NORM

NORM

Norm speaks
slowly
takes
his time

guess it wouldn’t
make sense
for the voice
of truth
and justice
to go racing car

every syllable
pages of reference
legions of footnotes
underpinning

the logic of a bulldozer
when he gets into gear

when he swats your
feeble premises aside
with such ease
how did you even
fool yourself
you had any chance
that the fairy tale
you tell
comic that
you are
might stand its ground?
   

ONE AND ONLY

ONE AND ONLY

imagine
you are one
moment
   naked in
the street
in Hamburg

the one before
in Strawberry Fields
with Yoko

the next
     being introduced to
Paul

the next being blown
away by a jealous soul
with a snub-
nosed special

imagine a
         world become
so non-linear

everything you are and were
revolving forever on a carousel

imagine that you
are
   have become
none other
than
    Mr Sergeant Pepper’s
one and
    only Billy Shears

BUTTONED

BUTTONED

slippery slope
one Hell of
a logical fallacy

not sure I buy that
he said as
poles reversed
and all
went vertigo

over a bad word
and the terrible, Earth-
shattering damage — go
figure! — it cannot
be allowed
to do

but she is erudite, and
in the New Yorker, no less,
she has
made her case

but elegance is an achievement
will not stand
up to deconstruction

your cracks and crevices
are there
for the taking

rhetorical figures interrogated
made to stand on their heads

and here you are
touting the danger
of weapons of mass destruction
but throwing
your own little not so
weak hand grenade
into the mix
thing that democracy, humanity
can well do without adding
to their wounds, their woes
at this particular juncture

useful idioting yourself with
stylistic flourish so spectacular
finding yourself
(yet again) on these pages
grown
synonym
for suspect

nice little diversion from
the calamity to the very
concept and
its understanding, of
civilization

with every blind moment of
pure slaughter via
two thousand pound bomb

testament to
our world, new
reality no
sooner than lips
first got buttoned up

PEEL

PEEL

I watch you
peel
wondering if this be
a whole new being
or at least a new species

I would touch you
but that might produce
an intensity
at which flesh dissolves

or, at the bare minimum, a
moment beyond
our capabilities where
we hurt each
othes’ feelings
.
perhaps
    (but no quid
pro quo) I should
peel too or
simply
   stand before you
as yet unpeeled

or stretch out in a tableau
of tender vulnerability
peeled of everything
extraneous and
at the
heart of my need

what
is the worst that could happen?

best and worst
beyond my wildest imagination.

FOR REAL

FOR REAL

storms
will come

storms
bringing guns

hail big
as icebergs
your titanic
doubly
sunk

and you backyard
now an
ocean

and you
thinking: it’s
almost as if
someone been
photoshopping
bulls, ragged-tooths and
great whites
into this flood covering
my house
and garden

and the sharks thinking
he thinks
  we digital
better explain we
           for real

AT THE HOUSE OF COCO CHANEL

AT THE HOUSE
OF COCO CHANEL

sorry
I ate all
your makeup

some tasted
caramel
some had a chocolate
flavour

most was just
generic pink

felt like
winning the lottery
and blowing it all
at the candy store

even ate the blue
leather bag everthing came in

a cross
between the taste of
blueberries and
the taste of
cow

but hey, now,
take a peep at my insides
and you might think
you are at a
disco
at the Moulin Rouge
with Miranda wears Prada
at the house
of Lagerfeld or
Coco Chanel