Biography

ALRIGHT SQUIRES, TARTS & METAPHOR SPINNERS?

CONGEALED ANFIELD '84. WHEN I'M NOT STACKING SHELVES TO PAY TAXES TO FUND THIS BASTARD SPECIES, I JUST SLITHER ABOUT MAKING NOTES ON YOU ALL REALLY.

ABOUT 260-ODD POEMS HERE AND THERE. VOTED PURPLE PATCH MAGAZINE'S POET OF 2007. FEATURED IN ERBACCE LIVERPOOL POETS 2008.

THAT'S IT, LIKE ...

Samples

THIS WRITERS’ OBLIGATION

Trees, trees, fucking trees,
and flowers and dew and
all that whimsical bollocks

what happened
to the urgency
of the writer

what happened to
the writer
is he still as big an arsehole
as he always was

telling the
overworked
underpaid
taxed
unhappily married
scared
ill
repressed
public
to be ashamed
for not admiring the buttercup
like he does?

FUCK OFF!

it’s the people
you should be documenting
not your own lyrical masturbation

the bomb’s gonna drop
Amerikkka’s coming
Germany’s back on top
England is shrinking
everyone has cancer
and you want us all to
stop
and read your
delicate multi-syllables
on clovers??

soon
there’ll be no one to read
your precious fucking day dreams
will there?

..................................................

THE WIRRAL QUESTION

They’re saying that
horse-faced trout Princess frigging Margret
was by the docks today
opening a new terrace of plush bars and cafes
for Liverpool One

while I,
a full time worker
a full time taxpayer
sit in my rented bedsit across the Mersey
shivering too violently to sleep
because the landlady’s son
kicked off about the heating bill.

They did it in the name of
regeneration –
but I’ve got nothing
to give back.
They did it in the name of
culture –
I don’t know what that means
and neither do you,
but I suspect it involves
a bunch of local media players
talking about the time
they shared a spliff with Ringo
or something.

Over here
I feel like a Liver Bird’s
Liver Turd.

I’m a floater
over here,
festering.

What they gonna do with me?
Polish me
or flush me?

....................................................

PARENTAL ADVICE FOR THE MODERN NORTH

I get in me mate’s car
and we’re pulling out the estate
when this little bastard
with his school tie round his head
jumps in front of the car,
holding his skateboard over his head
threatening to chuck it
through the windscreen

so I stick me two favourite fingers
up at him
and now I’m looking over me shoulder
because his parents want a word ...

There are damaged sperms like him
all over the show.

They want a smack
and I want to administer it.

Not cos it never did me any harm,
because it did,
I want to pass on
my repressed childhood traumas
into a new generation

and what better generation
than this band of
fat
deformed
spoilt
bitter
unwanted rejects
of a long dead community?

So give me these kids
you can’t be arsed raising yourselves,
give them to me
and I’ll discipline them
to death.

...........................................................

THE PUBLIC DON'T LIKE POETRY ....

Because most of you don’t do it
for them,
you do it for other writers
at your precious coffee workshops,
for your little backslapping gang,
with your ‘I’ll like you if you like me’ mentality,
you do it for parental approval,
you do it for The Guardian,
for Richard and Judy,
you do it because you want
a statue of yourself in your home town,
so future generations of pigeons
can shit all over your pained marble face
having all it’s oh so deep poetic thoughts,
you’re drab, you’re waif,
you’re just sticking various NICE words
in a line,
hoping there’s a hidden philosophy in there
that readers will go insane searching for,
but you know they’ll claim they’re a fan anyway
for no other reason than
they’re afraid of looking too stupid
to understand your DEEP, DEEP MATERIAL
and you’ll be famous and called a genius
just because everyone’s an insecure intellectual,

the public at large don’t go near your stuff
because they’re not looking for it,
because they know you write
like you’re in the fifteenth century,
today’s language is obviously beneath you,
you think you’re enriching their lives
by sitting in your tower with your
Doth’s and Thou’s
and your frilly Jane Austen romances
while they get raped
and knifed in alleys,
while they overdose
and get hit by stolen cars,

they don’t want to communicate
because you act like you’re a separate entity,
it’s simple really,
don’t you see, genius?

............................................................

ORDER

Like no-one nicks from our shop,
that’s the official line.
Truth is they do,
they’re just really bad news.

Mostly butch psycho dykes
who’ve brought on early menopause
having kids every year of high school
to get benefits off poor sods
who get benefits off poor sods
who work, like me.
They stuff peach schnapps in their prams
and if you catch them in the act,
they’ll nut you.
Same in all the shops on this road.

So our security guard and the one next door,
they get worried they’re looking incompetent
and they have their mate come in
to nick a pack of skinless Irish sausages:
Nik Nak.
I think we all know why he’s called Nik Nak
but we don’t want to ask
and have our suspicions confirmed.
Plan is, our guard grabs Nik Nak,
Nik Nak gets aggressive,
the guard calls for back up,
his mate next door comes in,
they calm Nik Nak down
and let him off with a warning,
no one’s got to be arrested
and everyone feels that little bit safer.

So Nik Nak comes in wearing a hoodie,
grabs the sausages
and walks out.

Where was our guard?
Too busy getting head-butted by a fat dyke
in the drinks aisle.

He called for back up.
O how he called for back up,
to obvious avail.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.