Soho Read online

  have stayed this hard since two thousand and five –

  José Raúl Hotrod have stood inked jaw-locked

  in a three-way french for some nine rugged years –

  pecs still greasy tans Miami-orange fingers tucked

  into each other’s pits – interests include PS3 beer

  skateboarding fisting being taken for expensive meals –

  this is the future I wish for them – open-mouthed

  wanton lithe&toned – instead of the all too real –

  Wikipedia tells me Hotrod married a girl appalled

  by his past – Raúl’s serving time for battery in Bristol

  Texas a born-again homophobe&José’s heart exploded

  on stage at Pride too much love or rather crystal

  Fishmonger

  Every Thursday he came to call

  in his blood-licked surgeon’s coat

  and if my parents were out

  I knew to order nothing but eggs

  as his prices for fish were far too dear.

  Once he took me into his van –

  row upon row of gleaming flanks,

  the rough brick-armour of crabs,

  the stopped hearts of bivalves pickled in brine,

  all resting on clouds of ice.

  He let me douse his catch in ammonia

  a secret to keep their sparkle, he said

  and as I sprayed they spluttered

  back to life – mouths gurning for water,

  gills rippling like Venetian blinds,

  coppers and silvers flashing and lathering.

  I heard the mighty roar of the sea

  surround his van like traffic.

  He took me into his capable arms

  so I would not cry out.

  He fed me prawns to calm me,

  wiped the brine from my lips –

  let me try my first razor clam

  unzipped from its pale hard shell,

  the tip – soft and white and saline.

  In that battered old Transit

  I took the whole ocean into my mouth

  and then he sent me home

  with a dozen eggs –

  so no one would be any the wiser.

  Admission

  he asks if my poems are authentic

  do I have any experience in the matter

  and by this he means abuse

  and by this he means have I been a victim

  I tell him the truth he talks to cover my silence

  the Nigerian playwright who writes only

  of the Second Liberian Civil War

  how trauma is a shared thread

  leading to other victims of molestation

  how rape is a weapon blame

  still in truth I wish he hadn’t asked see I

  want this man my friend to see me

  as pure not in any way ruined or touched

  dirty a tease a liar an attention seeker

  he cites Wordsworth something familiar

  about tranquillity and I want to ask

  now that you know do you still like me

  but like the boy when asked by his therapist

  to say into the bathroom mirror

  it’s not your fault I remain dumb

  museum

  the unknown

  sculptor chose his

  marble well

  birthing you

  from a glittering

  seam these flecks of

  quartz pure light

  illuminates your

  chest it’s late

  afternoon the halls

  are empty and I

  am tracing a finger

  across the hacks and

  pocks these dis-

  figurations of

  time that tattoo

  your torso oh my

  kouros my apollo

  you know first

  hand only hand-

  less the vulnerability of

  queer bodies how the

  earth does not value

  us yet you have

  survived de-

  capitation the severing

  of every limb part-

  castration to be

  here sun-

  stroked hero of the

  archaeological museum

  I want to kiss your

  sites of amputation

  these rough-hewn

  slices these weather-

  ed absences I want to

  run my tongue

  along the lashed

  small of your back

  wet the hilt of your

  battle-toned ass

  so I do

  bending my head

  like a boyfriend

  towards the reliquary

  of your earth-

  scarred sternum I

  kiss your chiselled

  flesh and find you

  warm tasting of

  sand and lime and

  trace my tongue

  down the line of

  your groin towards your

  injured sex

  and there in the hall of

  marbles I take you

  into my mouth and

  tongue your fractured

  shaft the

  ravaged break of

  stone your

  cut absence

  has not damaged

  your thrall if

  this little of you is

  beauty your entirety

  must have been

  blinding

  for the longest

  time people told me

  I must change my life

  but this is my life

  this adoration of

  men this worship of

  those whom the

  world has deemed

  broken just as

  you gave your

  body to the earth

  so have I given

  mine to this echo-

  ing voices and

  I am already

  steps away look-

  ing back I can see only

  the dazzling

  slope of your cheeks

  your sandstone

  shoulder a

  family surrounds you now

  giggling pointing nodding

  oh my unearthed

  god they do not

  understand you the

  narrative of your body

  how you bore the

  darkness the years

  of not being touched

  your loneliness

  which has been my

  loneliness

  Public Toilets in Regent’s Park

  The men here are bird-footed

  feathering past the attendant’s two-way mirror

  unperturbed by the colonising micro-organisms –

  bulleidia cobetia shigellosis

  sliming across the yellowed groutings,

  the fist-deep pool of brackish water

  quivering in the U-bend, the tile that reads

  for information on venereal disease telephone 01 …

  All for the thrill of placing their knees

  on the piss-stained cold, the iris shimmering

  behind a hand-carved glory hole,

  a beautiful cock unfolding like a swan’s neck

  from the Harris Tweed of a city gent’s suit.

  Whispers, gasps of contact echo

  inside each nested cubicle! But careful –

  the prying attendant will rattle

  her bucket and mop if she spies four shoes!

  Our men disperse as mallards from the face of a pond.

  II VERLAINE IN SOHO

  15 LOVE POEMS AFTER PAUL VERLAINE

  What I’d give for a simple kind of affection …

  (trans. MARTIN SORRELL)

  blue-screen

  your grindr profile is an emoticon paradise

  where camels and kittens go

  dancing and flashing but I can tell they are :-(

  beneath
their primary colours

  your preferences brag in arial bold

  SINGLE / PASSIVE / NO STRINGS FUN

  but they don’t like themselves

  so melt back into the blue-screen

  into the silent blue-screen blank and sad

  that makes the emoticons dream within their

  programming and code run like teardrops

  C C++ sob beneath your touchscreen

  love version of

  tonight I watched you sleep

  naked on the futon

  face down sweaty like a small child

  and knew that everything else was bullshit

  it’s so hard to stay alive these days

  or sane

  so keep on snoring danny

  while I guard you like a rottweiler

  being in love with you is fucking awful

  cause one day you’ll stop breathing

  in this grey light you already look dead

  but then you smile thank fuck

  what are you dreaming about baby wake up

  tell me if the word soul still means anything

  tinder

  blonde or brown-haired I swipe the screen

  blue eyes

  or green I swipe again looking for another

  with a poet’s eyes but a short back and sides

  soft belly hard abs lean I swipe the screen

  heart

  desperate or damaged who cares so I

  swipe again there’s far too many of us

  man-slut or boyfriend material left right

  yes no

  does it matter there’s always another

  each fitter than the last each newer

  green

  here’s a plastic basket of polyester tulips

  plus a heart-shaped card that sings I LOVE YOU

  don’t recycle them please

  be happy with my pound-store presents

  I stink I’m pretty sweaty I’ve been walking

  this whole damp night to get here

  let me curl around your converse cat-like

  and dream of our cherry-days

  maybe I could put my head still burning

  from the memory of your hubba bubba kisses

  onto your broad chest just till I feel a bit better

  perhaps grab some shut-eye while you doze off

  pastoral

  above soho the sky

  is super blue

  bus minutes click down

  MANBAR empties out

  a fat pigeon burps

  its coo of loneliness

  shits

  the sauna vents sigh

  fuck me everything

  seems so simple this early

  suburbs boyfriends a-

  sleep over the river

  and you what have you done

  standing there on a comedown crying

  tell me how many men

  came inside you last night

  stupid love

  violin music

  hurts my gut

  like a punch

  I’m always

  thinking about

  what happened

  then crying

  wish I could

  leave you

  blow off

  like an old

  carrier bag

  the hole

  hope what is it be honest with me

  you think it’s desire a want

  a wasp fizzing

  for the gap in the window

  are you sleeping at all

  wine helps whiskey too

  I haven’t gone to bed sober for eleven years

  I don’t know any lullabies

  tell me to fuck off

  if you want sympathy is so pat

  you just want him back him

  walking through your brain neck

  still smelling of davidoff cool water

  that wasp is always thinking of the rose outside

  W1D

  what kind of slob leaves a used mattress

  on the street tide-marked with

  sweat piss blood and is that maybe cum

  I swear you can see his outline in bodily fluids

  and he’s not alone

  four knees four palms four buttocks tattoo

  the damp quilted magnolia cotton

  they sure had a happy horny time of it

  so what happened

  did they move to hastings or get a swanky new one

  the dfs memory foam 900

  or did all that sex turn into regret

  I know something about regret I’ve been

  chucked away often covered in hickeys sex-bruises

  like to go for long walks

  I was always bimbling about KT3 SW20

  looking down each suffocating avenue

  for someone just like me

  every driveway park bench

  each public lavatory

  was an X might mark the spot

  remember those pre-grindr days

  when loneliness stung like a hunger

  and you wanted to give yourself away like a milk tooth

  homo do you still walk until your shins ache

  up turnpikes across spaghetti junctions

  through industrial estates along the towpath

  your only treasure map

  the salt-flesh wall in your stomach your semi

  heath

  the moon bleeds

  light onto the black ash

  every branch

  in this dismal canopy

  rasps indifference

  like an ex-boyfriend

  the salt marsh

  is full of drowned things

  the walnut trees

  beckon like trade

  the dark moves

  no you are not dreaming

  this desperate place

  this scrub

  cold

  as dead starlight

  violet

  is your home now

  the presence of x

  you believe in magpies

  one for sorrow two for joy

  I think that’s lame

  you believe in disney films

  aurora ariel belle get their prince

  I think that’s heteronormative bullshit

  you believe in reincarnation

  motivational speakers crystals runestones

  I think that’s super annoying

  I believe in sex the blue hours

  you’ve spent fucking me

  the bruises you left on my arms

  I’m the monk and you’re stigmata

  only this isn’t some straight to dvd thriller

  starring christian slater and donnie wahlberg

  today

  memories what the fuck do you want

  making a fat pigeon beat the air again

  the copper sun roll back years

  the yellowed woods chatter with decay

  we were alone together him and me

  drunk sad our thoughts coming down

  he turned his black look my way said

  is this happiness his voice metallic

  his voice which had been so green

  like my mouth my body

  how I kissed his peachy neck and thighs

  yeah the first years are so ripe

  when open-mouthed kisses fill the silence

  that today is long

  sertraline 50 mg

  it’s raining in my heart

  what does that even mean and

  why am I so sad

  all the fucking time

  still it pours on

  the slate roofs are black

  the gardens a swamp

  droplets on the pavement

  such white noise is

  almost calming so

  how come my head’s a cloud and

  my heart’s a puddle

  middle class boys like me

  haven’t known tragedy

  and yet this dark rain
/>   saturating my heart

  in the style of richard scott

  my moon is a man

  he’s watched me get naked in parks cemeteries by the canal etc

  the other stars belt spade massive crab

  are pretty meaningless and dead anyway

  there’s no more music in poetry

  than in my boyfriend’s whispered voice

  both make my heart pump

  belly spasm

  I don’t forgive you bullies exes

  the man who punched me the one who touched me

  but I love my dad

  even though he did and said shit shit things

  I am free now still

  it hurts everyday so I read

  mark and walt and arthur and constance and gregory and thom and my boy paul

  write poem after poem about

  other people’s dreams are boring

  I dreamt I was at CHARIOTS last night and

  two lads

  one blue-eyed one black

  slipped out of the bleach-stinking steam

  you should have seen their towels

  damp with sweat hugging their smooth waists

  smothering thighs flanks

  cupping the dangerous meat between their hips

  they pulled me into their labyrinth of clouds

  terrycloth swaying like silk ball gowns

  on some itv drama about adultery or longing and