THE NEIGHBOURS

 

‘You must meet Matilda my dear’ said Norman. ‘But first things first: still wine or fizz; which kind of girl are you?’

‘A champagne girl of course’.

‘Of course you are,’ cooed Norman. ‘Of course you are’.

‘Hi de hi campers,’ sung Matilda, flexing a leg on her arrival by the mantelpiece. ‘And please excuse my sweat; I’m training for a half-marathon’.

‘Don’t mind a little girl sweat do we?’ asked Norman

‘I’m running for the dwarf horse hostel by the canal,’ said Matilda removing her shorts.

‘Matilda is the local animals’ Joan de Arc. Cats and dogs and even foxes, she’s quite a girl I can tell you,’ said Norman

‘What’s your name?’ asked Simon, the chap without pants lying on the lawn.

‘Mary, my name is Mary.’

‘Not at all contrary: it’s a very beautiful name my dear and it suits you very well,’ said Norman.

‘It certainly does,’ added Simon. ‘Like a soft leather slipper on a warm clammy day.’

Suddenly Norman’s wife, Brenda, entered sans brazier. ‘Do you respect the tit, Mary?’ she asked

‘Well, I’m not sure . . .’

‘Put it away Brenda, Mary’s a shy girl; not quite ready for the tit,’ cautioned Norman.

In the garden Matilda was naked and bouncing on top of Simon.

‘Oh yes, quite a girl our Matilda,’ said Norman with a wink.

‘I think I’d better be going,’ said Mary.

Brenda’s giant bosom blocked the doorway into the street. ‘Do you respect the tit, Mary?’ she repeated.

‘Not really,’ said Mary squeezing past Brenda’s bosom and out into the cold.

Half way home Mary remembered she’d left her pants on their sofa and realised she’d have to go back to get them.

BUNNYGIRL SIDEBOARDMAN

 

Is there anything else as sad

as a lonely man wearing

sideboards above his head

like a bunnygirl wears her ears?

He walks in raised steps

like a game of pick-up-sticks,

his hands firmly in pockets,

feeling stones for comfort.

An old three-piece-suite

dumped on the side of the street,

as forlorn as a left-behind smile,

whispers for him to come and sit down.

“Rest your weary legs and bum,

you sad little man,” says the three-piece-suite

with a sofa for a head,

and two easy-ear-chairs on either side.

The bunnygirl sideboardman checks no one is looking

and falls into the sofa,

letting its arms wrap around him

like upholstery muffs on a cold lounge day.

He sits there with the sofa and chairs,

watching the infinite snow space unravel infront of him,

and remembers a blood-sun day when he

and his love cuddled together to watch tv.

No longer alone, memories a kind of comfort cushion,

he smiles and falls into a long warming sleep:

the three-piece-suite and he leave the world of snow,

no footsteps or marks left in the deep below.

Fame

It was just the kind of party to be seen at and Nigel Ferranti was extremely keen to be seen. His hush puppy soles gripped the expensive Swedish decking, a well-sourced surface he intended to praise to the hosts later on, whilst his tight bottom clenched and his tiny mouth pursed and puckered ready to meet and greet anyone making it his way. For an hour, his risqué Sex on the floor cocktail in hand, Nigel Ferranti waited but no partygoer strayed near.

            Nigel Ferranti re-checked his fly, straightened his tie, and secreted a hot mint freshener under his tongue. He smiled as best he could with such a tiny mouth but he was aware his attempt at friendly frivolity, whilst sipping from under a pink umbrella, could in such a dim party light look like the obscene tears of a grimacing bottom hole. So instead he closed his mouth tight to affect a sullen look, and to hopefully appear a little mysterious. But still no soul ventured near, and another hour passed.

            Nigel Ferranti shifted position to show his better side, re-checked his fly, straightened his tie, and secreted a glycerine suppository capsule into his rear end. The effect was startling and immediate, and the bottom of his trouser shook and cavorted as if there was a private party going on inside his pants. The beautiful hostess of the party came over to see what was happening.

            ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

            ‘Hello, I’m Nigel Ferranti. I like you. Do you like me?’

            As Nigel Ferranti offered her his hand, his bottom and mouth belched and farted in unison. The beautiful hostess let go an ugly scream, and the rest of the partygoers drew near to see what was happening. They all looked at Nigel Ferranti and his bulging party pants. Though a little sheepish about the attention he was receiving, his bottom grinned, and his mouth managed a small, shy public smile.

            ‘Fame at last,’ he exclaimed. ‘How sweet it is!’

HAIR HAIR

 

Hello, you must have noticed my hair.’

‘Hair today and gone tomorrow.’

‘The colour is a rust red variation on your dear child’s red balloon.’

‘It’s not my child.’

‘Quite so; but back to hair: it was inspired in part by cranberries, the indigenous American fruit not the faux Irish group from the early nineties, and by a subtle blend of mid-sixties Diana Ross and a drag queen fried of mine, Lawrence un Arabesque.’

‘What?’

‘A burlesque Arabesque friend of mine, Lawrence . . .’

‘Piss off, we’re not interested.’

‘How can that possibly be?’

‘We’re witnessing an execution, friend.’

‘My God, how very provincial! I shall depart henceforth from where good taste lies unnoticed and unappreciated.’

‘Goodbye then …. and good riddance  …..  and by the way your wig looks like bunches of old burgundy rope dipped in a bucket of strawberries..’

GOAT KILLS SNAKE

Pablo the goat came over all Diablo when a slimy snake slithered under his hoof.

‘Cotton-picking son of a slitherer!’ yelled Pablo, who up until now had never uttered a word in his life.

‘Rattle’ rattled the snake.

‘Enough of that,’ yelled Pablo as he brought his hoof down on the rattling snake’s rattling spine. ‘And take that too,’ he yelled again, bringing another hoof down to silence the rattler for good and for bad.

The desert fell silent. The moon glowered like a shiny spoon and Pablo began to eat the snake.

‘What’s come over me,’ he thought. ‘I’m normally a peace loving chap, and I’ve always been an herbivore.’

The desert stayed quiet and offered no reply, but a ball of dry prairie grass rolled by until Pablo ate that too.

THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON

 

Solomon King lay on the hem of the ocean, the sea tickling his toes. He watched his father with his giant flask of popcorn, his wife with her billowing cornetto hair, and his children, Posy, Mabel, Greta and Sidney paddling in the shallows and he wondered to himself how he got here and where he was going.

The moon turned and the waves pulled back to reveal a little man in a pink wetsuit burrowing into the sand. 

‘He must have been here all the time’, thought Solomon. ‘I need to ask him what he wants.’ 

Suddenly a flock of seagulls fell from the sky. They snatched the popcorn from his father’s flask, and then rained them like crap confetti all over everyone and everything.

Solomon looked down, the water was creeping over his toes and the little man in the wetsuit was gone.

Cowboys

I punched a dog, Dan.

You did, you punched a dog, Ned.

Punched him real good.

You did, yes, real good.

Should I shoot him?

If you like.

I don’t like.

Don’t shoot him then.

Don’t think I will.

Don’t think you will neither.

Either.

Neither.

But I might shoot you, Dan.

Not before I shoot you, Ned.

THE AMERICAN FLAG

‘I’m an American. My flag is American. My body is American.’

Brad’s jaw squared up, his pecks ribbed and tucked, whilst his legs made scissors through the waves.

All the time Miranda watched and absent-mindedly rubbed almond oil over her hide; her booty crack filling and spilling warm granules of sand onto her toes.

Funeral Dave stayed supine; his cool undertaker’s body bringing his heart beat down below 40; his mind imagining the sun as a seaweed tangled fanny.

‘Want to play with my Frisbee?’ shouted Brad.

Miranda twiddled her teat as if adjusting the knob on a transistor radio.

‘No, thank you,’ she whispered.

Funeral Dave let his own cock leave his body and enter a small space between Brad’s flag and Miranda’s seated rear.

The cock stayed there in the heart of the sea-scented slipstream, its tip tickled by the passing currents of air.

When Miranda saw it she smiled whilst Brad sprinted away to mend the hole in his flag.

 

CANCER BOB AND THE YOYO

Bob with the Cancer, a charred renegade cowboy scout was puffing and lolloping along on his half-assed, half-blind donkey when he passed two unlikely lads cavorting on the skirted hem of a daisy prairie.

One of the unlikely lads, Pete with a rooster, cried, ‘yo!’

‘Yo,’ repeated his crushed-almond-eyed friend.

Cancer Bob creaked around his saddle to face them: ‘what in the name of sweet Jesus are you two female faggots wanting from me?’

‘Yo yo,’ shouted Rooster Pete and his nutty fiend.

Now the donkey agitated around to bring Cancer Bob nuzzle-up-close to the yoyo pair.

‘I’ll say it only once: why are you rattle-snakes repeating your death rattle claim on my running-out-time?’

‘Yoyo, sir. It’s all the craze in the East. Spare us a dime and we’ll furnish you with our presentation.’

‘What do you think, Dong?’ Cancer Bob asked of his donkey. ‘Shall we give them a dime for their troubles or shall we blast their dim-witted asses back up to Kingdom come?’

Donkey Dong looked heavenward and brayed very loud.

‘Sorry boys, I have my answer,’ said Cancer Bob with a rotten kind of smile. Then out came his pistols and squeeze went the triggers. Bullets flew and the two unfortunate, unlikely lads fell backwards onto the skirted hem of the prairie. 

As the rooster cooked on a fire and Donkey Dong hoofed up granules of desert to make two shallow graves, Cancer Bob lay on his back doing an expert cat’s cradle with the yoyo. ‘Those talent less fuckers will be pushing up daisies soon enough,’ he said.

‘And so will you, Bob,’ replied Donkey Dong.

‘Guess I will at that,’ said Cancer Bob allowing a crooked smile to pass across his lips as he offered his donkey dong a drag on his nicotine.

DESMOND DEKKER

 

Desmond Dekker, his wife Margaret and niece Charlotte liked to get their tops off and crispen their skins down Lowestoft way. Big ships and little ships vied for attention on the horizon but Desmond liked to watch Margaret’s flattened torpedo breasts pointing towards his niece’s surfboard back. Her young skin was firm yet supple and Desmond thought if he was a killer whale he might mistake his niece for a seal and eat her.

A seagull hovered above and Desmond Dekker imagined himself a miniature Israelite carried away to the Holy Land on the back of silken wings.

            ‘What you looking at?’ Margaret asked Desmond.

            ‘Your breasts, my darling,’ replied Desmond.

            ‘Good reply but what are you thinking about?’

            ‘Das Boot,’ replied Desmond, and the sun tipped a little on its axis and the sky went all of a sudden very dark.

HAND ME MY HAND

 

‘You can pin a maggot on a mackerel but you can’t pin a mackerel on a maggot,’ whispered the featureless child, his unheard words of wisdom floating away on the wind.

There was lot of wind on the Suffolk coast that day and it was busy dragging the kite belonging to the father of the featureless child along the far side of the beach.

‘Feck it, feck it and feck it,’ scalded Dad.

The snake on a rope thought he said ‘fetch it’ but his impulse to slither over and fetch it was curtailed by a sharp yank on the tie-rope around his neck. His trunk slinked and then coiled up into itself; his gasping tongue protruding to fork the passing currents of air.

Amongst the masses of messed up line attached to the kite emerged a giant ugly deep sea fish. It stank and shouted at a woman and a baby ahead of it.

‘Not mackerel, not a maggot and not a monkfish,’ mumbled and murmured the featureless child.

‘Mmmmer mmmmer mmmmer, can’t make any fecking sense of any fecking thing you say, lad,’ blasted Dad.

‘Sssssand shark, it’sssss a sssssand shark,’ hissssssed the snake.

Dad went to have a closer look. The stinking sand shark bit. He came back with the kite but without his hand.

‘That takes the biscuit,’ sobbed Dad.

‘That took your hand,’ corrected the featureless child.

Dad looked at him for a moment. ‘I understood that bit, lad, you’re right. Good to hear you talk normal for a change.’

The snake slithered back with Dad’s hand.

‘Thanks, snake,’ said Dad with a playful yank at his tie-rope. ‘Now let’s go home, your Mum has got some serious sewing to do.’

KICKER GIRL

 

Now lookee here, girl, what do you call that mess on the wall?

Dunno.

It’s a scribble, isn’t it? And a scribble don’t belong on the wall, it belongs on paper. Am I right or am I wrong?

Yep, s’pose so.

Right or wrong I asked, girl.

Right.

Right, thank you.

Granddad Pete was always shooting off about something and his granddaughter, Sophie, was normally in his firing line. She peered out from her lofty vantage point and endured it all with the cold stare of teenage oblivion.

You doing anything later, girl?

Dunno.

What about playing a sport. Tennis? Table tennis? Football?

Table football?

Don’t get fresh now, Sophie. But table football would be a start, wouldn’t it?

Yeah.

Go on then, here’s a pound. And a smile would be nice.

Sophie managed a smile, pecked her Granddad lightly on the cheek, and slouched off.

You will use the money for a game, won’t you?

Sophie mimed the bent over flick wrist motion of the game as she walked away.

Fat chance thought granddad, but she’d be good if she did play; the girl has attitude.

THE PREMONITION

 

I’m not drunk, he said. I’m just feeling tender, like I’m really open and anything might happen.

You ought to be careful saying things like that, she replied.

How so?

If you’re too open you can be climbed into and eaten up.

That’s crazy.

You’ll see.

What do you mean?

Look into my glass: what do you see?

Cinzano.

And?

And what?

Look through the glass.

I’m looking.

What do you really see?

I see you.

What do I look like?

You look drunk but interesting, and you look beautiful.

That’s your drink talking.

I see us walking hand in hand up the stairs to my flat.

Now you’re seeing.

You trip on a stair near the front door and I help you up.

You’re very kind.

And I kiss you.

Then I should kiss you back.

Such a sweet kiss!

It’s late, time to go.

Shall we go together?

What do you think?

I think we will

TRUMPET FORSYTH

Each midnight, Trumpet Forsyth leans out of his sixth floor bedroom window and blows out his horn. The first notes are avant-garde and complicated, angry, like his guernica is inhabited by limbless limbo dancers and drowning hands. The next series of notes are big-nosed-Sonny-Rollins-sax, then tall and meditative, and after that a little fruitless like a man growing wings to turn into a penguin that will never fly. A horse bray and neigh, a dog’s head in a light bulb tree and a dancing man falling flat on his face make up the final third, and then trumpet Forsyth puts away his horn and lets the dogs, cats and manacled maniacs take up his clarion call to wake up the night.

NEIGHBOURS

 
Skidmark Sid and Herbert Hives (who lived together) asked their neighbour, ‘Margaret with two small melons’, round to share a bath. Sid liked Margaret, Herbert liked Sid, and Margaret liked to be naked; no touching was involved. After three months Margaret inherited a million pounds from her pet greyhound, Slim Jim. They talked about what best to do with the money, and decided to open a department store. They called it ‘Skidmark, Melon and Hives’; it wasn’t a success.

---

 At the opening press conference, a journalist, thinking perhaps that Sid had once been a motor racing driver, asked how he came by the name Skidmark. Sid told the truth: sales plummeted, particularly in basement lingerie (a speciality of Herbert’s), and soon they had to close the shop. Herbert Hives then came up with an idea: he painted a red cross on the side of some old tin cans, and went round the local area collecting money. Soon, he had a million pounds. ‘It’s such a great idea, I don’t know why no-one thought of it before,’ said Margaret. They used the money to open a restaurant. Realising they had made a mistake with the name before, they played safe and called it ‘Neighbours’. Quite by accident, it became extremely popular: hungry punters arrived from all over thinking it had something to do with the famous Australian daytime soap. To cash in on their unexpected success, Skidmark Sid changed his name to Harold, and ‘Margaret with two small melons’ changed her name to Madge; Herbert, however, changed his name to Skidmark because he loved his friend and wanted to be more like him.