Sinister: The Monday Poem(s)

[poetry place2]

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)
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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.

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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.

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Stephen
xxxxxx

the poetry society website: http://www.poetrysoc.com
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