Jeffrey Bernard drank,
And Gary Dunnington, the actor, and his mates are on the ****
Meanwhile, a mom runs her hands,
Though my strands.
'Tell me everything,' she enthuses,'about your hair.'
But there’s nothing to say:
I barely wash it,
Never brush it,
And only finger combe it.
But she carries on in my locks,
Then off to dinner with her bloke.
We head off to Trisha's at 57,
A lively basement heaven:
In energy, in noise, in smoke.
I chat with Mark.
Got his heart broke:
It’s hard
To sever those traumatic bonds,
Thick as pillar posts,
When love ***** up,
Goodbye, the cocktail of toxicity,
That had you on a high,
The *** the texts, the tenderness,
And, oh, the bliss.
Kass, a boxer musician, comes
And shakes our hands.
He’s in Armani,
And says,
His eyes dark little raisins,
'I prefers a poet over a bruiser.'
And, 'I don’t fight no more,
If I did - so I don't bother -
I’d **** ‘em.
In the corner,
Two girls with dreamy eyes:
So I read ‘em love poems.
Then Jessica Appleby's head pops round the door.
We hug and then swap tales:
'I’m all messed up,' I tell her.
'What not her, the one you wrote that poem for.'
'My man,' she confides changing the subject,
'All crazy passion and wild *** for two months -
Then nothing.
Just fizzled out like it was never meant to be.'
She exits.
'You alright Gary?'
'Yeah, you?'
'Fine.'
But I don’t buy him a beer,
A bottle of Peroni is £5.
'No, it’s £3,' he says, 'if you pay cash.'
I head for the bar.
Three times I explain to the barman, it’s £3 cash.
'Who told you that?' he says slamming the bottle down.
'Gary,' I say defensively.
'Well, tell Gary, if he doesn’t shut the **** up,
He’ll be paying a fiver, too.'
A young American artist, Kirsty, starts talking to me.
She’s trying to get ahead in art,
And says, that when she was a kid,
On a blazing Tuscany night filled with stars,
She walked out onto a stone balustrade balcony,
And knew in that moment,
She was no longer her mom and dad,
But herself, Kirsty.
The boxer musician shoves a tall fellow hard against the wall,
The altercation,
Is over before it starts.
Kass gives me a wolfish smile.
Mark buys me a drink.
Kirsty goes to the toilet.
The corner girls have left.
Mark slips his stool.
Everyone is cleared from the yard,
Just Gary and I linger
With a feisty young bar lady,
Serving the Bohos of Soho.
Drinking in their pathos,
Exhaling in the shadows,
Mingling in their juices.
My ****** up heart beats
With the Bohos of Soho.
Ahhh, the Bohos of Soho keep many an hour.
The Bohos of Soho,
The Bohos of Soho,
The Bohos of Soho,
Have many lives,
The Bohos of Soho are a good seed.
You and I,
In Soho,
For last orders.
Jun 26, 2019
Jun 26, 2019 at 12:38 PM UTC
My art
is the way
I re-establish
the bonds that unite me
to the universe. -A.M.
Before she fell
They were
Hated
She, for her sudden rise
And he
in turn
for his shaggy, loping omnipotence
The sure-footed authority
marked by silver squares heading nowhere.
She was the little Visionary
and he, the Blue Chip
So very messy
The Tall and The Small
If you were sitting at the bar
Somewhere around Mercer Street
And those two came in
“Ugh”
Went off inside all the heads
in their line of sight
A palpable mental groan
As they hung up their coats
And waved at various tables
Making their way like penguins through
recalcitrant faces
eyes focused on a glass of beer.
Again, it will all end badly, we thought
Nursing our drinks.
Tonight
Piling out of the last bar
brawling on slick cobblestones
under the yellowish streetlights
of Prince or West Broadway
Arguing about nothing and everything
“I will out run you Old Man!”
You could hear it bouncing off the sidewalk like reverb
Whispering around corners
“You will be surpassed!”
Birdgirl, I too look to eternity,
he states full of drink and exasperation.
I step and step again. I am walking there.
I am not a bird and you will see that I need no wings.
“You will be surpassed!”
Blood and more blood
A face planted with busted lips
Flattened
Your body crushed into the earth
Over and over
Having fallen
Waiting for burial, entombed in flora
Welcomed
Reclaimed
To be disappeared
But not just yet.
What had you unleashed Mija?
What did you already know?
I’ve got a devil inside of me! SHE GOT LOVE!
I’ve got a devil inside of me! SHE GOT LOVE!
In editorial spreads
we saw flared American jeans in Rome
You said that they understood you there
And in Cuba too
We understood you very well right here,
you know.
It’s not so hard.
The doorman said he heard someone cry out
And then a soft thud a moment later
From the deli’s rooftop next door
Crusted guano
Broken, forlorn and misguided leaves
Cigarette stubs with pinkish ends
A stray tabloid cover page and that
peppery NYC grit in your eye and nose and under your fingernails all reclaim you to a concrete womb
Welcome back!
“ICARUS DOWN” read The Post
How easily we lost our envy
after those 34 floors
Earthbound
Strait shot
It was all foretold in the telling
Now folded into a history of sorts
That of an earthy primordial Fertility cut short by a ruddy man
rather than a thousand compulsive chalklines drawn around a singular and knowing corpse
There are ramifications for deals
made in feathers, b lood
puddles and mudlood
A recipe for the
reunion of force fields
Folding you back within its arms
Where you belong
What an excellent day for an exorcism.
I’ve got a devil inside of me! SHE GOT LOVE!
Feb 19, 2019
Feb 19, 2019 at 6:01 PM UTC