Should I Hand In My Homework?

Walking to school, I hear a crack...
A dragon bursts out the tarmac!
Its scythe-like claws tort for attack,
its drool-drenched jaw hung wet and slack.
No beast will eat me for a snack!
I have no muscle (no six-pack)
but I've the brains that dragons lack.
I trap it in my math's book! WHACK!

Although I know I'm no hero
I *did* defeat a dragon... so...
I raise my math's book, cheer 'BRAVO!'
Should I hand in my homework?
'NO!'
Should I hand in my homework?
'NO!'

Of course...
Dragon's trapped between these pages.
Must keep this book shut... for ages.
Don't unlock these paper cages.
Please don't unleash dragon's rages!
Teachers... aren't wizards or mages.
Think they're smart... but they're no sages.
Sir just snorts. I hope he’ll gauge the
danger trapped between these pages!

'Sir!' I yell, 'Don't look below
my math's book's cover!' (now aglow
as from inside dark smoke rings blow!)
Should I hand in my homework?
'NO!'
Should I hand in my homework?
'NO!'

‘Without a sword, without cross-bow,
without kung-fu or tae-kwon-do,
with just my book I caught this foe.’
Should I hand in my homework?
'NO!'
Should I hand in my homework?
'NO!'

My teacher says, 'What nonsense. Right,
you gave the whole class quite a fright.'
He takes the book. Its spine burns bright,
pages smouldering fiery light.
'Please stop!' I cry, 'Look, I'll rewrite
my homework, please, I'll do it tonight!'
He opens the book... Dragon takes flight...
devours Sir in one sharp bite.

Teachers! My moral is more than implied.
Don't wish to corrupt, don't mean to misguide,
but when marking homework keep caution applied
for there might be a dragon... waiting inside!

What's That Smell?

I have a cat. He's small and thin.
Bright ginger fur covers his skin.
His name is Dillen. He's my pet.
My playful, cheerful friend... and yet...
I fear wherever Dillen goes,
for every man will hold his nose
and all the women go beserk
when they smell Dillen's bottom burp.

Wherever he goes, people yell
at my poor Dillen- 'What's that smell?'
But I am too ashamed to tell
the truth as they shout 'What's that smell?'

At first, your nose he'll gently tease
with just a whiff, like mouldy cheese.
It gets worse than old football boots,
the stench that comes when Dillen toots.
Like bad eggs rubbed in sweaty feet,
sour milk dripped on rotting meat-
you'll hear no sound, the stink grows steadilly.
Dillen's trumps are silent... but deadly

Wherever he goes, people yell
at my poor Dillen- 'What's that smell?'
But I am too ashamed to tell
the truth as they shout 'What's that smell?'

One night, I couldn't sleep. I saw
a rainbow pour beneath my door!
Then in mid-air... saw flowers bloom!
Fireworks burst... in my bedroom!
This was no dream. This was no bluff.
This magic soared from Dillen's guff!
He's been a wizard all along.
Like Harry Potter... but with more pong.

Now Dillen knows many a spell.
Can teleport and fly as well!
Let's tour the world! This show will sell!
A shame he can't dispel the smell...

Now one last truth you might find tragic.
Not all our botty coughs are magic.
In fact, some people act aghast
if you let rip a trouser blast.
I can't believe some folk can't cope
think it's a crime if wind is broke.
It's normal, natural, not obscene.
We've all got gas- even the Queen.

So I'm not shy if people yell
when Dillen's trumping 'What's that smell?'
Magic or not, I'm proud to tell
the truth when they shout 'What's that smell?'

Hero

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j88bmsv8H7E "the handsomest nose in the galaxy..." short film of my WIZARD poem, 'Hero'

Snail

Snail

When Rain calls the snail out
of sleepy, snail dreams,
sliding out a restful place
no human eye has seen,
silent Snail calls to Rain
'Let's wash this city clean'...
Trail wraps paving cracks
and litter in between.

Rain is calling Snail
through the greying of the street,
through a swollen puddle
stretching out its concrete seat,
to a green-red apple,
naked core torn indiscreet...
Apples travel half the world
to fall, crushed under feet.

I sit, dry, inside my flat
as Rain calls out to Snail.
People caught out in the storm
will curse the sleet and hail.
Flail back to brick high homes,
locked strong against the gale...
Trapped inside big, brick shells,
so wrapped in our own trail.

Watch the green-red apple,
tender innards battered, split.
and watch Snail call the Rain
then face the apple pip.
So easily killed. A small life spilled
by just one similar hit...
This snail braves the rain's call
whilst my warm shell I can't quit.

Beers In Your Bedroom

Beers in Your Bedroom
(for Rachael K, for helping me save my life)

We have beers in your bedroom.
My fears would be intoxicating without you.
Outside, car alarms shout at shadows,
a woman’s scream stabs the night.

Inside, together
we are alive.
Your flat's above it all.
Door locked. Window open.
Glows from fag stubs, thin white dukes,
light a corkscrew path to morning.

Our tongues brighten dark.
These moments taste of unconcentrated truth,
Chaucer and tumblers of Fat Boy Slim.
We tape Woman’s Hour to play backwards,
exchange identities under skin.
Hail bloody fairies and horns.

We dress up in old lovers’ ideas.
Hang ours up to dry. See what drips out first.
Dissect entrails of aborted stories.
Whole scripts wait in a typewriter’s puckered spool
between shy, naked poems
printed only on sheets of dusk.

"Then, we unwrite the imperfect pop song.
Kurt Cobain and Kiki Dee sing
Don’t Go Breaking My Heart Shaped Box."

Our nights are so heavy with talk
we might even... break through these floorboards,
crash into the spiked streets below,
so I cuddle your sentences. Grip tight.
Sit secure in our obscurity.

We're the extra features on a DVD
those with jobs are too busy to watch,
but we watch them and talk
ourselves down in thick blankets of sun.

Let us sleep through the violence of minutes and hours
that wage war against today’s tired minds,
too burdened with action to slow down and think.
I drink to the courage
of these thoughtless grunts on the front line.
Raise my empty bottle.

We’ve drunk the night dry.
My voice lids won’t keep open.
You wrap my words up warm.
Still, I know that they would freeze
out there
at bus stops, supermarket queues,
or sat, without vowels,
at office desks and the water cooler.

Do You See This Night?

Do You See This Night?

Do you?
This towering, ancient
sour dream tree of petrified tears...
For years, this night
has blocked all hope of sunrise.
This night is solid wood

but I am going to break its branches.

This night's soiled roots
that have tugged so tight around my throat
are going to loosen...
are going to lose.

I’ve been bullied,
broke and aloned.
Now I’m blessed with restless passion.
Turn bruises into shields.
Like liquid metal I am cooling my anger
into the greatest weapon.

Crack!

This night is splitting wood.

I am the axe against its bark,
bite like acid at the trunk.
With relentless vision,
eyes like machetes
and sweet strong pride, unshakeable.
My belief is unbreakable as I chop
chop
down
this
night.

Crash!

Unclog clear skies.
Breathe out my dreams.
Smell their freshly cut spices.
Taste their quivering nervous heat
as dust particles kiss the air.

This night is dead.
Felled.
Count the rings inside.
Each ring within its split core marks another year
I made it through.
I made it!
These rings are the rungs I’ve climbed
to find myself behind this night's silhouette.
I embrace the years I have conquered,
and will never fear the joy of ageing.

Joy of life without this night
No longer telling myself
"I am weak.”
Moon drowned words.
Shadow obscured sight.
I watered this night with my tears.

I wish... I could hold a fraction of the colour
that sparks and cracks inside me now
and convey it back through time,
back to when this night clung tightest
show myself,
"This night will end!"

Look around.
Already seeds of another night
are being sown at my feet.
A dark sapling claws at my ankle.
It is trying to take root.

Home of Beasts

Home of Beasts

Beetled walls protect
our woodloused floors, our spidered
roof, our great small lives.

Like School

Like School

The cool still rule.
He's queer-bashed on Canal St again
but these gay men can't see
a bleeding nose eclipsed
by their rising Bacardi Breezers.

Performance Poetry: Free Verse Lives!

Whack!

Bam!!

Performance Poetry slams... are dead.

Brown bread. Burnt.

Fallen, jam side down,

hit ground,

K.O.

Time out.

Clear the ring away

because poets will not fight today.

Won't judge. Won't jeer. Make this clear.

Speak quiet enough for everybody to hear.

Slams are dead.

R.I.P.

Now, feel free to fancify your verse

where crowds won't curse or prey you are worse

than their own stanza.

Where hands are applauding. Not marauding.

Mouths cheering. Never sneering.

'Well, his rhymes OK but that metaphors weak.

He does go on abit. Hey! I wannna speak!

Make my mates all rate him low.'

There's no bitterness like show bitterness,

no bitterness i know.

Ding! Dong! The slams are dead!

There's no place like this home!

Our house crushed flat that wicked deed.

No more yellow bricking it before you stand to read.

Just sun gold ink on paper skies

and thoughts, coloured outside the lines.

Beer soaked wisdom. External rhyme.

Share lyrics and laughs.

Write shields, not swords

because friendship is cut by scoring boards.

Competing is unavoidable, in work or family.

Let poetry be a sanctuary.

A cloak to curb a hurricane,

though it only has one thread.

Make this known wherever we tread.

Free verse lives!

Slams... are dead.