By Marcus Slease.
Poems from Smashing Time!
Balloons
*****
I’ve got a little hill with little green men and green tanks
in the hills of Milton Keynes
a bottle of pop
&
a bumble bee
summer ’83
*****
Peter Tooth is delightfully
sane
(Jubilee Line. Wembley to Kings Cross)
*****
the boy scouts of America
yeeeeeeeee
still smiling into gorge
way to dry lake
to blow off bottle rockets
with little red white blue flags
******
wee boy bat
in back-
seat
santa on dash
2 galloons
of coca cola
hershey’s kiss
twinkling in moonlight
unwrap what you got
i’m itchy in eyelids
*****
the lizards are still
waiting
in Vegas
******
man leans over
notebook
on tube
from Wembley to King’s Cross
as I write what woman
across said
******
ah cretins
goodbye
such clarity come
help you
, the horrors ,
*******
my scum is so so
deep
skanky
lovebottom
I’m taking
my hat off
it’s almost a midsummer
night’s
popcorn
popping
on the apricot tree
adios!
ego!
SPLASH!
******
we’re all together
at Wet N’ Wild
but you do not
remember
stay, o, stay
amid the hideous faces
hidden
behind
balloons balloons balloons
BALLOONS
******
now i’ve found
the poem
it’s called Balloons
uhhhhgh
so quickly
hop into magnetic field
balloons contain
lolly’s
and clowned out voices
I can do it, too
this is where
we want to go
to the b-day party
or the hot dog party
the balloons in Elblag
northern Poland
near station
a room of cheeseburgers
squeeze into
how do you feel
what do you think
balloons
******
you’ve heard the poem
you’ll love the glove
this is the passage of the odd bark
*****
I’m squeezing my head thru
a hole
in the wall
you’re the wall
or I’m the wall
yr wall or my wall
it’s your head
head+hole
hole+head
we’re all in
THIS
together!
thank you
steamy
*****
Muddy Tulips
I’ll spend the royal wedding in Copenhagen
do you got your energies
I woke up
the dreams are true
we’ll meet later
a woman turns the METRO pages after licking fingers
in disgust!
old jeans cracked under the pressure of attacking dogs (Bilkent University, Turkey, Jan 2010)
sometimes wake up clear sometimes
sullied
have
your say!
whose flight you realize
no geese in pond
******
to be honest with you and oh damn botheration stasis bumbly bear
in the cities of the belly
WHAT IS THIS HIT?
ssssssssssssssssssssss
very evenly
the abominations of the belly frolic in infinite loveliness
********
custard warm soupy
under the apple pie warm
in Copenhagen
we will see
Grzegorz Wróblewski!!!!
they are cooking curries in the windows of my soul
oh iodine
thy rod
doth comfort
and we are pleased in Albion
with the sniffly dragon
gone down the dream pipes
*********
the fire department
of my face
has sprung
in spring
in London
*******
another novel leads a pencilway to the potatoes of promise
rolls and rocks
upon yon
hilltides
*******
this is my stationary arm
****
gregg’s is not
a real
bakery
full of limp bread and crusted butter
coffee’d or not
coffee’d
enough
Kingsbury
Jubilee Line
Northwest
London
23rd March 2011
**********
let’s return to the pathway
of potatoes
stuffed with valuable
iodine
my hair
my hair
doth climb the silver stairs
where
once a dooryard did bloom
********
oh yonks!
I came
over for you
July ’85
this is another immigrant song
*******
for this we live
another thousand years
by the neck
another
DEMO
OH
we will beat the pavement
firm!
(London 26th March 2011)
*******
new thoughts
in old packages
bleached
under-
wear
in the spin cycle
******
god bless you
ants
can you exist without the others
carrying apple
tanks
into the bunkers
TESTOSTERONE
how lucky to run
into you
by the fronds of my tea nights
my hand picked
armies
go off
on yr thighs
******
IMMIGRANT SONGS
Scene: Milton Keynes, England. Coffee Hall. Housing estate. Near the playground.
BOMBER JACKET (stuffed with old socks)
hiya I’m a Mormon quarterback
Tootise Roll
in the pockets of a Mormon missionary
Spiky Hair
I take off my shirt to you
Little Blond Hair Mop
It’s time to go
BMX Bikes
bunnyhop bunnyhop stumpjump
Wayne
Hi, I’m Wayne
Tigerboy
I nicked this rum from my mum
Madonna
All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth
Bun
Out of fashion
Curtain
Not yet in fashion
Poof
We’re all poofs at heart
Deflated Ball
Who? What? When? Where?
Scene: Arville Apartments. Las Vegas. Near the desert (of course).
FIVE-ALIVE (bleeding through the carton)
best mixed with now-and-laters
MEXICAN PRINCE (at the playground holding court)
HEY hombre!
HEY Amigo!
PEN TIPS (in the hands of 80’s children)
we have a tent
we don’t like money
we challenge them
we unravel tapes with pen tips
Blue Lights
Mothers. Or not. Scuffle. Boy buys cowboy boots. Other boy eats special K hamburger.
Gumballs
For each coin you drop you get a card with American history. For every ten cards of American presidents you get to chew me.
Nerf
No pigskin. Easier on the bowels.
Scene: Oakwood Place. Portadown. N. Ireland.
Doll
My grandmother had a mask under the stairs and my mother did not my grandmother
had false teeth my mother does not my grandmother was friends with the coalman the milkman my mother was friends with the ice cream man
Car
Blue. 1978. BAM!
Boy
Bounce. Twice
Bike
There was no bike
Nurse
Are you sure there wasn’t a bike?
Boy in Bed
Bet you’ll fall asleep before I do
Tools
Scrape. Poke. Yoddle.
Man
Here’s a new ball for your trouble
Scene: The National BOWL. Milton Keynes. England. David Bowie in the distance
Poof:
My banana kick is better than you’re banana kick
Banana Kick
WHOOOOOSSSSHHHHH
Boy A
You’re lucky. You’re going to L.A. where they breakdance
Boy B
Not LA, LV
Boy A
What’s in LV
Boy B
Lights
curtains close
Russell Square Cafe
Here in Russell Square with The Kindness of Strangers
by Phillip Whalen
given to me
by Tim Atkins
Piper down pen: an Olde WORLD PUB
state st., SLC, Utah
“The first fella I was really naked with was Matt Dalby”
man in checkers calls out the numbers
FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST
the sun is here beating down on jeans like Vegas
the chinese come in sun dresses
DOUBLE DECKER BUSES
I smell bacon
I smell bacon
Ewa wants ice cream from Gelateria
London sun
Number twen tee fur plea
number twen tee fur plea
I’m at the center stitch
of this notebook
I went to the market and oh
what fresh ox-carts
BLUH!
women pull down shoulder straps
shoulders bake shoulders
the Russians have returned to Russell Square
with Da
and DA!
feel teeth with tongue grimy behind
four bottom front teeth
in 2006 in South Korea
Jeom-Sook scrapped it
free gums!
toy pistols
water pistols
spud pistols
Milton Keynes, England 1983
“you have on there record and then you scroll
down till you get what you want”
numba tweenty eat plea
numba tweenty eat plea
it’s service
TA
TA
bake of this whale fat
farted out breakfast
empty tummy
“she’s not fat she’s bigger than me she’s got a nice face”
“very thoughtful very thoughtful”
“loads of clothes”
“and when I haven’t got any money I don’t like things”
“she earns good”
“are you prepared to count them out”
“how did you get such long fingers”
“he’s gone odd”
“surely will be £50 in THERE tomorrow”
Chinese in sundresses
dipping their chocolate
taking off shoulder straps
BON VOYAGE!
BON VOYAGE!
metal chair hard must steak
out
piece of grass
bad chocolate donut
£1.80
words from Nerve Fibre
contemplate mind state of Korea Poland Turkey
“they’re just Germans”
“you can’t see from the angle”
“ yeah like so I thought is was like so”
“ I like very much”
Italian homophonics:
“it willa bea spritza tura”
“cash outa I giva foura backa”
“I got a bottle ready”
“she’s a posh tit!”
chocolate crumbs under freshly shaved
fingernails
wonder who’s smiting me
on the inside
numa ninety plea
numa ninety plea
“you are what you eat”
JELLYBEAN
you eat me me eat me
we are a happy family
“The Russians tell us what to do”
“The right is in power”
if your right hand smite your left hand
“You get a bit more sun in Paris”
“here you because you urban bus”
“if you have an umbrella”
“they don’t have here here proper showers”
“proper sun”
“and they we lived it was completely true”
“the flap of Alexandria”
“they were eating”
“home nuance gone”
“I left my proper job to start a job”
“I think everywhere is terrified”
(10th April 2011)
The Centre for Creative Collaboration
(April 2011)
high pitch whine during set-up
“I see Sharon”
“Seminars in May”
“Vivian come too”
*************************
OH!
OH!
poor intellectual
old jackets
high heels
take me seriously
I hate the BBC!
************************************
in a foreign land
the sun comes up in a different sky
************************************
ANIMAL ANIMAL:
Chernobyl exclusion zone:
“this is one of the local folk songs followed by stalks
sorry
that’s a wild boar”
SOUNDS! MOON!! SETTLING!!!
in dark by sound and flash-
light
and camera phone
projected on wall
Carol Watt’s sheep in search
of sheep
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
the value of a warm animal: £20
Josephine the monkey starred in over 30 films
a monkey called Sailor
fed sausages
bit mum
(Belfast, N. Ireland 1937)
Kid Brother. Harold Lloyd. A man with
a big beard. Monkey is saviour.
INFINITE SUBSTITUTION:
five Alberts
sent into space
IT IS NOT OK FOR A MONKEY TO WEAR CLOTHES!
There’s Real Mint in This Tea
(Fatisa Cafe. Wood Green High Road)
bright sun From
The Mountains of California
and The Gold Standard
on the table coffee hat sunglasses checkered shirt
applied to teach fat chance
today in London feels like
North Carolina early summer old leather chair time abounds
you’ve got a trans-
lucent charm
Hero klei tos
when first we leered
upon the real
flying over
the rancid
charm as form
yr sun is nero!
but I’m
in WOOD GREEN
among these scavengers
we call pigeons
waiting for fresh mint to soak the boiling water
I’ve looked at my face twelve times since morning
and put on linen trousers with hat
and sunglasses
I’m ready to get breezy with
Kent Johnson or Philip Whalen but not
the avant garde
what’s up
your sleeve today
Jackie Chan
pulling off stunts
or tricks
how all these passengers pass by
with different arms
swinging in different ways
and different tushes
hugging different jeans
the Turkish are inside
cutting meat
with their knives
Ewa has begun sipping her mint tea
where has my stomach gone these last days
THERE’S REAL MINT IN THIS TEA
that lady is still eating her chicken
and the red double deckers
whooooooossssssshhhhhh
on by
and Ewa is highlighting
and my mint tea
is hot water with smelly plants
and my belly tells me I’m not
expansive today
I don’t want to take this world or this self
too seriously
“the best way to study the brain is to
remove it
from the skull
however this approach
still
has its limitations” (from a textbook on psychology)
ponder this ass
how it moves
and sometimes not
how it empties
out the eternal
waste of kebabs
and hamburgers
and much vegetation
see how it
bleeds and burns
for you
and when the
sphincter
pokes out
wrap finger
in paper
poke back in
I’m 37 my hair not yet grey my beard trim my head shaved my belly full
of rumble
and thus
I sit
busting the bubbles
of my thoughts
on this busy highstreet
in north London
digesting the pre-chewed
gumballs
of words
oh literacy
there is my hair in my shoe
and my eyeball twitches
dried sweat crumbles
from my eyebrow
I am such and such
of stuff
that dreams
are made of
(26th April 2011)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marcus Slease was born in Portadown, N. Ireland 1974. He is a nomadic poet and has lived and worked in various places including: Milton Keynes (U.K.), Seoul (Korea), Elblag (Poland), Katowice (Poland), Ankara (Turkey), North Carolina (USA), Bellingham/Seattle (USA), Utah (USA), Trieste (Italy). Currently he lives and writes and teaches EFL in London (UK).
He is the author of Godzenie (BlazeVOX 2009) and This is the Motherfucking Remix (a collaboration with Brian Howe using gangster rap and other found texts published by Scantily Clad Press) as well as various small chapbooks. As a member of The Lucifer Poetics Group, he participated in group readings in North Carolina, Washington DC, Brooklyn, Ithaca, Atlanta and Philadelphia. He has also performed his work at places including: the Soundeye poetry festival (Cork, Ireland), the Prague Microfest (Czech Republic), the Carrboro International Poetry Festival (U.S.A.), and the Openned Reading series (London, U.K.). He was the co-editor of two issues of Past Simple – one on innovative poetry from the U.K., Ireland, Scotland and another (co-edited with the artist and poet Grzegorz Wroblewski) included innovative poetry from the U.S., U.K., Czech Republic, Poland, and Denmark. You can check his multimedia projects, works in progress and observations at his blog.
