How could you not love Danny La Rue,
the last man in a dress
to outshine the also rans, in high heels,
stockings and large expensive wigs,
taught several how to relish in the glamour
of their existence and others how to embrace
that not everything in life is black, white
and as bright and vibrant as a child’s colouring book
when they learn to draw outside of the margins;
how could you not love Danny La Rue.
How could you not love Dorothy Gale,
I was never more astounded
in my young and carefree life
than on the day I witnessed
evolution in flight,
as the black mass
took to the Selly Park air
and shrouded the sun as one,
shimmering, splitting the heavens,
blowing my mind as I peered
into the cracks of the corporation
pavement of Manilla Road,
an ice cream slowly dripping
and making sticky fingers,
evolution in flight,
evolution with black angel wings,
as ants crawled, stuttered, their heartbeats
increased by sunshine and the call
We are the humourless children of Darth Vader,
stuck in a pattern
of self loathing and flowing envy,
the darkness seeping out
from the sore
we keep hidden, under layers
of guilt and delusion and the odd
pair of cartoon socks, one size
fits all and opinions we hope are the same;
we are the grave and grim,
the forbidding and the forbidden,
we are the humourless offspring
of Darth Vader.
We are the children of a deaf Batman
and the surprising talent of The Joker,
As a nervous teenage boy
I submitted the flesh
on my neck for you to place
your tongue against the pulse
of lingering, anxious excitement
and you my dear would kiss me gently
through dreams passing by
the agony of lazy summer days
of dying school memories.
Now when I think back, jumping in time
to the delicious feeling of being wanted,
being practised upon by calm
and relaxed women of the same
age and desires,
I thank my own personal deity
that I was brought up by
The world is on fire,
having simmered too long,
unable to cut off the fuel that drives
the hate, that steers and directs
the dislike and blows it up, makes mole
hills burst like Vesuvius, Earth tired worms
claw at the air and interesting times
are back in vogue once more.
The world is on fire, screaming
out injustice whilst having no plan
to purge those that place a spark
of Lucifer against the black sparkling dust,
extreme dislike turns to detest
turns to repulsion, turns the hatred clock
The solid, spread out ink
of the wired octopus on the polished
wooden floor, scuffed in places
where four by four
tables, holding sauces
and drinks during the day,
allows the musician
to reach the audience and keep
them spellbound.
The octopus never loses shape nor sleep,
wide awake, alert and fussy over the music
it hears silently, the only clue to the beat
being played is the pulse and the energy
that courses through its thin frame
and two jacked hearts, hyperactive
You could never replace the crackle
that came armed with a moment
of silence in the dead of night
or the giant Everyready PP9 battery
that would weigh your father’s pocket
down on one side and made him
appear as if he was stooping over
at the tender age of thirty-five
and which would feel like you
were cradling gold up the stairs
to put in the radio,
your companion at night
when darkness fell
but sleep was but a tiresome illusion.
If only I had kept all my tickets
from every train journey I had ever taken,
I have no doubt they would stretch
from here
to there
and back once more
and would only be exceeded
by the amount of music
I have filled my brain
with, track by track, song by song,
over countless miles
to Plymouth and my great grandfather’s
home by the cliffs in Saltash,
to Newcastle to watch a gig or ten
the hour it took to get to Birmingham
If it is an admission you want,
the words of guilt, the declaration
of remorse and complex
self reproach, then you,
my friend,
haven’t been listening to a word I have said.
Then again why would you,
why would you even lip read,
or give me lip service,
my apology, if that is what you require,
is not for you, it is too my soul
for having allowed myself
to fall into your clutches in the first place,
to sit and be mentally abused
and raped by simpering
The black ill favoured fly
is a perpetual nuisance
as it buzzes, dive bombs
and irritates me to the point
of wishing to cause harm
to the beast that spits
and tastes the sweat in the air
as I fumble for words in the semi
darkness, the gloom of soul
and thought. I pick up my
silver edged letter opener,
purchased from a Saturday market
in Greenwich and I wish I could find
the speed in which to take this
ill favoured black fly out