Huzzah! After a lovely weekend spent legging around Hammersmith after Dreamy Kitchen in a vain attempt to give him the bumps and wandering along the Thames with Tag and Susannah, Monday mornings are almost bearable... On the subject of the Tormentor, I think that her idea for an agony column is a winner. As are Mystic Tag's horoscopes. I think we should have more regular features on the list... How about a weekly recipe for the epicurean amongst us? We could start off with Pasties de la Bourgeoisie*, Bars (or Biscuits) of Track and Field, 3,6,9 portions of cake.... and so on. Who'll give it a go? This week there are *two* poems for your delight. I had chosen a poem by Selima Hill, but then the lovely Anne of Glasgow pointed me in the direction of Glen Ashley Johnson, and I just couldn't decide between them... (* copyright susannah) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Selima Hill is one of the funniest and strangest poets writing in Britain today. She has several excellent volumes available from those charming people at Bloodaxe Books. The poem I've chosen is from her last collection, Violet, which was nominated for pretty much every prize last year... Selima Hill Please Can I Have a Man Please can I have a man who wears corduroy. Please can I have a man who knows the names of 100 different roses; who doesn't mind my absent-minded rabbits wandering in and out as if they own the place, who makes me creamy curries from fresh lemon-grass, who walks like Belmondo in A Bout de Souffle; who sticks all my carefully-selected postcards - sent from exotic cities he doesn't expect to come with me to, but would if I asked, which I will do - with nobody else's, up on his bedroom wall, starting with Ivy, the Famous Diving Pig, whose picture, in action, I bought ten copies of; who talks like Belmondo too, with lips as smooth and tightly-packed as chocolate-coated (melting chocolate) peony buds; who knows that piling himself stubbornly on top of me like a duvet stuffed with library books and shopping bags is all too easy: please can I have a man who is not prepared to do that. Who is not prepared to say I'm 'pretty' either. Who, when I come trotting in from the bathroom like a squealing freshly-scrubbed piglet that likes nothing better than a binge of being affectionate and undisciplined and uncomplicated, opens his arms like a trough for me to dive into. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Glen Ashley Johnson has, as far as I know published one book, Angel Kagoule (Carphology Collective). It includes a poem about the erstwhile Go-Between Robert Vickers and several cool stories about growing up absurd.... Glen Ashley Johnson pour moi? I steal a foot mirror from a shoe shop in the city when the assistant has gone in the backroom for some eights. I place the mirror beside the shoerack to the left of the back door. The cat walks in and squeals excitedly, "pour moi?" "no... pour moi," I point to the centre of my fine chest. The cat, understandably sulks for a few days, doesn't get excited at dinnertime, won't leave the windowsills on sunny afternoons, pisses upstairs - stuff like that... One day I come home early and find the cat with one of my boots on his head admiring himself in the mirror. He hangs his head and I pity him. "It's okay," I say " go ahead... it's not as if I bought it or anything..." Within a week he is rich, having sold the entire contents of my shoerack to the neighbourhood's many balding toms. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen xxxxxx the poetry society website: http://www.poetrysoc.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister@majordomo.net . We're all happy bunnies humming happy bunny tunes. Aren't we? -----------------------------------------------------------------------