Rock,
pink dreadlocks,
a gammadon of canneloni arms playing
the drums like a hurricane,
a Hindu Keith Moon, with free reign
to
come and screw
up any regularly scheduled sketch
with the freedom of the antic wretch
to, without permission, fetch
up
in any set-up
and deconstruct it, growling just his name,
disregarding all rules of the game:
maximum soul, Animal, unchained, untamed!
Friday, 6 April 2012
NaPoWriMo Poem Five: Catflaps at Dawm
Technically they call it morning twilight,
astronomical, civil or nautical
depending on what can and can't be seen:
landmarks, the larger stars, or the horizon.
I tip the cat food, wet and dry,
into two bowls and fill a third with water.
There were nights, not all that long ago,
when I wouldn't be in bed yet at this hour:
all-night pseudo-raves in Student Unions,
caning ice-pops and still water,
fellating Chupa-Chups as much
for sugar-rush as sexual suggestion,
dancing solo in the dub room,
sinuous and feline in my head,
heavy liquid bassy spaces
breaking out the girl.
Summer fruit juice, waiting,
in the Nibelheim beneath the shopping mall,
for the first bus of the morning.
A bump. The catflap opens.
astronomical, civil or nautical
depending on what can and can't be seen:
landmarks, the larger stars, or the horizon.
I tip the cat food, wet and dry,
into two bowls and fill a third with water.
There were nights, not all that long ago,
when I wouldn't be in bed yet at this hour:
all-night pseudo-raves in Student Unions,
caning ice-pops and still water,
fellating Chupa-Chups as much
for sugar-rush as sexual suggestion,
dancing solo in the dub room,
sinuous and feline in my head,
heavy liquid bassy spaces
breaking out the girl.
Summer fruit juice, waiting,
in the Nibelheim beneath the shopping mall,
for the first bus of the morning.
A bump. The catflap opens.
Wednesday, 4 April 2012
NaPoWriMo Poem Four: Scrawl from a Blue Room
Come here. It's time for your lesson.
You've taught us well, but it's your time to learn.
How it feels to be afraid. To be unwanted.
How it feels to be the bottom of the pile.
How it feels to hear every day
that we only matter when we're making trouble,
when one of you has to take one of us out
and your media blowhards make him out the hero.
We're here to teach you what it's like
to be made to feel your only worth
consists in meeting sales objectives
to keep some reptile yank in what he calls suspenders.
You're her to learn how we resist,
and we have to, as much as you hate it
because the fact that we resist reminds
you what you do is genocide.
Lower status monkeys die off quicker.
Lower status civil servants
are the first to clutch their chests.
Did you know that? I suspect you do.
You're a gunman who can't look along the barrel
but you never miss because it's point-blank range.
And you pull the trigger countless times each day:
When you ignore the girl who makes your morning latte.
When you treat the person on the helpdesk line
like a punchbag made of air. A service drone,
non-human, a passive bin for all your scrunched-up hatred.
Every back-slapping, bigoted joke you guffaw at
with your gang of mates at the end of the bar,
loud enough the quiet, bourbon-drinking girl
hears every word.
It's an epidemic you create. A genocide
of strokes, infarctions, self-inflicted cuts.
Immune responses going limp. You made this.
And you profit from it. And we're not supposed to fight?
You've taught us well, but it's your time to learn.
How it feels to be afraid. To be unwanted.
How it feels to be the bottom of the pile.
How it feels to hear every day
that we only matter when we're making trouble,
when one of you has to take one of us out
and your media blowhards make him out the hero.
We're here to teach you what it's like
to be made to feel your only worth
consists in meeting sales objectives
to keep some reptile yank in what he calls suspenders.
You're her to learn how we resist,
and we have to, as much as you hate it
because the fact that we resist reminds
you what you do is genocide.
Lower status monkeys die off quicker.
Lower status civil servants
are the first to clutch their chests.
Did you know that? I suspect you do.
You're a gunman who can't look along the barrel
but you never miss because it's point-blank range.
And you pull the trigger countless times each day:
When you ignore the girl who makes your morning latte.
When you treat the person on the helpdesk line
like a punchbag made of air. A service drone,
non-human, a passive bin for all your scrunched-up hatred.
Every back-slapping, bigoted joke you guffaw at
with your gang of mates at the end of the bar,
loud enough the quiet, bourbon-drinking girl
hears every word.
It's an epidemic you create. A genocide
of strokes, infarctions, self-inflicted cuts.
Immune responses going limp. You made this.
And you profit from it. And we're not supposed to fight?
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
NaPoWriMo Poem Three: Not the Royal Wedding (I'm Sure)
Bright sun and almost empty bars.
The sofas tattered: no lights in the toilet
where, by Blackberry flash, I applied
just lipstick and mascara, plus
the powder from the compact you'd discarded.
The extra holiday meant buses coming later.
Few were out yet. Those who were, were loud:
braying white cis gay guys. Such a bunch
of personalities we found another bar.
I thought of London, the siesta-silence of a Soho pub
shattered by a wanna-thesp whose voice dripped privilege,
declaiming 'CUNT!' as if two pints had made him Withnail.
We figured we'd see less guys in the Dog.
We were right: just us, two more dykes and the barmaid.
Paint-stripper techno drowning conversation.
More women entered. Nine or ten. A crowd!
I kept my head down, scared of being made
by rads, or, worse, knocked back for looking rough.
Switch was even emptier. A whole bar
to yourself falls short of what's expected,
especially when the Guinness comes in cans.
We drifted leftwards, one more for the road,
and found the only place with something like a party.
Too tired to dance, to weak to fight for seats
with drag queens dressed like Kate and Pippa,
we finished up, hugged awkwardly,
went home to news of cleared squats
and burned-out Tesco Metros.
The sofas tattered: no lights in the toilet
where, by Blackberry flash, I applied
just lipstick and mascara, plus
the powder from the compact you'd discarded.
The extra holiday meant buses coming later.
Few were out yet. Those who were, were loud:
braying white cis gay guys. Such a bunch
of personalities we found another bar.
I thought of London, the siesta-silence of a Soho pub
shattered by a wanna-thesp whose voice dripped privilege,
declaiming 'CUNT!' as if two pints had made him Withnail.
We figured we'd see less guys in the Dog.
We were right: just us, two more dykes and the barmaid.
Paint-stripper techno drowning conversation.
More women entered. Nine or ten. A crowd!
I kept my head down, scared of being made
by rads, or, worse, knocked back for looking rough.
Switch was even emptier. A whole bar
to yourself falls short of what's expected,
especially when the Guinness comes in cans.
We drifted leftwards, one more for the road,
and found the only place with something like a party.
Too tired to dance, to weak to fight for seats
with drag queens dressed like Kate and Pippa,
we finished up, hugged awkwardly,
went home to news of cleared squats
and burned-out Tesco Metros.
NaPoWriMo Poem Two: Way Down
I recognise the artist and the name
but not together. I know this song sung
by someone else - a song with this name anyway.
Maybe I'm the afterglow
'cause I'm in a band, y'know...
A minute of music sung under my breath
in moments of boredom or nerves,
lyrics changed according to desire.
Gonna meet a great big star,
gonna drive her great big car...
The temptation of surrender
to the natural way of things,
a pleasant self-forsaking
as the gospel choir sings
gonna have it all here
on the way down...
but not together. I know this song sung
by someone else - a song with this name anyway.
Maybe I'm the afterglow
'cause I'm in a band, y'know...
A minute of music sung under my breath
in moments of boredom or nerves,
lyrics changed according to desire.
Gonna meet a great big star,
gonna drive her great big car...
The temptation of surrender
to the natural way of things,
a pleasant self-forsaking
as the gospel choir sings
gonna have it all here
on the way down...
NaPoWriMo Poem One: Mirror, Mirror
A year of laser and the stubble still
specks my face like buckshot. Mocks the mornings
when I drag a blade around my jawline.
Too few blank spaces. Too much stubborn black.
Sure, every session, less and less grows back,
but how long will it take? Another year?
And even then, there's still the chest, the arms;
the parleying with doctors over hormones;
the shaking conversations with the people who should care:
how long will that take? Yet another year?
Another two? And how will I look then?
Nearly forty, heading spinsterward
at lifespeed? Every pill and pulse of light
can't work its science fast enough. I age.
Heat travels one way. Entropy ensues.
I should have started earlier, when I had time to do
it all: instead I count the hairs and mark the years
and hope I have enough of one to beat the other.
specks my face like buckshot. Mocks the mornings
when I drag a blade around my jawline.
Too few blank spaces. Too much stubborn black.
Sure, every session, less and less grows back,
but how long will it take? Another year?
And even then, there's still the chest, the arms;
the parleying with doctors over hormones;
the shaking conversations with the people who should care:
how long will that take? Yet another year?
Another two? And how will I look then?
Nearly forty, heading spinsterward
at lifespeed? Every pill and pulse of light
can't work its science fast enough. I age.
Heat travels one way. Entropy ensues.
I should have started earlier, when I had time to do
it all: instead I count the hairs and mark the years
and hope I have enough of one to beat the other.
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Banter Rant Canto
Like everyone in Britain who has some brain cells, I've been getting heartily sick of this phenomenon which people have decided to call banter. Banter: an interesting word in itself. Meant to denote the dashing interplay of duelling bon vivants, wiseacre intellectuals who delight in tossing bon mots around, giving each other metaphorical duelling scars with their rapier-like wit, the Algonquin round table, Oscar Wilde in full flow, all that jazz - banter, as a word, always had the problem that it's a stupid word. Seriously. It's clunky. Banter. Ban-tuh. Ban-tuh. It sounds like the Hulk trying to say 'bran tub' after being punched in the head with Thor's hammer.
It's a stupid word for something which is meant to be intelligent, but it only completed its segue into total douchery when misogynist trollscum at knuckle-shuffler hang-out 'UniLad' started using it to defend jokes about rape.
I don't think jokes about rape are 'banter'. I think they're harmful and horrible and demeaning and contribute to an environment where women (and many men too) are made to feel unsafe. There's a very good explanation of why rape jokes are problematic on Tumblr, which boils down to this: if you speak to a group of, say, ten guys at a bar, there's a pretty good chance one of them is a rapist, and there's also a pretty good chance one of those guys at the bar was raped themselves. When you tell your rape joke, the guy who was raped has to relive all that trauma again, while the guy who's the rapist gets confirmation for his sick delusion that rape isn't that big a deal. Not. Cool.
The UniLad trolls seem impervious to this reasoning though, because they have their magic shield: banter. Mighty Ban-Tuh, god of stupid, thuggish jokes, protects his people from the basic human moral duty of examining their own actions. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant advocated the Categorical Imperative that one should act in such a way that one willed one's actions to be a universal law: essentially, you should only do something if you think it acceptable universally, by all people at all times. Not so much 'everyone's doing it, why can't we', more 'I will do this because I think it's right that everyone should do it.' A position which imposes a high standard on the moral actor. A position that UniLad readers will find hard to engage with because they're too busy making up jokes about what Kant's second name sounds like.
How, then, to get through to these idiots? What words might get them to realise the fundamental indefensibility of their moral position? How could one reach them?
Well, I think I have a way. I've tried to reach them in the following poem. It's a sensitive piece. A plea for understanding. A demonstration that 'banter' isn't really a valid shield for saying the indefensible. An attempt to get them to empathise and to see that, if the shoe were on the other foot, the 'banter' defence would ring hollow. It's an attempt to build bridges, really, which is why I call it...
You’re Fucking Dead LOL Jokes!
I see you at the bus stop. I see you in the bar.
I hear the sordid shit you jeer, leering from your car,
see you laugh in homeless faces while the hundreds you withdraw
you stuff, dead-eyed, into the garter of a girl that you call whore
because you know she has to take it, and pretend she doesn’t hear.
I watch you. And I dream of how I’d make you disappear:
strike while you stumble homewards at the end of Friday night,
then take you to a secret place and tie your hands up tight,
bind chains around your back and metal shackles to your feet,
then, just to make my pretty little picture look complete,
cinch a ballgag in behind your head to keep your piehole shut
then spread your legs and kick your balls and sweetly whisper ‘Cunt.
That’s what you like to say, no? It’s your special little word?
Like wench and slag and slapper, growler, fuckpig, bitch and bird?
It makes you feel good, doesn’t it? Makes this soft thing feel so hard...
Well, it’s time that you were hoisted by your little pink petard.
I’ve been looking through your hard drive. I’ve seen everything you stored.
You’ve heard, of course, that some say virtue is its own reward?
Well, vice can be rewarding, too, when used to the right ends.
Your sobs tell me you’re very, very keen to make amends.
Is that what you want (nod for me)? Forgiveness for your sins?
Well. Let...me...just...remove...this...from...you...and we can begin.
First, I’ll...’ Sorry? What was that? You say these lines offend?
Forgive me. For a moment there I thought that you were men,
‘cause it’s just banter! It’s just banter! See, I’d never do that really!
I’m just jokin’, love, it’s banter an’ I mean that most sincerely!
It’s just banter, it’s just banter darlin’, can’t you take a joke?
It’s just banter, that’s my humour, see, coz I’m a fackin’ bloke!
Banter, banter, oh-so-witty banter
excuse me if I come over all Lisbeth Salander
when I hear your banter,
banter, banter, oh-so-witty banter:
anti-homo faux-heroic woman-hating slander.
Joke about domestic violence, chuckle about rape:
put it on a T-shirt ‘cause it’s just a little jape!
Joke about rohypnol, be ironic about poofs,
then smirk and roll your beady eyes and mutter, weary, ‘Strewth!
You can’t say anything these days! Political correctness!
Next thing you’ll be telling me John Terry’s fucking racist!’
Banter. Banter. Oh-so-witty banter.
I feel battered by these ever-mounting chants of
‘Banter! Banter! Oh-so-witty banter!’
I’ve never seen a whiter more entitled pack of wankers.
They tell you the life unexamined isn’t worth the living,
but when you’re white and male and cis the world is so forgiving,
so why inspect your conscience? Why try being better men?
A guy who sneers calm down dear’s pissing right in Number Ten!
Make your Facebook pit off-limits to the ones who won’t click ‘like’
because if a girl doesn’t like banter, baby, she must be a dyke!
Banterbanterbanterbanter oh-so-witty banter:
Bantering in numbers that would baffle Mr Cantor.
Banterbanterbanterbanterbanterbloodybanter:
Batting round such bullshit they make Sutcliffe look like Santa.
But one day you might find your jokes aren’t funny anymore.
You might be beaten down and humbled by the girl that you called whore,
be relieved by force of those ill-gotten hundreds you withdraw.
You might just not quite make it from the nightclub to the car.
One day the ones you laughed at might just make you disappear
and amuse themselves by sticking razor blades up your urethra....
It’s just banter. It’s just banter! We’d never do that really.
Trust us. It’s just banter. And we mean that. Most sincerely.
Banter, banter, oh-so-witty banter:
isn’t really much but rape-culture propaganda.
Banter, banter, oh-so-witty banter:
well, what’s good for the goose...
It's a stupid word for something which is meant to be intelligent, but it only completed its segue into total douchery when misogynist trollscum at knuckle-shuffler hang-out 'UniLad' started using it to defend jokes about rape.
I don't think jokes about rape are 'banter'. I think they're harmful and horrible and demeaning and contribute to an environment where women (and many men too) are made to feel unsafe. There's a very good explanation of why rape jokes are problematic on Tumblr, which boils down to this: if you speak to a group of, say, ten guys at a bar, there's a pretty good chance one of them is a rapist, and there's also a pretty good chance one of those guys at the bar was raped themselves. When you tell your rape joke, the guy who was raped has to relive all that trauma again, while the guy who's the rapist gets confirmation for his sick delusion that rape isn't that big a deal. Not. Cool.
The UniLad trolls seem impervious to this reasoning though, because they have their magic shield: banter. Mighty Ban-Tuh, god of stupid, thuggish jokes, protects his people from the basic human moral duty of examining their own actions. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant advocated the Categorical Imperative that one should act in such a way that one willed one's actions to be a universal law: essentially, you should only do something if you think it acceptable universally, by all people at all times. Not so much 'everyone's doing it, why can't we', more 'I will do this because I think it's right that everyone should do it.' A position which imposes a high standard on the moral actor. A position that UniLad readers will find hard to engage with because they're too busy making up jokes about what Kant's second name sounds like.
How, then, to get through to these idiots? What words might get them to realise the fundamental indefensibility of their moral position? How could one reach them?
Well, I think I have a way. I've tried to reach them in the following poem. It's a sensitive piece. A plea for understanding. A demonstration that 'banter' isn't really a valid shield for saying the indefensible. An attempt to get them to empathise and to see that, if the shoe were on the other foot, the 'banter' defence would ring hollow. It's an attempt to build bridges, really, which is why I call it...
You’re Fucking Dead LOL Jokes!
I see you at the bus stop. I see you in the bar.
I hear the sordid shit you jeer, leering from your car,
see you laugh in homeless faces while the hundreds you withdraw
you stuff, dead-eyed, into the garter of a girl that you call whore
because you know she has to take it, and pretend she doesn’t hear.
I watch you. And I dream of how I’d make you disappear:
strike while you stumble homewards at the end of Friday night,
then take you to a secret place and tie your hands up tight,
bind chains around your back and metal shackles to your feet,
then, just to make my pretty little picture look complete,
cinch a ballgag in behind your head to keep your piehole shut
then spread your legs and kick your balls and sweetly whisper ‘Cunt.
That’s what you like to say, no? It’s your special little word?
Like wench and slag and slapper, growler, fuckpig, bitch and bird?
It makes you feel good, doesn’t it? Makes this soft thing feel so hard...
Well, it’s time that you were hoisted by your little pink petard.
I’ve been looking through your hard drive. I’ve seen everything you stored.
You’ve heard, of course, that some say virtue is its own reward?
Well, vice can be rewarding, too, when used to the right ends.
Your sobs tell me you’re very, very keen to make amends.
Is that what you want (nod for me)? Forgiveness for your sins?
Well. Let...me...just...remove...this...from...you...and we can begin.
First, I’ll...’ Sorry? What was that? You say these lines offend?
Forgive me. For a moment there I thought that you were men,
‘cause it’s just banter! It’s just banter! See, I’d never do that really!
I’m just jokin’, love, it’s banter an’ I mean that most sincerely!
It’s just banter, it’s just banter darlin’, can’t you take a joke?
It’s just banter, that’s my humour, see, coz I’m a fackin’ bloke!
Banter, banter, oh-so-witty banter
excuse me if I come over all Lisbeth Salander
when I hear your banter,
banter, banter, oh-so-witty banter:
anti-homo faux-heroic woman-hating slander.
Joke about domestic violence, chuckle about rape:
put it on a T-shirt ‘cause it’s just a little jape!
Joke about rohypnol, be ironic about poofs,
then smirk and roll your beady eyes and mutter, weary, ‘Strewth!
You can’t say anything these days! Political correctness!
Next thing you’ll be telling me John Terry’s fucking racist!’
Banter. Banter. Oh-so-witty banter.
I feel battered by these ever-mounting chants of
‘Banter! Banter! Oh-so-witty banter!’
I’ve never seen a whiter more entitled pack of wankers.
They tell you the life unexamined isn’t worth the living,
but when you’re white and male and cis the world is so forgiving,
so why inspect your conscience? Why try being better men?
A guy who sneers calm down dear’s pissing right in Number Ten!
Make your Facebook pit off-limits to the ones who won’t click ‘like’
because if a girl doesn’t like banter, baby, she must be a dyke!
Banterbanterbanterbanter oh-so-witty banter:
Bantering in numbers that would baffle Mr Cantor.
Banterbanterbanterbanterbanterbloodybanter:
Batting round such bullshit they make Sutcliffe look like Santa.
But one day you might find your jokes aren’t funny anymore.
You might be beaten down and humbled by the girl that you called whore,
be relieved by force of those ill-gotten hundreds you withdraw.
You might just not quite make it from the nightclub to the car.
One day the ones you laughed at might just make you disappear
and amuse themselves by sticking razor blades up your urethra....
It’s just banter. It’s just banter! We’d never do that really.
Trust us. It’s just banter. And we mean that. Most sincerely.
Banter, banter, oh-so-witty banter:
isn’t really much but rape-culture propaganda.
Banter, banter, oh-so-witty banter:
well, what’s good for the goose...
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