That Day You Walked Into My Room & I Was Naked & You Said You Didn't Really Mind But Now It's 20 Years Later & You Say That Actually You Find My Lack of Body Hair Unnerving & The Tattoo On My Back Has Dispirited Your Clitoris

I was a fastidious otter without a towel, prey.
You were a judgmental eagle, predator.
Two decades of gestating revulsion and two children later,
You are finally about to make a meal of me.

I have fair hair, I am not a "bald, freakish twat"!
I got the tattoo when Lighthouse Family were cool!
You could have said something.

I was completely exposed in my towel, I was moisturising.
My back rippled as Tunde Baiyewu mouthed Ocean Drive.
You should have said something.

You got the kids and the house, clever fox.
I got the CD collection and diagnosed with 'Adonis Complex', forlorn rabbit.
Twenty years gone and two copies of 'Falling Into You' later,
I have been consumed.

Look At Your Thumbs

I remember learning from Paul Simon, not the one with the carpet shop.
I remember him teaching us about the ways of the world.
Syncopated ruminations on daily toil and plebeian graft,
He was Atlas holding up the sky with chords.

I learnt about The Myth of Fingerprints and the former talk show host,
Every finger or thumbprint is distinct.
Individuality incarnate and humanity humbled,
Rhyming Simon say topographical swirls define our lives.

A small, Italian plumber has worn away my uniqueness,
A swift, blue hedgehog has erased my identity.
Digits enslaved to a Phrygian cap wearing swordsman,
Appendages transformed to tools for weaponised karts.

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start,
I've managed to land the monkey right on the 100!
Seven hundred and forty six hours spent attaining virtual glory,
We heroes painted the city blue and saved the Graydians.

Look at your thumbs,
Can you see the spirals that make you who you are?
Look at your fingers,
A lifetime of collecting valueless coins has left us ghosts.

Over the mountain down in the valley lives a former human being,
Abandoned now just like the high score.
There is no doubt about it, it was The Myth of Fingerprints,
I've seen them all and now mine are no more.

Using Fingerprints to Describe Schrodinger's Cat

Woke up and found a drawing of a dockyard on my neck,

I could still feel the pressure where someone had etched it onto my skin.

I craned and strained and cricked and hiked my neck in front of the mirror,

I could just make out the lobster pots.

I asked my girlfriend to tell me more about it,

She told me it was dull and looked like shit.

I reminded her of the butterfly tattooed on her ankle,

She gave our relationship a month.

Ageing tyres dressed in slimy green gowns,

Prevent my prow from hitting the sides.

Rusty ladders with far too few rungs,

Allow me to clamber up into the dry.

Is this dockyard in my mind? Is it Ramsgate in August?

Was it sketched on my neck as a sign?

I can't read all of it yet but I know there's a dry dock,

I wonder if that's where timber is allowed to dream?

Woke up and found a drawing of a playground on my neck...

Got arrested.

I wish I'd danced with the girl in the picture.

Her arms bend at an angle I've never seen in waking life,

Her sinews are taught as if she holds the whole world aloft.

She's looking at the camera like it's a window to my soul,

Her legs will never move in time with mine.

Swirling on the dance-floor we could have found reality,

Entwined in music I may have been able to make her happy.

Feet tripping and slipping in our own astral orbits,

Shadows of our children appear as we cavort through space.

Bodies pressed gently to each other in awkward anticipation,

Our arms raised to a slightly uncomfortable height as we spin.

Breasts and chest melting into each other like appetent butter,

Eyes transfixed by each others swirling pools of optical jelly.

Hypnotic rhythm and tribal fever erupt as the tune breaks,

Lusty legato love and a desirous dance duet.

I spin slowly in my bedroom tracing imaginary steps,

She is frozen mid swing with her impossibly bent arms.

I wish I'd danced with the girl in the picture.

It looks like she's doing the Macarena.

What Is Utopia?

To hear an audio version of this poem click here;

Ellipsey's Podcast

The Coal Merchant

‘Here have some coal?’

The need to blink was gone,

Residual black dust caked his jaded tear ducts.

The ability to cry was gone.

Carbon based rheumatism racked his body with pain,

Sedimentary relationships litter the strata of his life.

Three decades of inhaling his own sulphurous wares,

Each cancerous breath he takes warms the lives of others.

Thirty years of lonely streets result in a coal-faced existence.

One day a black cat followed him, providing feline assistance.

His bleak days were spent a’ peddling fuel to light their fires,

His name was never known until he heard the holy choirs.

Graphite stained fingers stroke the fur between her useless ears,

Rudimentary relationships between man and beast are a means to and end.

Three decades of isolation built on the off cuts of a dying industry,

Each roaring fire he supplies masks the irony of his cold, bleak reality.

The need to breathe was gone,

Inflamed black lungs collapsed by fossilised body parts.

The ability to live was gone.

Every sound he utters is a question.

Apocalypton Ice Tea Or The Story of How You Cut Me

To hear an audio version of this poem head to http://ellipsey.podomatic.com/entry/2011-10-06T06_25_31-07_00

Where no men fear to tread sleep the Laser-Yaks,

Their hulking masses pitted against the earth's crust battle of wills.

Laser-Yaks are humongous.

Where the Menstrual Rivers run red breed the Laser-Yaks,

Their complicated mating rituals cause cities to fall & Kings to weep.

Laser-Yaks are lotharios.

Where the Lovejoy memorabilia lies wait the Laser-Yaks,

Their vacuous flanks & tangled manes await the coming conflict.

Laser-Yaks are shit scary.

Since the far off days since man first heard a scratchy noise,

The Laser-Yaks waited patiently. Ready to fight. Poised.

Their seething shapes have never had desire to be seen,

In misty clods of air and smoke their kind has always been.

They live within vibrations, they manifest in waves,

They move like ripples on a lake or crotchets on a stave.

With silent maws and molar teeth they graze upon our tales,

Killer laser beams augment, each time that we're regaled.

When a village burns and children lay dead it's the Laser-Yaks,

Their movement alone causes hearts to fail & bones to dissolve to sand.

Laser-Yaks are seismic.

When the sea explodes and tsunamis wreck a continent it's the Laser-Yaks,

Their murderous herds would shatter the bones of the grim reaper himself.

Laser-Yaks are tectonic.

When you see shadows in the distance of a foul mountain range it's the Laser-Yaks,

Their very senses trained upon just you, waiting for their moment to cease existence.

Laser-Yaks are shit scary.

Big, shaggy yaks with lasers for their eyes,

If the ground is shaking, kiss your loved ones all goodbye.

The creatures make no sound despite their massive size,

Feel your bones dissolve to dust, kiss your baby as she dies.

Huge, snorting yaks with their killer death-ray eyes,

Watch as London disappears whilst their bodies block the sky.

The beasts destroy all living things that make the slightest cries,

For though they're made of waves and sound it's noise that they despise!

Awesome, deadly yaks with their eyes of reddish beams,

Quick! They're lumbering toward you and they're burning through your dreams,

The fiends can't stand the din we make, our songs, our words, our screams,

Our speakers, drums and music are our only hope it seems.

So with music we have hope, we can quash their optic ray

We can drum, scratch, sing & dance, we can beat them as we play.

Listen well young children for they must be kept at bay,

It's music that will save us and let us live another day.

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