wanted;  
Liverpudlian rock stars
to sing fer me - the Queen,
I'll pay yers all in corgis  
and transfuse ya wiv - caffine,
I've gorra a bloke called Ringo  
fer the bingo - inbetween,
support act - Chewbacca -
and Macca - in yella submarine.

The streets of Paris were clogged by rallies and demonstrations on the Sunday of fashion week. At the Trocadero, a pro-rally for embattled French conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon, blocking the route between the Valentino and Akris shows; at Bastille, an anti-Fillon demonstration.

The French elections — and ever-increasing security — were providing a tense backdrop to the autumn-winter collections, much like Donald Trump, Brexit and Matteo Renzi did on the fashion circuit of New York, London and Milan this season. Politics and the changing of the guard, women’s rights and diversity may make fashion seem irrelevant until you add up the value of the industry to the world economy. In Britain it is £28 billion ($45bn) — and that is small fry next to France and Italy.

Perhaps politics and social change have influenced the French designers for there was much less street style this season and a lot more tailored, working clothes on the catwalk. They used mostly masculine fabrics but worked in such a graceful way. You need only look at Haider ­Ackermann, Chanel, Alexander McQueen, Christian Dior, Lanvin, Akris and Ellery to see this — lots of great wearable clothes.

Karl Lagerfeld wanted to fly us to other worlds (to abandon the mess here perhaps) in his Chanel space rocket. There were checks, cream, silvery white and grey tweeds, for suits and shorts and dark side of the moon print dresses that cleverly avoided the 60s’ ­futuristic cliches. Silver moon boots, space blanket stoles and rocket-shaped handbags were as space-age-y as it got. There was quiet, seductive tailoring at Haider Ackermann — tapered silhouettes in black wool and leather softened with a knit or the fluff of Mongolian lamb for a blouson or skirt. At McQueen the asymmetric lines of a black coat or pantsuit were ­inspired by the fluid lines of ­Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures, whereas David Koma reclaimed the soaring shoulderline of Mugler’s 80s silhouette for pantsuits and mini-dresses for the brand.

Christian Dior’s uniform-inspired daywear was produced in tones of navy blue with 50s-style navy belted skirts suits, long pleated skirts and some denim workwear. “I wanted my collection to express a woman’s personality, but with all the protection of a ­uniform,” explained Maria Grazia Chiuri before the show.

There was more suiting at ­Martin Grant with voluminous trousers, cummerbunds and men’s shirting. The cut was more mannish at Ellery and Celine with ­Ellery balancing her masculine oversized jacket looks with feminine bustier tops with giant puff sleeves. The mannish look at ­Celine was styled with sharp ­lapels, slim-cut trousers under crushed textured raincoats, whereas ­double-breasted jackets (a trend) and peacoats over loose-cut trousers appeared at John Galliano.

Checks jazzed up the tailoring at Akris where there were more sophisticated double-breasted jackets and swing coats, and at ­Giambattista Valli from among the flirty embroidered dresses a dogtooth coat emerged with a waspie belt and a suit with a peplum skirt.

Stella McCartney displayed her Savile Row skills in heritage checks for her equestrian-themed show. Of course, she is crazy about riding and her prints featured a famous painting by George Stubbs, Horse Frightened by a Lion. It turns out Stubbs was another Liverpudlian, like her dad Sir Paul.

Of course Hermes’s vocabulary started with the horse and there were leather-trimmed capes and coats that fitted an equestrian, or at least country theme worn with woollen beanies and big sweaters, offering a different way of tailoring, in an easier silhouette with a soft colour palette.

The highlight of the week for Natalie Kingham, buying director at MatchesFashion.com was ­Balenciaga. “Great accessories, great coats and great execution of ideas,” she says of Demna Gvasalia’s off-kilter buttoned coats, stocking boot and finale of nine spectacular Balenciaga couture gowns reinterpreted in a contemporary way. “It was wearable, modern and the must-see show of the week.” It was also, she pointed out “the must-have label off the runway with every other person on the front row decked out in the spring collection”.

Although tailoring worked its subtle charms on the catwalk, there were flashes of brightness, graceful beauty and singularity. Particularly bright were Miu Miu’s psychedelic prints, feathered and jewelled lingerie dresses and colourful fun fur coats with furry baker boy hats. Then there was the singular look evoked by Austrian-born Andreas Kronthaler in his homage to his roots, with alpine flowers, Klimt-style artist smocks and bourgeois chintz florals worked in asymmetric and padded silhouettes for Vivienne Westwood — some of it modelled by the Dame herself.

Pagan beauty, the wilds of Cornwall, ancient traditions such as the mystical “Cloutie” wishing tree led to Sarah Burton’s enchanting Alexander McQueen show, which was another of Kingham’s favourites with its unfinished embroideries inspired by old church kneelers and spiritual motifs. “I loved the artisanal threadwork and the spiritual message that was woven throughout,” she says. The artisanal and spiritual she considers an emerging trend around the shows. “It had a slight winter boho vibe but much more elevated.”

Chitose Abe shared that mood for undone beauty with her Sacai collection of hybrid combinations of tweed and nylon for an anorak, and deconstructed lace for a parka, and puffers with denim re-worked with floral lace for evening.

There was more seductiveness at Valentino and Issey Miyake. The latter’s collection shown in the magnificent interiors of Paris’s Hotel de Ville, shimmered with the colours of the aurora borealis and used extraordinary fabric technology to create rippling movement as the models walked.

Valentino was a high point. On a rainswept Sunday Pierpaolo Piccioli cheered us with high-neck Victoriana silhouettes and long swingy dresses in potentially (but not actually) clashing combinations of pink and red in jazzy patterns of mystical motifs and numerology inspired by the Memphis Group of Pop Art. The sheer loveliness of the collection was enough to drown out the world of politics only a few blocks away.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/blue-formal-dresses

in elementary school we were told
to write interesting facts about ourselves
on the first day, to get to know one another
and at that time the only things i could think of
were that i collected nutcrackers
and had many siblings
i see myself in better lighting now
hello, i am emily
my middle name is kane,
my great grandmother's surname,
and i take pride in it
my fingers shake when i explain things
that i don't understand myself
and my legs shake on their own time
that's the quirk of a chronic tic
i draw to express myself to myself
and to show off
and to be better than the girl i met in the third grade
who painted a sunset
just a sunset
and all my friends ooh'd and ahh'd
and i sat there, confused
if savannah could paint a sunset
and get such a reaction,
then watch out world.
here i am, painting roses and butterflies and cartoons
on the cardboard backings of old spiral notebooks
i found in my closet
and leaving my sloppy signature in sea-foam green
on the corner and in the back of
my mind
and smudged on the side of my left hand
i have a scar on my cheek
from getting just too close to a dog
and scars on my arms
from staying just too close to the edge
and playing mind games with myself
the kind in which neither of us
came out victorious
i like mozart and debussy
when i'm working
and gershwin and joplin
when i want to have fun
i write on the spot, spur of the moment and
my words don't seem to
fit on the paper in a way that pleases most
but i assure you, they speak volumes
in the middle of the night
when i lay in bed, pen in hand
anger in mind, worry in chest
i am in love with a boy who lives
far away though it seems
every night when we talk
he's right next to me
wrapping his arms around me,
binding us together and
keeping promises
and holding on to the
agreement we made
at twelve a.m.
i can sing and play instruments
and tell you anything you want to
know about the surrounding universe
or the Liverpudlian lads who
started a musical revolution
and taught me that
all you really did need was love
i read every day
from books that have been sitting on my shelves
every day for the past five years,
some even longer
when i sleep i snore
though i've heard that
it sounds like a cat
purring while being pet on the head
but i think that the most interesting
fact about me
is something that
has not come about just yet

(Spoken affectionately)
I see the ink’s run dry
But the words piled high
Search for a page

I remember her then
Not now and again
But always

(Scots)
Ma’ shelter when it rains
The blood in ma’ veins
Andrina

(Liverpudlian)
Wipin’ sleep from me eye
Straightenin’ me tie
Fussin’ about me

(Nicely)
Your mother should know
Well where did she go?
Nowhere.

my grandfather
a liverpudlian
bus driver sat of an
ev´en in the kitchen and
vehemently demanded
right of way
before god and man..

(or so it is recorded..)

i recall him being smaller-
a darkness before a mirror
putting lard on his hair-
a prerequisite to exhausted sleep
in his favorite armchair..
we,his family would gather..

(round..)

grandfather duly revisited his day
he bucked and contorted..
a scissored hand a pedestrian..
his slippered feet sort break and clutch
but performed a little known dance instead..
with an all change he´d swung into position:
babe in arms
halfpastthree
sidewinder..
onetime he slept with his knees on the floor
and his head under the cover..
auntie mable was nearly ill with suppressed laughter..

children,can of course be fearful moralists...
tired of the humiliation i released a guffaw..
that was the kind of little boy i was..
priggish but thought an idiot..
the adults groaned..
grandfather opened a beautiful pale blue eye..

later,in the garden
in the day light
he said he and i could
be great friends...

i feel sorry for most of these muslim guys, their parents took to despotic integration, facilitated by the obvious paradox of: "being" english, yet retaining an olive skin. shame on their parents, in all honesty. my parents tried the same "trick" by asking me to speak only english in the household... but after the 1997 incident my outright answer was a echoing: NO, which still resonates to this day. imagine introducing the concept of "illegal immigration" to a pre-teen kid, imagine the death-stare of the same boy, looking at home office officers... then imagine the boy punching the wall so hard as to almost break his knuckles, with the notion of leaving behind the friendships he established at primary school... reason with a child... good luck.

and i mean this with the utmost sincerity -
you can only truly integrate into a society,
given, that you also retain your native culture,
there's no cake and eating it too scenario...
thankfully i knew one muslim from
my school days who: every time he spoke
his native urdu - always appeared to me as:
humbled, that there was a father figure
hovering above him like a halo.
   now that, that: i respect.
what i do not, respect, is when people
try to "fit in" too callously -
        they turn the native's tongue upside
down, and create clapper-slang...
   with an audience of awaiting seals who
clap an approval and being taunted on?!
don't think so...
  sure mate, you got the tongue,
    but your skin is a bit of a shtick...
        can't fool me...
                and the saddest thing of all...
the children, who miss out on
the prospect of bilingualism,
  i knew a couple once...
he the fresh potato irish turned liverpudlian,
she coming from high stock *raj root,
tea farming in india... owners: not the workers,
but the sad thing was: the children were
not bilingual, i.e. "schizophrenic",
what? apparently in england, bilingualism
is a mental disorder synonymous with
schizophrenia...
                  odd... don't you think?
- but it's just sad that parents become traitors
to their native cultures, by insisting to
speak english, and only english...
  for some "strange" reason i had a drive
to encrust mother and **** my acquired
"father"...
                 no english tongue will step into
this home,
                  unless it be met with
lazy / broken-tongue polish...
    which incorporates some english words...
like: weekend, nap, *******.
                    if only these muslim youngsters
had better parents, who didn't
desire to overtly integrate into a white
society, if they retained some native spreschen...
they'd be much more,
if they only allowed bilingualism...
       this organic fact is really hard to
fathom - an organic body with an
inorganic tongue is like a mind
with the notion of a soul that turned
the anti-philosopher's stone and turned it
into: ****.
                  besides the point,
  it came to me by the most unusual of places,
parallel, to say the least, convergent in
a back alley of a railway station, akimbo,
smoking some ***...
   the exact same words...
so i gave this homeless man 10 quid
for some fire to warm up for the night
   (carlsberg extra strong 9%,
  not bad, tried it myself,
   notably when introducing citric acid
to the can) -
and he said:
                        'my mama said to never lie.'
my mother also said:
         'never lie.'
                 imagine...
    so many budding writers could have
emerged, so many, and so many of the existing
novelists could be memorable,
if, and only if: they weren't so good liars.        
         it's easier with poetry:
in poetry you don't have liars, bullshitters,
instead of exaggerations you have
that ever familiar: idealism -
the ideal lover, without the idea of a lover,
the ideal thief, without the idea of a thief of hearts:
   always toward an ideal,
        as always, toward ad nauseam...
it's just plain common sense to spot
the fakers in poetry...
               poached meat, fried meat,
barbecued meat...
                              fakers never write raw,
it's never a plate of: stake tartar.

You, Korts, are linked inexorably to the likes of Wint, (in his ****** odd way), Natto, (in his Hebrew way), Victoria, (in her Liverpudlian way), Joel, (in his essentially cynical way), Terry O’Leary, (in his rhythmic tongue), r, Cyd …..and many others far too numerous to mention….and of course myself…for we are the progeny, the genetic linkage to the fabled and ancient, “Legion of Storytellers”.

In times past our forbearers roamed the globe when very few others chose to or, in fact, could. They found themselves orating nightly at the fireside, surrounded by spellbound, wide eyed listeners intent on hearing every nuance of wondrous tales of elsewhere. Tales of bravery and beauty, tragedy and outrage. Tales which caused the listener to weep, to wonder and to laugh uproariously. Tales which captured the imagination and sent the ordinary soul on his way pondering, expansively, things beyond his ken.

And in the morning, before the fireside ashes turned cold, the Storteller would be on his way to the next village, the next gathering of waiting listeners….for that is the role of the Storyteller in this life and beyond, spinning tales of immaculate colour and endeavor, laying the fabric of dreams and inspiration, painting the fantastical wonder of it all in the minds of the many.

And that, Korts, is what we do, thee and me….The worms which drive us impel the pen to write, impel the mind to create…the elixir of spindrift of that which we must.

Cheers Brother
M.
Planet Earth

i am born of: vitriol.*

i want my guitar back,
the one you broke before
i had the chance
to pay it off,
you liverpudlian fat ****!
hungry for a sarnie?
yeah, the lebanese
baklava brigade is on its way...
don't worry, fatty,
you'll get your
        diabetic coma!
and by god i hope you get
your amputee cheque to boot.

it almost makes sense,
come to think of it...
    allowing myself a half a year
interlude between
one and the second
visit to my local Turkish barber...
and at the supermarket -
oh you know,
***** blonde -
   petite -
   probably in her mid 40s...
minx ****...
      past two days,
at the checkout -
    she drops the terms
***
         (honey)
            and babe...
   like some Liverpudlian might
drop the term, pet
onto a woman...
         it really makes sense
to go for the old testament
prophet look from time to time...
hide...
  and then return,
looking civilized -
hardly neglected -
          you'd never think
that a beard not kept to
hipster standards
can become a grand disappearing
trick,
of not hearing such
endearing terms,
   from a supermarket cashier;
plus?
     ooh... years!
i didn't tell the barber to
shave me to a specification...
he managed to leave
a line of clean skin...
a week later from the shave?
stubble!
     just around the Adam's apple
and to the sides?
   half an inch of width...
    the first shave i've had
for... 3 years?!
                the sensation is
still the same...
                  like walking
on a cool August night...
  in feet attire,
  that doesn't require socks...
and isn't,
a pair of moccasins either.