Hanging
March 25, 2012
Hanging
The screws where paintings used to hang
close to gorillas
I fantasise about robbing banks
with an acquaintance
now that they say we are machines
ruled by the gene
the illusion of free will
two empty cardboard boxes one on top of the other
I am overcome in the margins
in blue genes
a dead chick outside the restored castle walls
I laze in bed recalling how I used
to enter her I’d still like to
with no agenda other than that act
things that need to be done
await the doing
I am overcome in brown fields
in photographs I am not in
contraband coping strategy
one-eyed curiosity
my voice flat and provincial
like Stalin
she lost her car keys on a beach one night
we got home
When You Smile You’ll Be a Dog No More
September 21, 2011
When You Smile You’ll Be a Dog No More
I wake up
I wake up dead
I had been dreaming of cardboard
home made signs on unclassified roads
which directed me to 20,000 saints
or 20,000 whores
it’s hard to decide
everything is everything else
nothing is nothing
let me sleep
my bed my kingdom
I’m sick of having to make sense
if there’s still such a thing
the holes and the cracks
that await filling or recognition
I am overdue a bombweed and overgrown motte
Grand Tour of Europe
with a redundant cinema gravedigger hunchback
to disinter Nazis to kill them all over again
mould and its cousins
fungicide and its offspring
the art of leaning on a farm gate to view
wood lice jigs
tail end of a hurricane
the select few cut-up cut-out
cry when miners die in the sides of hills
in the tombs of the underworld
in the caress of water
cry when they say your name
when the pain overpowers
when the clues expire
cry as men cry
faces to the wall
the tears of candles
the clowns of town down
the anti-condensation flotilla at full tilt
freelance apologists freely lancing
cwtsh into the huddle
taste her tears so near
impressing me as much
as I had expected
but not in the manner anticipated
women with bruised faces
the views from floors
fight for your smile
you know the one
and I will fight for the right to fail
and the secrets we think we are keeping
removing my shirt though it’s cool
nakedness of diaphragm
for what I am
the long arms of brambles through fencing
Impressionist paintings in river reflections
the source of the Nile
the source of fibre
persisting with bent nibs
everybody lies
everybody smells
everybody disappoints
everybody’s done loot
this town’s got much to answer for
eat what you are
food replaces sex
those poached brains
shopping as sport
lions as lambs
distance will bring us together
The Trigger-Happiness
September 6, 2011
Prince of Dyfed
September 4, 2011
Prince of Dyfed
The giving and receiving of gifts
until the batteries run out
in facial re-enactment
I paint my kitchen with vomit
and sleep on it
re-imagining the Mabinogion
as a quest for middle class confectionery
and its adventures
in a contested leaderless land
Three Spring Scenes
July 2, 2011
Three Spring Scenes
Blackthorn ectoplasm
with muted daffodil trumpets
gone green in morning fog beard
the shadow of a hovering bee
on my bare chest
a meat crow above a grey gutter
pointing
Pith
January 17, 2011
Pith
Poetry is one letter poorer than poverty.
Bombstar by bombstardom
September 24, 2010
We Chose Hell
September 5, 2010
We Chose Hell
We come from the fields
along the valleys
past misshapen road signs
on stream on flow
for your riches
the curtail cut crops
of splendour of daughters
the keys to quays
the quays to keys
we come from ruin cottages
cow-sheds with rafters
of revealed dog rib-cages
from which we fly
on the backs of wasps
which capsize in beer
like humans do
remember us
for we will arrive on time
at the table no one leaves
exult salute
ballad bullet
parry then harry
anyone could slay under
the influence of a border
that’s what that line orders
each corner
is a border
of murder
Ebb
May 3, 2010
Ebb
Women sway to film music
in a champagne-dampened field
like women move,
like nothing else moves or could move.
Lull of the Bull by Paul Steffan Jones
March 18, 2010
Lull of the Bull, ISBN 978 1 899530 36 6, my debut collection of poems, is now available as a signed hardback at www.starbornbooks.co.uk. It is also available at the following outlets: Custom House, Cardigan; Siop y Pethe, Aberystwyth; Seaways Bookshop, Fishguard; Monmouth Bookshop, Monmouth.
