e

Insults thick, fast

"He's too much of a pussy"    

"You bald nonce"  

terrific thing, social media

"He looks like a fucking leprechaun"     

"You bald bastard"     

connecting people to other people

to bald bastards

"You Irish clown"  

"Oi, you fat Irish cunt – go and suck a big fat dick you gaylord"

in the wooden playpark

in the shade of the trees

woodchips in sandals and dusty toes

sweating in the glare of the polyethylene

of red hot slides cooked by the traces

of sun that muster passage

through the foliage

the smell of sugared beverages

and of toasty groins

her soft Scottish voice

such young skin

mute spouse, decent muscles

observing the progeny swamped by the roar of zip wires zipping

I kissed her neck

cupped her two tits

pressed her white cheek into the bark of the pine

imprinted with its textures

gulleys and rivulets

humped into her clothed buttocks

in a way that resembled happiness

or a reflection of it.

d

With a rag I wiped the chain carefully

the black gathered paste

the detritus of the gutters

that fell to the floor in large foul clumps

of obscene clay

I worked grease into the chain with my fingers

caressed allusions to future rust from

the zinc alloy surface

the hum of the rotating wheel

the drivetrain and pedal crank

were catharsis, exquisite union

of muscle and tissue and continental engineering

knees popping like spud-guns with

the gruelling cadence of descent.

c

Half-drunk I head-butted a 5ft acrylic hare

decorated by children

an initiative

and knocked myself unconscious

heaped about the plinth

and later pickpocketed

I’d at it again when I came around

my capacity for losing

surprising to even those

as best know me

the cold acrylic eyes

goading me into my own protracted humiliation.

b

 A few pretty girls passed and laughed

I heard them whisper but not what

then they stopped walking and laughed more

and turned around to look shamelessly

I could smell the curry of coronation chicken

the hair of my moustache

the yellow mayonnaise

and I tried to suck the hair into my mouth

the girls approached, said “my god”

loud enough to hear

but nothing to me as such, not directly

“small hands,” one said

and she was right but a real cunt

worthy only of ignoring as best I might

as though they were trees or shrubs

or some other art of the landscape

of ignoring or else upbraiding

on the end of my pillock.

a

At the lakeside beneath elder

around bracken, oak, lime

horseflies feasting on me sallow pins

abdomens judiciously popped between fingers

or else squashed into innards, halteres,

frons, forewings – the bitches! –  

compound eyes, mouthparts

it is not for I to deliver

the proteins required for

your egg growth!, fleshy labium,

wretched proboscis, you bloody vectors

of bloody blood-borne disease

leaving crisp yellow peaks in place

of their former bodies

the flowers were wonderful in bloom around

the air sodden with their blessed nose 

heady as gobfuls of scotch

I felt almost delirious

felt myself clenched for sugars

what would the dream be?

it would end, I’m certain,

in apologetic kissing

scrabbling for each other’s hands

as though they were bannisters of normalcy

until our palms were scratched

please just kiss me quietly

and I stared for familiar faces and saw none

and I moved myself very close

in towards her body and felt her breath

her chest rising

felt the fine hairs on her arms

hoped she would catch me from adrift

when I closed my eyes

her hair alive over or with the elderflowers

until she was gone

receding along the track with friends

I wiped the middle and fore-fingers of my

left hand on the thighs of my chinos and

stuck them to the back of my throat

felt the rasp of the air-dry skin on my soft palate

and I puked lunch up

the dry earth worn to sand

escaping gases as one with the birdsong

there were tears on my face

and I wiped my mouth and felt strings

of thick mucus drawn in webs across it

though out of sight I ran after her

would keep on running for

no track is of endless distance.