Uppark the grasshopper
________smacks
lips
___to these moon-glossy drive-ins.
An uproarious stun
_____________in
coloured beams
_______tickles
him,
___tomfool yodels crackle
_____after a tingling glide downwind.
He rockets towards the pucker
_________of
Mickey Mouse's bow tie,
_____slung,
_____cock-a-hoop
and buds his acting debut
__winging-it to Mickey's word-play.
__________A
glittery star
fixing himself
____to everlasting life
______before
rolling credits
____________turn
to hay.
9
two poems
by Christopher Barnes
Seated Figure
There is at beginnings
a reflection of The Room.
I am a self-bound detainee, bottled up
in a two-up-two-down, a cramped man,
my own hermit rusting locks.
Raw deals kick-off
from not being in a fettle
to dig-in unsullied heels, I am
from time to time
the classic dead-of-night rover.
London's coil slithers me
to a plunge of seedy stairways,
the lampposts of black streets
to hidey-hole dens and breathless yards.
But the small-built perfunctory rooms
which could be lodgings, urban sprawl,
Tottenham, bare-bulb digs
in a brittle terrain
or in a villa of skimpy scale, that room
is the place where each thing knows itself.
The Sekonda offers it slow gear,
as early hours take dusty shape.
On edge I check for moonlight
counting on a knock at the door.