Secret Agent Artist

I’m lying in bed
eating my forth ice cream,
when I get a text from an acquaintance
I haven’t seen for ages.

Having completed her 4th degree
in medically related sciences,
she has been spending the last year
seriously training as an Olympic Athelete.

She, and her fantastically attractive husband
will be flying out to Africa to volunteer on a
high powered, seriously important
UN governed project. She will be swimming

10 miles at my local gym -
the one across the road from me, that I never go in -
would I like to sponsor her?
I drop ice cream on the bed.

****

I’m going through bank statements
when my father rings to tell me
he’s invested all his money (my inheritance)
in a high class, can’t go wrong, fail safe

Angora Rabbit Breeding Facility. Unfortunately
the facility, has been very badly hit
by an unprecedented outbreak of
Mxamitosis. He and my mother

are now destitute, and urgently needing
somewhere else to live. Could they come and
kip on the floor of my council bedsit?
no pressure for the bed, he’s sure

my mother’s arthritis - will only hurt a bit.
He’s not sure how long they’ll need to stay
but is certain we’ll all get along swimmingly.
The taxis’ waiting. He’s got Angora Jumper for me.

I like Bank Holiday Mondays in bookshops
drinking coffee and reading library books.

I’ve never understood the way they sell sunglasses,
or The Daily Mail - but I like that they keep

a small grand piano for miniature playing.

I like watching men in suits buy guides to Italy
from attendants with butterfly painted faces.

I like the pensioners on three for two
and the kids colliding in biographies.

I like the cycle home,
summer heat hitting shoulders.

I like Bank Holiday Mondays.
Dislike Tuesdays.

One afternoon, in the middle of delivering
a poetry workshop, my mother appears
and without even knocking (as usual,
of course) shoulders her way in.

She stands, Marks and Spencers coated,
sensibly shoed and commanding
the full attention of the entire group,
announces quite simply: “Lydia.

Your father and I are getting divorced”.
Nobody says anything. My mother
pulls up a chair and makes herself
comfortable, arms folded over lap,

2 huge, bulging bags placed like sphinxs
round a throne - the room’s paused.
My mother says: “I can wait-
or you can just give me the keys.”

****

My boyfriend is a terrorist.
We’ve been together 6 years
but one day, when we’re in the sky
flying over Tokyo, he stands up

and tells everyone that
despite all this time
appearing to work in
Literature Development

having a degree in Media Studies
an MA in narrative theory - and no interest
whatsoever in any kind of religion
he’s actually been a member of the Mujahadeen.

He’s got 12 pounds of semtex
hidden in his trousers -
when our Ikea sofa comes
he won’t be taking delivery.

****

I’ve just finished taking a relaxing bath
when I get out and being alone in the flat
walk naked into the hallway.
Sadly,

My landlord has removed the front door there
and sold tickets for people to come and watch
People are asking what size bra
and if lap dancing

costs extra.
In a fit of post
post feminist, avenging angel
I high kick the punter leering at my navel

and, having speedily reattached the towel
jab squarely in the groin, my landlords,
lying, cheating, Peter Stringfellow.
The next day I go looking for a new flat.

Another day it smells of coffee,
like my mother found in Panama
returning from her cruise.

It fills a warm house,
the inside cuff of a woolen cardigan;
anxious on a bus, it comforts you.

Sometimes, hope tastes
like a cough sweet, reminds of the time
you lay in bed - sits on your tongue,

hums like a gun, alpine forest,
sharp ice cube. It’s a bell ringing,
sail stirred - blue sunlight over hull.

Hope anchors you. Touching it,

you feel dunes - feathers,
the clean bowl of a silk bag,
the balloon cord that you tried to grab

but missed, as a child.

If hope were here -
it would watch for you,
would move quickly,

press it’s string into your hand.

On the other side of this
wild night - someone else cups palms;
feels beating, wings brushing -

something small, light as fire.

Another day it smells of coffee:
the kind my mother found whilst traveling,
brought back with her from the islands
discovered on her cruise.

It fills a warm house,
the inside cuff of a woolen cardigan;
sitting on a bus, waiting anxious
it would comfort you.

Hope tastes like a cough sweet,
reminds you of the time you lay in bed,
sits on your tongue, hums like a gun,
an alpine forest, sharp

ice cube. It’s a pike gliding
or a small boat
bobbing up and down
on a broad horizon, green land

rising into view.
It’s a bell ringing, sail stirred
blue sunlight over hull. Hope
would anchor you. Touching it,

you’d feel dunes -
feathers, the clean bowl
of a silk bag, the balloon cord
that you tried to grab

but missed, as a child.
If hope was here
it would watch for you,
search hands, know -

which of us might need it most.
It would move quietly,
pressing string
into palms.

It was bound to happen really. Mega activity … complete crash.

Today was my first day off in about a fortnight - unless you count Sundays, but even on those I tend to be doing work stuff. I went to bed at about 4am last night, woke up with Damo at 9am. Then went back to sleep until 12.

The day has consisted of mostly sleeping. I did go out for lunch; to the magnificent Go Juicy, where I also bumped into my friend John. After that I bought some sunglasses - and wore them all the way home - and back to bed.

There were some other interludes, in between the sleeping. While out, I tried on several pairs of jeans and 2 t-shirts at TK Max. But I did so in the way a colour blind person might select paint - with little interest. I was like someone in the midst of a drug filled haze. I wandered around, looked at stuff, though not a great deal, then wandered back to the nice safe place, with the no people and soft pillows.

Back at home, I answered a few emails, and in my defense didn’t get back into bed with the intention of sleeping. I did, in fact, finish the P.S Publishing book Damo got sent to review.

The Last Book’ by Zoran Zivkovic - was very, very good. A lot like Haruki Murakmi. Per edition, PS books are much more expensive than your average hard back - but they’re a real pleasure to read. No dust jackets - printed covers, beautiful textures and writers and titles I don’t think you’ll find elsewhere. They’re also less likely to get creased up when you fall asleep next to one…

Right now, its a bit after 10pm. Me and D went to dinner, across the road to Ravoli. I do sound decadent don’t I? I wouldn’t have minded cooking actually - but I just wanted to see the world after all that sleeping. Going into Ravioli at 9.30, results in being the last customer and so not too popular with the owners. And then we nearly forgot to pay for the raita. But Ravioli makes such good stuff.

I’m back to work tomorrow. Jean Binta Breeze is doing a workshop at the art exhibition I’ve been curating: Future Bright. Really looking forward to it - and as I’ll do the workshop as well as make sure it happens ok, it won’t really feel like work.

This is becoming a very long post, maybe I’m trying to make it long to put people off reading down this far. I think what I really wanted to say you see was actually that I think my complete slump today has been something about exhaustion - but also, something about being at a loss. I think I’d very quickly get extremely depressed is it wasn’t for my work. There’s something comforting and actually easy about it rhythm and content. Take it away and I start thinking about the messier stuff. Where’s it all going? What am I doing creatively? Where’s it all going.

Oh dear. Well, tomorrow evening, I’m going to do some poetry at Sugarshack. I might blog about it.

We can’t still
be awake - sitting on the sofa
with the cushions, pushing,
into the backs of our knees
like blanket stitching weed or poison ivy.
There are pink marks, like pressure sores
from sleeping in. This is enforced sleeplessing,
the army would be proud - would shine
bright lights into our eyes, lightly thumb
the purple bags. But we don’t sleep.
Like vampires we just sit -
on sofa cushions, pushing
sleeping hours away unclaimed.
We write, like someone else might pay
for words we scratch onto our screens -
not just us.

His two left feet
arms around her waist
hung like clubs, or ice picks;
wing men, flippers on a bird -
his hands were:
meaty, sweaty, pockmarked, sour
she guessed been drinking
since the hour
the place had opened - this too tall,
clumsy man
who’d not so much as asked
as fallen in her arms-
was deadlocked round her calves -
left her helpless
only option just to - half dance
half cart - him back across the floor
bright lights, sweaty palms,
half dance -
one - two
half drag -
three - four
the man -
with the two left arms,
dangling useless like a
third limb - a soggy narn,
gabbling senseless ‘bout his mother
or her bra - get your hands from off my
ah! the girl - with her strong right arm
decanted him into a stool
left him there to gurgle snooze.
The girl -
went back to dance,

I think I may just have discovered the worst TV program, ever made. It’s called Golden Balls.

I’m sitting in Ravoli - this take out/eat in place on Welford Road: I’ve taken to eating my dinner in there because I burn toast and am too lazy to try harder lately. They have a TV. It plays…whatever. The take out place has no discernment - unless of course the owners are taking time out to eat, in which case it’s cricket. But anyway.

Golden Balls is a gameshow presented by Jasper Carrot. When I was a child, Jasper Carrot was a household name: a comedian with his own primetime show - Carrot Uncanned. Now, he is doing this. I feel sad for Jasper Carrot. I am sitting, eating my paneer kebab thinking - this is a sad paneer kebab - Jasper, how did this happen?

It’s hard to be specific about the rules of Golden Balls. It has something to do with lying to your competitors. It has something to do with each contestant having in front of themselves a series of lined up golden balls. They have to guess - I think - which balls have money in them. They are Cassandras for the Daily Mail reading generation.

In the final, two women sit opposite each other, balls between them.

One says “I feel drawn to this one…but I’m not sure..”

the other one says “No go ahead, I trust your judgement”.

Judgement???

The take out proprietor asks me if I’m watching Golden Balls. He doesn’t know that it is called Golden Balls. I piffle at him. As if I would watch this crap. So he changes the channel. Back to the cricket. I miss who wins. I miss how it ends.

The Furniture Dinosaur

Upstairs - in number 5
it’s swishing like a crocodile.

It’s tapping out a beat
like a drummer with a stool.

The furniture dinosaur knows how to move.

It’s doing the rumba -
sashaying numbers
that would make you blush
if you could see them groove.

The furniture dinosaur knows how to move.

It’s flexing it’s sections of oak paneled thigh,
raking it’s bar table - aluminum
clavicle over linoleum tiles.

The furniture dinosaur
scrapes shelves
of stacked hearts -

only comes together
when it’s dark

I’d like to go up there
and shake a case, jut my pelvis,
shimmy and shake -

but times like these
it’s far too risky.
The furniture dinosaur

can’t be predicted-

cracks glass.

The Table of Longing

The table of longing was like two lovers -
separate but vital -
to each others continuing survival.

It’s two sets of wooden legs
ended in a set of four
perfectly sculpted oaken pegs.

The table of longing smelt of all the years
they’d ever eaten: butterscotch pudding,
hot fruit with vanilla coulis.

It tasted of the wine
occasionally spilt, the skin of the hands
brushed like silk.

The table of longing was the sound of
all furniture ever moved. A distant sea
in the ear of a grand piano.

It was a tree uprooted
and black soil stirred. A car moaning
at the foot of a hill.

The table of longing was lined paper
written verse, varnished leaves
bronzed wood. It was three panels

of a painted screen,
sheets to hide it’s naked dreams:
a desire to be folded - rest limbs.

The table of longing was a pair of wings.
Gold hinges,
glowed in the dark.