Crowdfunded Poem

                                 This crowdfunded poem 

         simply would not have been

possible 

      without 

           each and every one of you,

                   
                              All, 

Perfect buttons 

        of glinting dandelion-light, 

                 Scattered around 

          this troll-freckled globe, 

    Hiding in plain sight. 

But you knew that already, right? 

Wonderful you all are. 

Like,  

         Kernels of Shining 

         in astonishing human uniforms. 

And it doesn't get much better 

                                  than that. 

                Not on this earth. 

With a tambourine shimmy of modest economic growth: 

                 The green shoots of recovery, 

Bigger than the bonsai lumberjack's 

                                 stronger hand.. 

           
              The Bonsai Lumberjack  

       Shaded, he snoozes under the 

ineffable cherry blossoms,

       The alien, pear-drop glittering

Mount Fuji 

      sheds her raindrops of lime, 

                         They bounce off lily pads, 

    splash-splash,   

                           onlooker eyes swivel, 

                       there!...there! 

     to bemusement of 

grasshoppers.. 

                                Between you all, 

      My twenty-one fellow Bloggers, 

And a few dozen other followers, 

                                              (my small but dedicated cadre),

You have raised over eight-hundred-thousand pounds! 

         And particular salutations to: 

Anon, from Finland, who sold her kidneys. 

              Yes - both! Amazing! 

                 And, another Anon - 

A modest plutocrat from Ukraine,

                                              (certainly one of many), 

Who gifted me their condo in Knightsbridge -  

              Plus, a humorous poet stipend, 

          Index-linked, tax-free, all that. 

      A delight as magical as,

My self-sacrificing 

        kidney-less fan. 

You're truly all the penguin's antlers! 

            munificent nightingales swoop

                       moonlit lemon glades....

                  You're truly all! 

You're rarer than a dodo playing golf! 

  Or, 

      a dodo who's never played golf. 

  Or, 

      Dido singing a song about a dodo 

who plays golf. 

•         The dodo plays golf whilst singing a song about Dido. 

You're rarer than the 

pasteurised milk-drinking cow. 

You're rarer than butter melting on 

          the divine lips of a 

                      Daily Mail editor. 

Look! (mist his steamy musk glands.)

how he eats stones with chopsticks, 

And funny oblong bread made of soap.  

It suits him: he knows what's good for 

    Us: Full stop after the colon.  

And, above all, 

      without those,

      extraneous exclamation marks. 

!!! 

You're all immortal now, and not for a limited time. 

Even our Fin with no kidneys remains immortal,  

Though only spiritually, 

Which is better than nothing I guess. 

(Some would give their right leg 

to give up their kidneys for spiritual immortality.) 

                         Rest in peace, her. 

[we should be thankful for a right leg, 

even if the right leg isn't technically ours

to be thankful for.

I'm deeply thankful for all your right legs,

And, don't even get me started on how besotted I am with your left one]. 

  

                        Frack and frankincense

              Unicorns and atomic bombs

       Telephone drones

Edward Snowden

I sincerely hope you enjoyed this poem 

as much as I did receiving all your cash writing it. 

We must do this again sometime - and soon! 

How about next month? 

Why not? 

As many times as you like. 

{I'm sitting here now in my foaming Jacuzzi, 

With the Neptunian nymph,

              Shangri-La.

The magical neon burnish of concrete fresco,
              Stratford municipal casino,
                       rises,
                                 all drifted, unmoored, 

                    A phantom pirates' galleon} 

Now, I promise,  

All my crowdfunded poems - 

Your crowdfunded poems, 

Shall be as immaculate as this one. 

Never shall I stint on Quality Control, 

Nor take for granted the great wads of cash you insist on offering up to me. 

             Tough ask, I know. 

But I owe it to you, my PayPal patrons; 

         You're the real stars here. 

And don't let anyone tell you otherwise: 

            They're all bastards. 

I'm not a bastard. 

                                              

I don't look forward to ever having to let any of you go.

In-Love Doggerel

You're a starship powered on Xanadu nectar;
I'm a pogo stick on coal.
You're a majestic arc of the milky way;
I'm a quark in an unsold cheese roll.
Your eyes launch songbirds and sonnets;
Come fly with me on my crackling comet.

Your hair evokes the erotic scents of perfumed night bazaars;
I exude burning tyres on torched, smashed diesel cars.
Beside you a pulsar is like a sorry matchstick spark;
As I stand in a room of moths,
I'm the dark.

You're the clearest proof if there is a God,
Their image is of your resplendent own;
I'm often asked to be the face promoting payday loans.
As you glide past men how their minds dissolve,
Their eyes kerbcrawl out their face;
I'm all Genghis Khan cologne liberally splashed over exploding beer crates.

Even when you sneeze,
You make this man go weak at the knees.
And if you had dandruff, as you brushed your hair,
Surely it would sparkle like snow through Swiss mountain air?
And that sliver of marmalade left on your cheek,
Reminds me of liquid gold encased in an amber hive of magic bees.
And when you carry rubbish to your bin,
I follow you just so I might fall right in.
Then, as you're unblocking the drain, really rocking those wellies,
I, like a smitten garden gnome, 
Wobble,
And turn to jelly..

Verily, Grace Kelly, may I be your Shelley,
Though you gaze rapturously at a shopping channel on the telly?


  

As Tender As Exploding Teargas Grenades In The Palace Of Skimmed Goats' Milk

An elephants' graveyard of vacuum cleaners - 
Acoustic, unplugged, John Cage. 
A light dust sheen accumulates around their trunks: 
The all-tangled Cro Magnon robot compost heap, 
Slumming in the open-plan tomb of my jazz-gloom basement. 

Another one every year or so I add to their numbers - 
Another perished vacuum, sucked down, down the mouse-musk mire. 
It's all Crimewatch and The Wire. 

Am I The East London Vacuum Cleaner Strangler, 
Or, maybe The Newham One? 

Imagine watching the TV news - the cardboard talking-head "neighbour": 
Yeah, yeah. I saw him in shop once, 
Where he bought milk made with goats. 
I mean, why would someone ever do that..? 
Since then I've never trusted a man that buys goats' milk. 
Skimmed. Goats. Milk. Ho! 

And, he might go on.. 
Well, actually,  
I was quite moved watching the police smash his door in with their uniform legs, 
And throw tear gas grenades nice and tidy in his hallway smaller than mine. 
It makes me feel protected, and powered yes? 
At long last getting value for my Council Tax? Agreed. 
I showed them my Neighbourhood Watch sticker on my front window sill. 
I display a Baby On Board sticker there every day too.
It's good for this country they said.

Forest Gate Mystery Train

I'm on the Forest Gate Mystery Train, 
With my burgled geranium eyes. 
I'm on the Forest Gate Mystery Train, 
Sighing goldfish clock sardine spies. 

Spammed atomic; trolleyed marine, 
Frost-buckled arms glow margarine, 
Slender dolls slalom offside knees, 
Capsules backslide into the stalagmite City. 

Tutankhamen consortia; 
Shoulder-penguins soggy cadge the dappled glimmer, 
Ink-blot floozies aim the infatuation-Derringer: 
Coffee?... Drink? 
And the treacle line thuds floating eurhythmic ghostly tambourines. 

The sly budgies chirp office trash - 
Yammering satellites eclipse; 
Aural chalk lines extradite silhouettes of lips. 
Forest Gate Mystery Train - 
Silence on the soundless amplifies. 
I travel a million underground-air-miles, 
And mermaids cycle the jelly eel sky. 
Mind the gap: you're half woman, I'm half fish - 
So the one and us evolves.. 

Forest Gate Mystery Train - 
Leering, marching men; somnambulist egg brains, 
Millionaires roll higher off ghostly rabbit-hutch plains. 
Win a dream lottery and slap down the deposit, 
In Stratford there's now a launch pad for a bungee-jumping space rocket. 
(It's just by the casino). 
Warp factor none, 
A ready meal for one, 
Microwaveable thoughts blister the bubbling plastic film, 
And the plasmatic Krakatoa infusion fizzles  
a Noah's Ark of arterial gerbils. 

Forest Gate Mystery Train - 
You've got one. 
I've got one. 

The Positive Self-Hate Miracle Plan

Let's lose weight,
Let's discover the yin and yang of protein and complex carbohydrate.
It's never too late to let your corporeal fat eat cake.
So let's lose weight.
And, then?
Then, let's look inside your cavernous space,
And discover your previously hidden, 
And uniquely transcendent,
And unparagoned, 
Blissful Essence.

Let's go!

Let's lose weight.
Because it's the only way - to lose weight.
Let's deflate your billowing concertina face.
Let's drain away those flabby bingo-arm thighs;
Sight the edacity: I snack, I die.
Chant: For I am Spirit, pure and eternal..For I am Spirit, pure and eternal..
Let's lose weight.

Pain-feast your lingua-nausea mantra;
Really utilise your hidden pneuma matter.
Oh, and,
The flashing lights, the tingling arms?
Mouth striking shapes to burglar alarms?
Perhaps, a smidgen of self harm?
Tremors, blushing, perspiring, shaking, flushing?
That's okay:
If it ain't hurting..
It's a positive thing to focus there your self-hate.

It's not easy to lose weight -
Especially when you refuse to lose weight.
No, we mustn't allow your feckless mentalism to dictate.
Instead,
Appreciate yourself depreciate:
Scale away your inducing corpus,
And irrigate.
Irrigate.

Stare yourself down, reflecting off your plate.
Speed-read all my magazines:
Glean the enlightened screed of my shapely New Age dream;
Allow me to melt away your pizza footprint;
Gracefully fade you to your sculpted meme.

Unsuicide bomb those spare tyres with love.
Vacuum-pack your stomach with tender wires - see above.
Let's lose weight.
And strike your utter repose!

And you'll soon delightedly discover your swooning lover,
And how the sweet mirror shall melt of you!

Be like a sliver of crystal glass;
As svelte as the skin of flowing water;
Skim through the air like a flying saucer;
Writhe your multi-orgasmic tiger,
Deposing ounces, you shall footfall utopia.
Let's lose weight.

You can do it!
..For I am Spirit, pure and eternal..
Let's go!

She Captures Shooting Stars

Her fingertips lifted my limbs.
And all the glowing universe..

The memories - a flash, and a storm,
Shall never wash away the stars.

The bittersweet enchantment,
Redounds her absence present.
And wherever she goes,
She captures shooting stars.

And like two broken rainbows entwined,
A few months only, a lifetime;
This perfume rain, that brook of sky,
Her essence outside time..