have stayed this hard since two thousand and five –
José Raúl Hotrod have stood inked jaw-locked
in a three-way french for some nine rugged years –
pecs still greasy tans Miami-orange fingers tucked
into each other’s pits – interests include PS3 beer
skateboarding fisting being taken for expensive meals –
this is the future I wish for them – open-mouthed
wanton lithe&toned – instead of the all too real –
Wikipedia tells me Hotrod married a girl appalled
by his past – Raúl’s serving time for battery in Bristol
Texas a born-again homophobe&José’s heart exploded
on stage at Pride too much love or rather crystal
Fishmonger
Every Thursday he came to call
in his blood-licked surgeon’s coat
and if my parents were out
I knew to order nothing but eggs
as his prices for fish were far too dear.
Once he took me into his van –
row upon row of gleaming flanks,
the rough brick-armour of crabs,
the stopped hearts of bivalves pickled in brine,
all resting on clouds of ice.
He let me douse his catch in ammonia
a secret to keep their sparkle, he said
and as I sprayed they spluttered
back to life – mouths gurning for water,
gills rippling like Venetian blinds,
coppers and silvers flashing and lathering.
I heard the mighty roar of the sea
surround his van like traffic.
He took me into his capable arms
so I would not cry out.
He fed me prawns to calm me,
wiped the brine from my lips –
let me try my first razor clam
unzipped from its pale hard shell,
the tip – soft and white and saline.
In that battered old Transit
I took the whole ocean into my mouth
and then he sent me home
with a dozen eggs –
so no one would be any the wiser.
Admission
he asks if my poems are authentic
do I have any experience in the matter
and by this he means abuse
and by this he means have I been a victim
I tell him the truth he talks to cover my silence
the Nigerian playwright who writes only
of the Second Liberian Civil War
how trauma is a shared thread
leading to other victims of molestation
how rape is a weapon blame
still in truth I wish he hadn’t asked see I
want this man my friend to see me
as pure not in any way ruined or touched
dirty a tease a liar an attention seeker
he cites Wordsworth something familiar
about tranquillity and I want to ask
now that you know do you still like me
but like the boy when asked by his therapist
to say into the bathroom mirror
it’s not your fault I remain dumb
museum
the unknown
sculptor chose his
marble well
birthing you
from a glittering
seam these flecks of
quartz pure light
illuminates your
chest it’s late
afternoon the halls
are empty and I
am tracing a finger
across the hacks and
pocks these dis-
figurations of
time that tattoo
your torso oh my
kouros my apollo
you know first
hand only hand-
less the vulnerability of
queer bodies how the
earth does not value
us yet you have
survived de-
capitation the severing
of every limb part-
castration to be
here sun-
stroked hero of the
archaeological museum
I want to kiss your
sites of amputation
these rough-hewn
slices these weather-
ed absences I want to
run my tongue
along the lashed
small of your back
wet the hilt of your
battle-toned ass
so I do
bending my head
like a boyfriend
towards the reliquary
of your earth-
scarred sternum I
kiss your chiselled
flesh and find you
warm tasting of
sand and lime and
trace my tongue
down the line of
your groin towards your
injured sex
and there in the hall of
marbles I take you
into my mouth and
tongue your fractured
shaft the
ravaged break of
stone your
cut absence
has not damaged
your thrall if
this little of you is
beauty your entirety
must have been
blinding
for the longest
time people told me
I must change my life
but this is my life
this adoration of
men this worship of
those whom the
world has deemed
broken just as
you gave your
body to the earth
so have I given
mine to this echo-
ing voices and
I am already
steps away look-
ing back I can see only
the dazzling
slope of your cheeks
your sandstone
shoulder a
family surrounds you now
giggling pointing nodding
oh my unearthed
god they do not
understand you the
narrative of your body
how you bore the
darkness the years
of not being touched
your loneliness
which has been my
loneliness
Public Toilets in Regent’s Park
The men here are bird-footed
feathering past the attendant’s two-way mirror
unperturbed by the colonising micro-organisms –
bulleidia cobetia shigellosis
sliming across the yellowed groutings,
the fist-deep pool of brackish water
quivering in the U-bend, the tile that reads
for information on venereal disease telephone 01 …
All for the thrill of placing their knees
on the piss-stained cold, the iris shimmering
behind a hand-carved glory hole,
a beautiful cock unfolding like a swan’s neck
from the Harris Tweed of a city gent’s suit.
Whispers, gasps of contact echo
inside each nested cubicle! But careful –
the prying attendant will rattle
her bucket and mop if she spies four shoes!
Our men disperse as mallards from the face of a pond.
II VERLAINE IN SOHO
15 LOVE POEMS AFTER PAUL VERLAINE
What I’d give for a simple kind of affection …
(trans. MARTIN SORRELL)
blue-screen
your grindr profile is an emoticon paradise
where camels and kittens go
dancing and flashing but I can tell they are :-(
beneath
their primary colours
your preferences brag in arial bold
SINGLE / PASSIVE / NO STRINGS FUN
but they don’t like themselves
so melt back into the blue-screen
into the silent blue-screen blank and sad
that makes the emoticons dream within their
programming and code run like teardrops
C C++ sob beneath your touchscreen
love version of
tonight I watched you sleep
naked on the futon
face down sweaty like a small child
and knew that everything else was bullshit
it’s so hard to stay alive these days
or sane
so keep on snoring danny
while I guard you like a rottweiler
being in love with you is fucking awful
cause one day you’ll stop breathing
in this grey light you already look dead
but then you smile thank fuck
what are you dreaming about baby wake up
tell me if the word soul still means anything
tinder
blonde or brown-haired I swipe the screen
blue eyes
or green I swipe again looking for another
with a poet’s eyes but a short back and sides
soft belly hard abs lean I swipe the screen
heart
desperate or damaged who cares so I
swipe again there’s far too many of us
man-slut or boyfriend material left right
yes no
does it matter there’s always another
each fitter than the last each newer
green
here’s a plastic basket of polyester tulips
plus a heart-shaped card that sings I LOVE YOU
don’t recycle them please
be happy with my pound-store presents
I stink I’m pretty sweaty I’ve been walking
this whole damp night to get here
let me curl around your converse cat-like
and dream of our cherry-days
maybe I could put my head still burning
from the memory of your hubba bubba kisses
onto your broad chest just till I feel a bit better
perhaps grab some shut-eye while you doze off
pastoral
above soho the sky
is super blue
bus minutes click down
MANBAR empties out
a fat pigeon burps
its coo of loneliness
shits
the sauna vents sigh
fuck me everything
seems so simple this early
suburbs boyfriends a-
sleep over the river
and you what have you done
standing there on a comedown crying
tell me how many men
came inside you last night
stupid love
violin music
hurts my gut
like a punch
I’m always
thinking about
what happened
then crying
wish I could
leave you
blow off
like an old
carrier bag
the hole
hope what is it be honest with me
you think it’s desire a want
a wasp fizzing
for the gap in the window
are you sleeping at all
wine helps whiskey too
I haven’t gone to bed sober for eleven years
I don’t know any lullabies
tell me to fuck off
if you want sympathy is so pat
you just want him back him
walking through your brain neck
still smelling of davidoff cool water
that wasp is always thinking of the rose outside
W1D
what kind of slob leaves a used mattress
on the street tide-marked with
sweat piss blood and is that maybe cum
I swear you can see his outline in bodily fluids
and he’s not alone
four knees four palms four buttocks tattoo
the damp quilted magnolia cotton
they sure had a happy horny time of it
so what happened
did they move to hastings or get a swanky new one
the dfs memory foam 900
or did all that sex turn into regret
I know something about regret I’ve been
chucked away often covered in hickeys sex-bruises
like to go for long walks
I was always bimbling about KT3 SW20
looking down each suffocating avenue
for someone just like me
every driveway park bench
each public lavatory
was an X might mark the spot
remember those pre-grindr days
when loneliness stung like a hunger
and you wanted to give yourself away like a milk tooth
homo do you still walk until your shins ache
up turnpikes across spaghetti junctions
through industrial estates along the towpath
your only treasure map
the salt-flesh wall in your stomach your semi
heath
the moon bleeds
light onto the black ash
every branch
in this dismal canopy
rasps indifference
like an ex-boyfriend
the salt marsh
is full of drowned things
the walnut trees
beckon like trade
the dark moves
no you are not dreaming
this desperate place
this scrub
cold
as dead starlight
violet
is your home now
the presence of x
you believe in magpies
one for sorrow two for joy
I think that’s lame
you believe in disney films
aurora ariel belle get their prince
I think that’s heteronormative bullshit
you believe in reincarnation
motivational speakers crystals runestones
I think that’s super annoying
I believe in sex the blue hours
you’ve spent fucking me
the bruises you left on my arms
I’m the monk and you’re stigmata
only this isn’t some straight to dvd thriller
starring christian slater and donnie wahlberg
today
memories what the fuck do you want
making a fat pigeon beat the air again
the copper sun roll back years
the yellowed woods chatter with decay
we were alone together him and me
drunk sad our thoughts coming down
he turned his black look my way said
is this happiness his voice metallic
his voice which had been so green
like my mouth my body
how I kissed his peachy neck and thighs
yeah the first years are so ripe
when open-mouthed kisses fill the silence
that today is long
sertraline 50 mg
it’s raining in my heart
what does that even mean and
why am I so sad
all the fucking time
still it pours on
the slate roofs are black
the gardens a swamp
droplets on the pavement
such white noise is
almost calming so
how come my head’s a cloud and
my heart’s a puddle
middle class boys like me
haven’t known tragedy
and yet this dark rain
in the style of richard scott
my moon is a man
he’s watched me get naked in parks cemeteries by the canal etc
the other stars belt spade massive crab
are pretty meaningless and dead anyway
there’s no more music in poetry
than in my boyfriend’s whispered voice
both make my heart pump
belly spasm
I don’t forgive you bullies exes
the man who punched me the one who touched me
but I love my dad
even though he did and said shit shit things
I am free now still
it hurts everyday so I read
mark and walt and arthur and constance and gregory and thom and my boy paul
write poem after poem about
other people’s dreams are boring
I dreamt I was at CHARIOTS last night and
two lads
one blue-eyed one black
slipped out of the bleach-stinking steam
you should have seen their towels
damp with sweat hugging their smooth waists
smothering thighs flanks
cupping the dangerous meat between their hips
they pulled me into their labyrinth of clouds
terrycloth swaying like silk ball gowns
on some itv drama about adultery or longing and
Soho Page 2