Tattoos
On your shoulder the powder-keg plus fuse
alight, stuck millimeters from blast-off forever.
I could be wrong, but it hardly hurt at all
when they injected AUDIOSLAVE over my heart,
too stoned before the concert to resist.
The bassist is getting his whole body done.
It's worth the chucking up, the days in bed
as the black squid crawls through his system,
probing and shooting, squeezing through arteries,
making him its cage. He's his work of art.
Tote had CUT HERE over his throat.
It led to fights in pubs at chucking out
and the dotted horizontal didn't help.
He was looking forward to early release.
Things to see, people to do.
Kind, he offered me CLARE in black cartridge
on the back of my hand, courtesy of the compass
he'd nicked from a maths class. Two divorces on,
and neither of them Clare, it seems sensible
to have refused, so do not stare too long
at his throat if you meet him, he takes it hard
and laser surgery isn't his scene.
Come here. Let me write on your arm.
It will wash off. LOVE or HATE. Any abstract
you want. I can draw hearts. I can draw kegs.
alight, stuck millimeters from blast-off forever.
I could be wrong, but it hardly hurt at all
when they injected AUDIOSLAVE over my heart,
too stoned before the concert to resist.
The bassist is getting his whole body done.
It's worth the chucking up, the days in bed
as the black squid crawls through his system,
probing and shooting, squeezing through arteries,
making him its cage. He's his work of art.
Tote had CUT HERE over his throat.
It led to fights in pubs at chucking out
and the dotted horizontal didn't help.
He was looking forward to early release.
Things to see, people to do.
Kind, he offered me CLARE in black cartridge
on the back of my hand, courtesy of the compass
he'd nicked from a maths class. Two divorces on,
and neither of them Clare, it seems sensible
to have refused, so do not stare too long
at his throat if you meet him, he takes it hard
and laser surgery isn't his scene.
Come here. Let me write on your arm.
It will wash off. LOVE or HATE. Any abstract
you want. I can draw hearts. I can draw kegs.
Page(s) 20
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The