—in a midi skirt, a stiff one/

—in a midi skirt, a stiff one/
jutting out/ with ripped tights on/
I’d scored some work, and spent the afternoon
in Notting Hill, looking at the faces
of undercover policemen/ in speeding unmarked cars/
I rode around, making eyes with women;

did I tell you about my childhood?
A pint of beer, and a packet of salt and vinegar.
The crisps were for me, and the beer ...
You know what I’m saying.

It was 44 miles, round trip:
I thought of dweebs I’d known,
& how I rarely had to see them;
I cycled with no hands, to the Serpentine,
past the really really rich people
who were pretending to be interesting,
the really really rich people,
who were perversely some kind of tourist magnet

& I rode the slipstream of a bus, through Fulham,
there was a paparazzo in Chelsea,
but the *famous* rich people? They were just a decoy;

someone in lycra overtook me,
I was riding a heavy bicycle, in corduroys,
and I pulled that trick, where I suddenly caned it behind him/
I took his wheel, & rode his slipstream through Putney,

“We plebs know our place,” I’d joked,
“Oh, and where’s that?” she’d asked, looking at me,

I dropped the peloton behind, wearing a shirt, and with luggage;
although soon enough, in turn, a beefy guy in lycra would drop me;

“At the barricade,” I said,
“with a knife in the boot,
no turning back,
holding a fucking rifle.”

On Worthing Pier

It was the nightclub
on Worthing Pier, she was inside
some windows/ in 1996/ I walked around
the decking, of the pier/ black lipstick/
the graffiti in the toilets, by the pier,
the condom machine,
she was sailing on the pier/ she was in a special,
unlit room/ over the ruins of swept-away villages
dusk-runs to Ferring and Littlehampton
I wanted to be in that room/ blonde hair black clothes/
glinting glass and mirrors/ they rode a chariot
pulled by dolphins, in the Brighton basements/
my brother wanted to ride it/ she was half sea
and half air/ all sun set/ eye contact, through the window/
I wanted to be in that room,
appreciating the darkness

Tidbit from my Sicilian residency; 2

A silly film about Bronze Age bull-head rituals in the Near East. I made this during a break from writing my epic poem, while in residence in Sicily for the winter of 2015-16.

/~-/~-/~-/~-

I used your love letter for directions
the one where you wrote you were going to Salerno
on the bus, and stopping at Rimini
for the antiques market
I bought an embossed photo album
made in Venice. Sleeping on the Po Delta dunes
the sleep freezed and infused
and the bubbly prostitute at the industrial port
opposite Venice
making eye contact/ her cola bottle/
in Venice the staircase
above the canal, to the room,
the canal and the windows
were stained glass creeks/
the canals replicate the beauty
of creeks, mixed with alleys
of a palace/ of gardens/
and the students from the design school
on the piazza, the campo, with glasses of wine
for eighty cents, the students were good looking
& it was like the Poets' Cafe
in Cocteau's Orphée,
where the poets start to brawl
and death comes by on motorbikes
and I sat in the steps to the water
taking discreet photographs
of the students,
the crab was walking on the steps in algae
and the students were like sea creatures
the rock pool of the campo
and everything had one or two pieces
of very special jewellery,
like the crab's claw/ its luminous shell/ everything
was subtly hung
with precious stones or metal
or draped to the floor in a long coat.
Crawling out of algae.
Libraries in the creeks.