hurtface (after Ceravolo)

i come home late like a man

like a stranger // zebra-headed & foreign & sit 

down at the table to write poems cos i want to

put my key in the door & keen 

& cry for my flat old places

fall asleep on the keyboard 

& reblog the universe fuck 

with my long sad dick every last utensil 

  put on whiskey & strip

in the garden, have an irksome & scritchy

fight with next door’s pets // eat & vom the flowers

flowering on my face the face of 

        my stupidness today

listen:

i sing when i work & i work all the time

with lovely wifi & a sharp clean sharpie

& my big girl knickers all in a twist

around my throat.  i have drawn you

a face to wear & it is my face & it hurts

me.  but whatever comes you’ve come 

           thru the door & in your own 

face with your job & a bag of food –

o bum!  o joy!  o bloated world!

what dreams i am on the stairs of!

Joseph Ceravolo

Grace Lake, from 'Silk & Wild Tulips'

"I read of women who have been found disregarding class, the heavy book
Bearing the sombre tone, we anyway tremble whilst we are broken down.
What is love? o what is love? the tip of a tongue, a silk white dove.
that will not fight and is crushed by speculation, a sinful breast
Cleansed, the surprising lightness in weight, the emphasis returned to
Provocation, that is the dead weight, that we cannot speak until
                                                         spoken to
And divided by omission are invited to attend to the traffic signals,
                                                         obsessively
Indicating slips don't for one second imagine that i am in the least
                                                         oppressed."

Grace Lake, 'Silk & Wild Tulips' 

kettle-mouth*

of all the things i thought i’d miss

i didn’t think i’d miss the snow

or you bounding down the road

toward me panting like a hungry dog

honey snow – yellow – bound

for melting & morning-piss cloudy

mouth-gas coffee tinted & desire

off the leash of normal loving

you’re like a day off school, lung-acher

spine-icer, night-muffler, & my life

is softer for your bundling in the middle

of the park in the middle of still living then

*A brand new poem written from my current residency at The New School House Gallery in York, responding to Helen Chadwick's Piss Flowers

I WANNA BE UR MAYAKOVSKY

If I don’t see you tonight I might die

on Old Street, on New Change

at the old dyke bar in Centrepoint

or knee-deep in the marshes

shivering in the lidos the ponds

high on the heath or banging my head

off the brutal concrete at Southbank.

I wanna be your Mayakovsky

Bolshevik beatbox coming  

drumming at your chest your

dick made of stars pulls me in a

strapon galaxy we rotate around

on the DL on the underground

at the stadia the palaces we see

across a city filled with tourists

whose cash lights up the night

in which we dream with the window

wide & flies in to suckle

at our blood sweet & salt from

the ferric cup from which

we sip & come day we sit

to scratch & seep from each bite

& like an open window

I’ve kept myself ajar tonight

& like a wound that keeps refilling

I got buckets of love for you so come over.

the way she bends

the way she bends:
like a sailor,
as luck would have
it. & i am
lucky.

on television
the starship troops
are marching up
to beat us to
a pulp, for being
found wanting
too much: a place
to live, to not be
sick in, a fair
go at it all
or at it all
again.

when i say us
i mean them -- i
am not there i
am with you, &
thinking we cling
to love in lieu
of anything just.

love,
one step down from
god.

dragged out beatings,
wreck of love's
temporary
dwelling, calling:
what threat is posed
by those who stand
for everyone
by kneeling in
copper nests
to feel the cold
smack of cash they
don't have? we have
cash, a little,
& are not
buying it.

being ‘personal’,
i’d say for sure
your love for me
is equal to
half of my love
for you [currency]

makes sense – i mean:
you wouldn't buy
yourself a present.
you wouldn't write
yourself a poem.
you can’t arrest
yourself in the
dead night or keep
yourself a secret.

& besides: if
i loved you like
i love my country –
if I loved you like
i love me you'd
be sorry. if i
loved you like i
love me you'd be
dead –
& what good would
you be to me
then.

Sonnet 101

why is everybody always writing
about fucking like me the more writing
to be done the less time to do the
necessary fucking for poetry

which is just as well when “at a bar” or
side by side alone & almost having
sex but in the end we change our minds ‘cos
work is early/harsh work makes you nervous

lines up the days & besides you don’t love
each other so much today as yesterday
& that dwindle’s dampened the itch to do
anything but write some stupid sonnet

frigid at the kitchen table no damp
itch to speak of no great love to leap off