and tossed a plastic fried egg into the air
and caught it again the other way up
and then tossed it and caught it again and again
all the time emitting squeals of excitement
through a series of holes in the top of his head –
but apart from that…I want to forget High Holborn.
September Love Poem
I flop into our bed with Thee,
Ovaltine and warm milk-o
And there we lie in ecstasy
Watching Sergeant Bilko.
All Fool’s Day
A man sits counting the days of Spring.
His hands may tremble but his mind won’t stir,
And one thought runs through all his watching:
‘I would have burnt my heart for her.
‘If she had recognised my face
As I knew hers, and listened to me sing,
I would have left the careless human race
For one hour of her careful loving.
‘When spring swings round again, and I am here,
I will forget the terrors of her voice –
But I would stay with terror at my ear
And burn my heart, if I had any choice.’
Riddle
Their tongues are knives, their forks are hands and feet.
They feed each other through their skins and eat
Religiously the spiced, symbolic meat.
The loving oven cooks them in its heat –
Two curried lovers on a rice-white sheet.
Take Stalk Between Teeth Pull Stalk From Blossom
Throw Blossom Overarm Towards Enemy Lie Flat
And Await Explosion
I staggered in the garage and handed them my heart.
‘Can you overhaul it cos the bloody thing won’t start?’
They hammered it and sprayed it till it looked just like a toad,
They told me that it shouldn’t be allowed on the road.
They said I’d better trade it for a psych-e-del-ic screen.
They said ‘What d’you call this aboriginal machine?’
I said
It’s a rose I suppose.
A unicorn is bathing in the shallows of your eyes.
You’ve got a mouth that’s whispering between your thighs
You bring me foreign honeycombs and science fiction ties
And every time you touch me you declare your surprise.
Your language is a code that I haven’t yet cracked
So I can’t be sure of your message or a fact
But
It’s a rose I suppose.
When they see us walking, they’re puzzled what to say.
We’re so obvious in a mysterious way –
Clouds that fly south when the wind goes east,
Hovercraft feet and faces all creased
We draw our wages in musical wine
And what our business is, well that’s harder to define
But
It’s a rose I suppose.
Well Tennyson’s on television selling bad breath.
Lyndon’s in the pulpit and the sermon is death.
Hitler’s in the bunker playing nuclear chess,
Judas got a column on the Sunday Express.
The zombies are lurching all over the town,
There’s only one weapon seems to bring them all down
And
It’s a rose I suppose.
Top-Notch Erotic Moment Thank You
the slime was soaking through my khaki
barbed wire scratching the star-bomb sky
my rifle was heavy as Europe
as i prayed to the snipers for a Blighty
then her breast brushed my shoulder
a thousand thousand lights were clicking at each other
yes the galaxies inside my head were coming good
and i was a visionary scientist on the verge
of creating a multi-versal language and a source of free food
then her breast brushed my shoulder
i was studying despair in Kentish Town Road
and i began to envy a torn cardboard box saying Oxo
being blown along the gutter by a tough November
in the general direction of Euston Station
then her breast brushed my shoulder
now i sit in a dark armchair and think about it
and first i smile about it and then i nearly cry about it
and i know i’m so knotted i’ll do nothing about it
but write these lines to remind me of how my ribs went twang
when her breast brushed my shoulder
Coming Back
this auburn autumn
this free-for-all
free-fall fall
the trees are making so much money
that the river’s bulging with gold
and i’m coming back to life,
love,
i’m coming back to leaf
The Angels in Our Heads
Our angels, spiralling,
Climb the sky like two, like one,
With wings flowing and easy-going
Rippling the current of the sun.
Altitude one hundred miles.
Our angels level out and hover,
Humming delirious pop songs,
Quivering at each other.
Silent suddenly, they shrug
Their rainbow wings around each other.
A thousand multi-coloured hairs
Vibrate along each feather.
And then they drop.
Birds in crowds
Watch and admire from
Grandstand clouds.
The angels both spreadeagle, braking,
Over the ocean, gold and deep.
They slide into its heated waters
To sing in bubbles in their sleep.
Waking, they wander underwater,
Gulping the seasoned sea food, free,
Then they take off in fifty yards
Sprinting across the surface of the sea,
Circling waterbirds, circling higher,
Those weighty feathers dry, and then
Zoom up to a hundred miles
And – there they go again.
But when they look out through our eyes
To see the rain piercing like wire
Or the white wind throw hurtful snow
Burying men in drifts of pain and fire
Sometimes our angels hunch and huddle,
Grounded, sad ducks stuck.
But they should moult and stomp outside,
Socialists fighting dirty luck.
For they can talk or march against the winter,
Get home in time for aerobatics, try
To teach their children to be flyers and swimmers
In a warm planet with a cleaner sky.
Out
when I broke the light bulb an orange dropped out
when I peeled the orange a rabbit jumped out
when I shook the rabbit a parcel dropped out
when I opened the parcel your house fell out
when I rang the doorbell you were out
To a Godly Man
Don’t waffle to me about Kingdom Come
I’ve often loitered there.
My left hand was on Celia’s bum,
My right hand in her hair.
Hello Adrian
(for Adrian Henri)
Hello Adrian – I just crawled out the far side of Xmas to scrawl my report on the wall
We breathed nothing but wine all the time till the group got liquidated on the twelfth day with turkey soup.
Well it was a feast of the beast and half the animals were kissing when they weren’t pissing
Though there were days when the haze turned jagged and I walked into a room full of stainless smiles and white tiles –
But I will confess
I never had it
Halfway up a pylon
Never ha
d it
Under the stage during a performance of Ibsen’s
An Enemy of the People
Never had it
In the Whispering Gallery at St Paul’s
Never had it
Up against a parking meter
But where – it doesn’t matter
When – it doesn’t count
All you got to total
Is the total amount
They’re doing it for peace
Doing it for war
There’s only one good reason
For doing it for
CHORUS:
Fuck for fun (Fuck fuck fuck for fun)
Fuck for fun (Fuck fuck fuck for fun)
Fuck for fun (Fuck fuck fuck for fun)
Everybody want to (boom boom)
Fuck for fun.
They’re doing it in Paris
’Cos it taste so sweet
They do it by the Mersey
’Cos they like that beat
They doing it for Mother
Doing it for Freud
Reginald Plantagenet
Somerset-Boyd
(CHORUS)
They do it for publicity
Doing it for cash
Might as well be robots
The way they bash
They do it in Chicago
Just to fool the fuzz
They do it down in London
Just ’cos Mick Jagger does
(CHORUS)
They do it up in Edinburgh
With cannon balls
Newcastle girls do it
High on the walls
Now there’s too little action
Too much talk
When the bottle’s open
Throw away the cork
(CHORUS)
Well North Riding girls taste of cedarwood
South Riding girls cook the wildest pud
East Riding girls melt your soul like lard
West Riding girls well they try bloody hard
North East West South side by side
What you care so long as they ride
So ride your lover
Get on your little lover and ride
They do it in the Palace
To preserve the line
But we’re going to do it
’Cos it feels so fine
I’ve got a red-hearted woman
I’m a socialist man
We’ve got a great leap forward
And a five year plan
(CHORUS)
An eye for an eye
Tit for tat
Batman fuck Robin
And Robin fuck a bat
Fuck for fun (Fuck fuck fuck for fun)
Fuck for fun (Fuck fuck fuck for fun)
Doesn’t matter if you’re incredibly old
or absurdly young
C’mon everybody and (boom boom)
Fuck for fun.
THE COLLECTED WORKS
OF APEMAN MUDGEON
Apeman Keep Thinking It’s Wednesday
Woken up in fork of tree
By usual jungle jangle
No tom-toms.
No metal bird
Full of Nazi paratroops.
Jumped down
THELONK!
Into turtle pool,
Splashed massive torso.
Searched for berries with mate.
Ate berries with mate and young.
Groomed mate. Groomed by mate.
Groomed young.
Sent young to learn
Ways of jungle.
Bashed chest with fists,
Gave mighty howl,
Loped off into undergrowth to hunt.
Lay along thick branch,
Saw longhorned poem approaching.
Dropped on poem’s back,
Grabbed its neck.
Big poem, threw me off.
Bump on head.
Tried liana swinging.
Good swinging.
Ninth liana bad liana,
Dropped me on rock.
Ankle go blue.
At water-hole discussed crocodiles
With seminar of chimpanzees.
Inspected poem-traps.
Only found one squeaky poem
Without a tail.
Too small, let it go.
Limped back to tree.
Told mate and young
About head and ankle.
Mate said she caught fish.
Ate fish with mate and young.
Fish taste like a good poem.
Sent young up trunk into tree.
Mated with mate.
Climbed up trunk.
Lay down in fork of tree.
Huge moon.
Dreamed about a poem stampede.
The Apeman Who Hated Snakes
Was an apeman lived next door to me
In some kind of prickly tree.
That apeman had the angry shakes
Spending all his sleep in dreams about snakes.
And every morning he would shout
How all the snakes have to be stamp out.
Pastime he enjoy the best
Was to poke a stick down a mamba’s nest
Or he’d have a slaughter down the old snake-pit
And look pretty happy at the end of it.
He tattooed snakes all over his skin
Coiling and hissing from knees to chin.
For breakfast he hard-boiled the eggs of snakes.
Suppertime – Boa-constrictor steaks.
For a man who hated reptiles so obsessively
He spend an awful lot of time in their company.
Now where that apeman lived next door to me
There’s a vacancy in that prickly tree.
I reckon snakes are like me and you –
They got a mystery job to do.
So when I see one in my path I salute
And take a roundabout alternative route.
The Apeman’s Hairy Body Song
Happy to be hairy
Happy to be hairy
When the breezes tickle
The hairs of my body
Happy to be hairy
Happy to be hairy
Next best thing
To having feathers
Apeman Gives a Poetry Reading
Apeman travel much in jungle
Sometimes he swing for many miles
To taxi down in some new clearing
No concert posters up on trees
Tiger who arranged the gig
Has gone down with sabre-tooth-ache.
Gazelle apologises nervously.
Apeman and gazelle shift rocks around
To form a semi-circle.
Two or three crocodiles trundle in.
Four flying squirrels. One sloth.
Various reptiles and a fruit-bat.
Suddenly – ten-eleven multi-colour birds.
Apeman cheers up.
Gazelle checks time by the sun,
Introduces apeman.
Apeman performs a series
Of variegated apeman howls –
Comic howls, sad howls, angry-desperate howls.
Apeman runs out of howl, sits down.
Senior crocodile asks questions:
What use is howling?
Howling does not change jungle.
Apeman stares at him,
Nods, shakes his head, gives up.
Animals begin to drift to holes and nests.
Apeman swings home heavily through the gloom.
If you meet apeman in this mood
Give him a hug.
Unless your name is Boa-constrictor.
Apeman as Tourist Guide
Apeman show you round Jungle?
All right.
Big cliff with holes in
Is baboon high-rise development.
Dusty clearing
With banyan tree full of honking birds
Is discotheque for elephants.
Quic
k! Jump in water – breathe through hollow reed –
Safari party of lions going by.
Tell you something:
Apeman love this
Hot and rowdy jungle.
Tell you something else:
Jungle not all like this.
You keep on walking
And sooner or later
You will find the other jungle –
The frozen jungle.
Black ice
On every branch, tendril,
Pool, path, animal and man.
Black ice jungle
Where it’s too cold
To see or hear
Too cold
To feel too cold to think
As heart and brains
Turn into black turn into ice.
Don’t you worry.
Most of the jungle
Given over to
Sweaty celebration.
You may not stumble into
Black ice jungle
For years and years.
You like to see
River of boiling rock
Or giraffe motorway?
No? Got to catch boat?
Go well. Got any shiny discs
So Apeman can buy firewater?
The Apeman’s Motives
He not hunt the poem for money –
The kind he catch fetch nowt.
He no hunt the poem for fun –
He not a very good sport.
Apeman go after poem
With fists and teeth and feet
Because he need the juices
Contained in the poem meat.
Come on Everybody Page 10