Me and my Smelly Shoes

I have watched the houses
(strolling purposefully past)
blink,
The new town houses
with internal heating
And batts in the attic

My smelly shoe-clad smelly feet recline
on someone else's chair,
And when the houses hit the dense swarming air
Warmly disgusting, feetid, "oh God",
They close their windows and look around,
Unsure if they're still in the upper part of town.

Between PJ20
and PN 56 R7
No longer exclusive,
I sit like old guts chunder in a bourgeoisie tea cups.
Me and my smelly shoes

— Bill Direen

The Vessel, the Pieces, the Angel Assembler Picking up the Scatterings of Self.

you lie violently dead.
in black attire i open an oak wardrobe
to a bizzare world of surrealist time
where your silent clothes hang on driftwood hangers
i choose a funeral robe, dress it with white flowers
awake from this derge
there are minstrels in the courtyard
and wild dancers.
i will join them and play the song of your death.

you pushed a pram through
an opera with soft Jane at your side
you paraded in an attempt to prove you were not sterile
and that the being in this fragile pram
had parasitically fed off your flesh,
but you were still smiling and open to laughter
and a demented variety of love.
then a D took you by the arm,
charged with sodomy
your lover squatted on the steps
of the opera house begging for sanity,
and the cop with his egotistical male governing fuck
sees your woman and you with painted faces,
watches your silicon breasts flicker,
you turn and bow your eyelashes to the east
the wombless woman wilt not talk to men
of how she is vaginaless.
the Queen of smudging hearts and broken lips.
she showed me a Chinese phrase upon her tongue
the lost sincerety, the lost sincerity.

then this crazy letter "i'm going to kill myself"
filled with frustration and sorrow and love
i wanted to tear it up and laugh it away
what have they done to you?
in that dark room where otherswere silent and dead
your black magic laughter, Diana in the forest
and the Golden Bough breaking,
Ramakrsihna painted an eye on my shoulder
as you filled my being with foreign sounds
and dreamed of acceptance with those of your own kind.
instead you found the gutter with your lover
in some transvestites body,
you were beaten, your money gone, the opera crowd
gone home, the D's run off in fear of discovery.
they pumped your stomach and jabbed at your drugged body
with electronic sounds.
"Lock Him Away" they call "He will Fester with our Children"
"Lock him Away" so you sat aione in a white room
while they tried to change your genes, your eyes skywards
they tied you to a hard bed and beat you til you screamed
"i will be me not what you want me to be" they tie you to a cross of
conformity but your body cannot change, nor your soul
even tho you are tortured, i think of others like you, crushed and
vulnerable the lost sincerity the lost sincerity

— Sandra Bell

Sun Shone Through my Window Today

the sun shone through my window today
it took my soul
and we debouched
to a place of tranquility
love unremmitting
untouchable by satan.

the sun shone through my window today
the man tried to buy my soul
but I looked the other way.

— Mazhar Kefali

I'd Rather be

I'd rather be banished
with the insane men
roaming free,
than stay in captivity
with the sadmen
walking all over me.

—Mazhar Kefali.

Poem Demanding that Cats Tighten their Belts like Students

There's a yellow plastic saucer down on the floor
- The cat licked it clean, and now it wants more.
What do I do? Fill up its Feline tummy. With rip-off
meat that costs good money? I'll be buggered
if a cat's going to live, like a Turk
And not lift a paw to do any work!
I've read all my books, and I've climbed the tree,
And no unshaven bludger's going to live off me.

— Martin Doyle

A Death Alone

The lonely man who lives below has died.
The stench mugged me as I walked into the building
and lingered like a bailiff for three days.
The ambulance drivers, with their stretcher in the hall,
leave the offal's door ajar for all
the Pandora smells to seep.
For the first time I dreaded my apartment,
the dirty taste of ignominy
and death's olfactory assault
giving me new respect for the maggots' meal
and rot.

— Greg Gatenby

E006 : March 1 to April 30

Wheels spinning, cogs turning,
Beard twitching and fault creeping;
Splinter and drags, grabens and flags
Were flying high up on the fourth floor
Above the basement was weathering and fossils
Not to forget the loess from the north west.
The corridor so open, but vague,
Where did it start, I ask, anyway?
The buses were boring, three hours in all
Who's calling - no darts or I'll stop
You thick headed lot from passing.

I'Ll show you the city......city.....city",
Oh what a pity
His voice was so dead,
But squeaking and smiling, he never cared.
Lambton and Te Aro rubbed noses together,
But the terrace and suburbs depended on whether
The classes would move away from the centre.
And they did.
They climbed and spread, or reclamation instead,
Took place, as land was sparse.
The feature, he told us, was the petty bourgeosie,
The oligopolistic capitalism, the high rise and all that you could see.
He was impressive, there's no doubting his ability,
And to replace him with the Mister
Was not in the right tree
For even though the Mister knew his stuff
It was out of the book and notes were rough.
His speed caused our hands to go beeming red,
A reminder of the 100 yards in ten seconds dead.
Eyles was most impressive,
The best one I'd say;
Yet we never saw much of him
And we won't from May
Tuts were slow and dreary at times,
And everything said was usually out of line.

Yet each of the chaps had a pet love:
Wheels had his slides and his faultlines to hug;
And Frank and the city and the petty bourgeoise, so snug;
Rich and the Prof, and how proud he was, was he;
And Eyles and the catchment, did always believe,
that if there's a flood disaster, thirst would we.

Enjoyable to learn, but from now on
The work will be tough, as the books we will turn
To will essentially be closed,
And Watters and co. most obstrusively imposed.

— Kevin Marshall