For Karl (or COCK #11)

How do I make my
Cock more Marxist?
Writing poetry is total,
Total freedom, from fiefdom
But needs to be about more
Than overheard swearing
Down the docks, in the socks
On the bus and stuck in a
Truss. Blunder and fuss…
The Brits can go get fucked.
Up on rectal diazepam,
With a pint of bitter by the canal.

COCK(S) #4

Yesterday I wanted to go
To the Cock Tavern
But it was full of cocks.

So I went to the Yorkshire
Grey instead, overheard Oxford
graduates speak of colleges and
Babies.

Suddenly it was 1997, and
I’d never been there,
I placed my cock,
In the bread slicer,

Of a small town
Bakery, in the Midlands,
Smaller than Bicester.
And,

Realised, its impossible,
To comprehend, feel,
Really feel, multiple,
Simultaneous

Serrated, blades
Cutting, at
once.

COCK #17

“Ricky!!”
Aw fuck, not Ricky,

Destiny or teleology
“Pint a’ Stell-ah”

FIN

Stash//accumulation

’til after nowh Dave he nevah bringt dem’
Can you tell what accent I’m writing?
Mimicking. Ridiculing?

Or am I just trying to tell you what
I heard, on the bus. The translation is wrong.
The indeterminacy just a bonus.

A voice speaking of debts,
unpaid, human relations counted
rationally in cans of lager.

Dave, well it seems he had a stash,
Inert though except for the fizz
of brand name beers.

These crimes are proclaimed to the
world [the bus]. But here, all around we fail to share.
We won’t even allow space for refuge.

Dave, fuck ‘im. I mean, who cares,
Petty, primitive accumulation.
It’s almost charming.

Adult concerns that have failed
to move beyond the playground.
A mirror of the paupacy of our politics.

COCK #13.2

Who drinks craft beer
on a park bench

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Garfield Potts write poetry and lives in South East London. @pottsgarfield

Image: Untitled, Steve Bowbrick, Creative Commons.