When the last holds on reality
When the last holds on reality start
to feel like a fireman’s pole or else ball
game between cocky cunt and useless fart
when the first grip on death becomes a fall
between bar and stool between sip and cup
and the others don’t even notice you flop
when the middling bit slithers in your up
market impression of yourself the top
drawer of your delusion’s manuscripts
when the music from an acid case loon
and the cats from the foully crapped-in crypts
creep out into the light of August’s moon
when at last silence from your mother’s ash
settles on her knickknacks and varied trash
you feel so alive you’d never been dead
on the window the computer screen sheds
the sonnets of Roubaud across my head
the scream of presence in true virgins’ beds
leaps from my mouth like vomit from a lush
it swims its diarrhoea into the
underpants bought in the bargain store hush
the sigh of nonsense is as large as the
page who opens the door to further grief
it creeps into your belly when you drink
into the taste of pasta pizzas leaf
into the things you fish out of the sink
love of life maybe is it my arse it
is fucking love of beer and arse and tit
so much the same when cunt comes down to run
its taste into my mouth and remember
childhood and its high day holiday bun
forget forget the fist of dismember
ment the lash of her mouth and her hand in
stead wake up in the sand wait for the fer
ry to England and god knows what a pin
through your nose and your hair pink as a fair
y maybe on the weeding lake of the dead
love that gave you life and the need to spit
the music rattles onwards in your head
the silence opens your own body’s pit
out of control out of control he sings
the music bubbles and throbs nothing stings
in this sweet sweat of dancing in this touch
of skin and eyes and clothes and hair and lips
remember the ways of your father clutch
brakes who gives a fuck parks limply and sips
brew when tea was as ancient as breakfast
misery reasons speech from such silence
it twists the unsaid into a web cast
into a paid-up poetic licence
bravery has nothing to say in this
sadly dull dialogue of idiots
it sleeps till noon then limply has a piss
right here in the switched-on world of bigots
love looks at itself and is speechless it
doesn’t know where to grope belly bum tit
face my angel they all flee from my mind
right here in the wanker world of dick-heads
everyone is watching one’s dear behind
in case it starts to stink of the named dead’s
hobbies and unstated oddities like
the collector of frozen Japanese
men’s sperm that has been spat out by a dyke
into a starving delicious Chinese
mouth then put into a jar like pearl jam
like the beer-bellied players of jazz like
buggers the senders of personal spam
you when you stare at me gawp at me like
I’m what and you’re this you and this evening
your hand in mind is kiss so deceiving
I’ll lie my way to reason and the moon
like the verb like love has vanished from this
dick of delusion cunt of a spittoon
into the rank mistiness of your piss
because you failed to make it home again
if she saw you now she’d just spit on it
the road is like molasses and the rain
like wasp stings or like the acidic shit
of feral pigeons with TB feet stumps
the highway is awash with drudge and lights
the petrol curls in hollows while the lumps
of brighter matter wink back through the night’s
veil of haziness it isn’t even
dark anymore the urban glow’s raven
casts glints with the silent flap of its wings
if she saw you here she’d drag you back home
bathe you in bleach slap you till your face sings
with pain and your mind your feet start to roam
the streets of panic where no cars ever
drive or other pedestrians wander
just a rush of papers and cans clever
clogs clacking behind you as you blunder
into the icy wind of fear and tears
if she saw you here she’d spit on your tomb
pack you off with the Jews gypsies and queers
for your own good mind you go plant a bloom
in the ash then soap herself down with you
in her house the lampshades are cosy true
masterpieces of tack porcelain beasts
shit dust on the polished parquet no time
for anything but polish pets and priests
her dogs are cuddled the cuckoo clocks chime
her only daughter has become a whore
her only son has become a banker
her only fun is getting shagged by law
yers her new ambition’s another fur
coat but not from mummy’s darling little
sweetheart come and kiss mummy that’s right yes
never mind nasty scent lipstick spittle
it was all for your own good my princess
up the wooden stair wait for the slipper
in bed she prayed may god make her trip her
meanness to vanish her childhood memor
ies to surface something a miracle
anything to make this stop her die or
me instead to shrink to a particle
of light and nothingness to run away
into the woods and hide out in the trees
and creepers as splinters rain and the clay
creeps through the cracks in my shoes and the freeze
inches into my chilblained toes and heel
now roots to my sad and solid stance here
among other soughing silences that peel
the bark from their sap and their years of rings
as shifting as tobacco smoke that stings
as it comforts then dissolves in the air
seeping down between the branches of oak
when she runs away she shaves off her hair
she gets so filthy she could fucking choke
she has his name tattooed on both her arms
she tells him her name is Mary it ain’t
she grins kisses his lips and then his palms
lays them on her breasts and looks at the paint
stuck around the quick of his nails and says
love me or I’ll scream the house down love me
or I’ll sell you to the pigs love me fez
head then marry me for your work permit
there may be life in clouds of Venus it
has evolved off the surface like angels
and hovers under a hood of acid
protected from the sun’s naked spangles
of radiation just floating in mid
air where the pressure becomes bearable
she breaks his plates to avoid washing up
she smashes down his food on the table
she feeds rat poison to his just bought pup
she sends a pack of dog shit to his boss
she urinates in his aquarium
she tells him that she couldn’t give a toss
she puts him on a course of barium
she tells him that he’ll be the death of her
she tells him to stop seeing his mother
she spits on his steak in the frying pan
she flicks large bogeys into his salad
she dreams of doctors pianists a man
she mounts her stallion and then mounts the lad
she watches as he starts to break her things
she screams for her porcelain dogs and cats
she pisses him off when she laughs and sings
she misses him she thinks after their spats
she lies to herself like she lies to you
she thinks she’s oh so hard done by in fact
she’s a clinically depressed unfucked shrew
she hasn’t noticed how the paint has cracked
she runs from life like maids from a rapist
she speaks too loudly and roars when she’s pissed
she makes up her face she makes up her life
she never forgives the slightest insult
taste is back with my appetite the knife
has shifted from wrist to steak while the cult
of the dread looks loopier than ever
my hand is shake free from table to mouth
she detests the dim she scorns the clever
she says it’s too hot and fake in the South
she says the North gives her rheumatism
there may be iced life out on Europa
after lunch my kids laugh at the prism
of my lemon sorbet and its vodka
there is life in acid and in darkness
she remembers childhood’s mustard and less
she remembers ripping out others’ stalks
misery eggs itself from this ocean
she doesn’t shut up she talks and she talks
the other day I read a description
of clinical depression well that’s it
I said it’s over for now till next time
she opens her blouse to flash her left tit
I said it’s over for now till this rhyme
the fuse is short and who really gives a
she is now rearranging porcelain
I’m the one who picks her up and saves her
out the door slut the snow has turned to rain
she dribbles to herself it’s so sing-sing
we did everything we did everything
Wave 3.5c
After Oulipo
November, 2010
Poems
Ian Monk
Ian Monk was born near London, but now lives in Lille, France, where he works as a writer and translator. After contributing to the Oulipo Compendium (Atlas Press) he became a member of the Oulipo in 1988. His books include Family Archaeology and Writings for the Oulipo (Make Now), N/S (with Frédéric Forte (Editions de l’Attente) and Plouk Town (Cambourakis).