The Complete Poetic Works of Jeremy Young

Eve Red in Tooth and Claw

2007-12-08T16:49:00.000Z

Hey! Carebear Noob
check me in local
this belt is stacked with juicy wrecks.
I watched some macro farmer
pop all the rats:
I had him buddied; he logged.

The eternal noob sees only ISK
and warps to pick the loot.
The gang uncloak -
aggro him with a T2 frig
that bobbles and webs
leaving the CAPs to pop his uninsured ship-
pwned.

The only consolation
is that sec matters here
so they leave the corpless pod
to swim back to the station.

E-peen smacking sneers at his ass.

tryphtich

2007-01-09T23:38:00.000Z

Alone, hand in hand, we stand
awaiting that time when, you go away.
Tonight, we see only snatched sleep.

I am, transported to that room
by a radio interview about a hospice
for children. Overcoming, envy

at the parents sharing of life;
I stand with them, as they mark out
the dying. Feel with them that time

too special when hope sublimates
leaving only reality and the peace
that comes from correct action.

Clueless

2006-11-18T03:21:00.000Z

A crescent hairline marking, on her left eyelid
drawes my attention. maybe a tiny uncut nail
was caught in a moment of tiredness.

The lid is not entirely closed. Through
a sheen of blood, I see her eye but it
is rolled into her head: maintaining the mystery of colour.

I wonder if she cried? Fot a fine trickle has marked
the corner of the other eye: forming an 'L' shape.
I did fret that these trickles and traces might hold clues.

But nothing, except her salmi coloured skin
speaks of an obvious cause. And this is a reaction,
a marker, the action of being dead two days.

And her eeyore rattle weeps by her head.
Just as we cry for her. And wonder what we did
for her to stop fighting and leave us clueless.

Clock Watching

2006-11-18T03:14:00.000Z

The days sometimes brighten: sometimes it rains
and we await one full cycle of the moon.
In fact the time is marked out in memories
and opposites. Or in snatched glances of reminders,
like my mother's lips, or girlfriends nose.

Late at night, when soaked in wine, I pull
your picture from the jumble of porn
that fills my computer; and wonder why
you look so tired, mouth open,
caught in dreamingmfrom a sleep which
I cannot wake you.

My heart has sunk.
I seem to live by the beating in my stomach,
which twitches and drains to a flow of feelings.

Tears are supposed to bring comfort.

Between Waking

2006-11-07T08:13:00.000Z

I awoke at just before four,
soaked in sweat, my mind raging:
I throw death curses, with venom
and maximum malign intent.
They do not bring balance.

Everything is in shadow.
A parrallel world runs beside mine.
I do both what I do
and what I should be doing:
but actually achieve nothing.

I awake at just before four,
and find you sleeping.
Only our feet touch.
Our positions of comfort have altered:
my arms now encircle you.

Who could guess that time
could pad with such slow feet?

Baby Care

2006-11-07T08:04:00.000Z

In the time of Death, we all turn to God
and we are no different. Hours ago,
locked in the fury of Napoleanic sea combat,
five decked ships of the line pouring
broadsides of contractions into your body
I could not concieve of this calm water.
We stand around the perspex crib
as our dearly loved and much lamented baby
is properly named and enters the church.
We have often joked and laughed at religion.
Yet now, as the chaplin tries to lay on
the new, all inclusive, trippy, hippy
version of God: we seek for older forms;
prefering 'hath', 'thee' and 'thou':
the rythems learned in school by rote.
They offer extra weight to the solemnity.

It is 3.30, or there abouts, the time
at which the tide turns and the dead depart.

Too Weak to Push

2006-11-07T07:57:00.000Z

Maternity pads and funeral arrangements
are never a perfect combination,
but they have entered our lives:
become another part of the situation.

Why are prams and pushchairs everywhere
whenever I walk about the streets?

Why do people say we should talk,
when we have not stopped, nor cannot sleep.

And as a way of making contact
people say they understand the way we feel.
Not a good thing to say. Because you don't
and I hope and pray you never will.

Eulogy

2006-11-04T21:18:00.000Z

Your mum let herself in: she hadn't long had the key.
I awoke, surprised to find her biting her lip.
She said she had news. The cliche would have me frightened,
doing a runner, demanding snap decisions; but
I was so happy. And from that moment I loved you.

You used to appear in my daydreams: chattering.
drawing, wanting to know what I was doing;
why the sky is blue, how far to the moon.
On Monday you helped me carry the shopping home.
Pleased as punch that you had your own bag.

But it hasn't been easy. On the day I rang grandma,
she dampened the mood with news of granpa's illness.
I so wanted him to live long enough to see you, and now
you and he will get to spend endless time together.
For despite my grief, I cannot bare to think of you alone.

You made us laugh with you antics. The way you bumped
when Chelsea scored, or when you tickled mummy's ribs.
Or how you would hide when the midwife wanted to hear your heartbeat.
And what I would give for you again to kick me in the kidneys
in bed. Or feel you rippling at night when I cuddled with your mum.

I'm sorry. I am so sorry. No matter how many tears I cry
it cannot lift this numbness at you dying. To come so near
to a life well lived, only to be snatched, like Bridget,
by Halloween spirits: it is a cruel trick; a trick too cruel
to comprehend: played by the cruelest of heartless seasons.

Spitting Melons

2006-10-28T02:38:00.000+01:00

Out comes the dummy, into the nylon
placenta and the fake pelvis.
A torn pair of tights form the vagina
and demonstrates perfectly the ragged
edge. Next comes the usual quip about
Father nature and a warning that your inside will
prolapse unless you train the pelvic floor.
Form now on it you will need a rolling pin
instead of a pencil: my foreskin sighs with relief.

I can't see the problem. That head
don't look that much bigger than my knob:
true it has been a while since I could give
thirteen hours of contractions:
complete with muscle pounding piston action:
but to be honest: and I'm not lying about
the honourable memebr for Littlecock in the Marsh;
it's going to be a doddle.

Now repeat after me:
I'm a woman, I can do this:
I'm a woman, I can do this:
I'm a woman, hear me roar.

Two More Weeks and Her Lungs Will Work

2006-10-28T02:32:00.000+01:00

Back in class, and the rough stuff begins.
Your baby has spent the past four months
upside down, blood rushing to it's head
and kicking your partner in the ribs.

I really do not like this place.
Oh sure, there is tea and biscuits,
and the woman is nice and all that:
but frankly I don't want, or need, to know.

The diagrams meake me feel sick.

And let's face it, it is all stuff
that we learned at O level.

And then it strikes me; everyone
is so young, they would have done GCSE
human reproduction which is all course work
and practicle sessions wearing a Burberry cap
with Tiffany in the back of Corsa.

Squeezed Through the Japs Eye

2006-10-28T02:25:00.000+01:00

Everyone hopes for a healthy baby,
no pain, easy birth, fast feeding: sleep.
I want a baby that looks like me.

The women worry about bonding.
The question of pain pops up again.
I want a baby that looks like me.

The women, leading the class,
emphasises that pain is natural;
I want a baby that looks like me.

She says, women are designed for birth,
control in the key; take it; sigh in;
sigh out: SOS:
I want a baby that looks like me.

And then suddenly she points at me.
I am branded a birth partner.
Apparently I am going to be present.
Although I know that I am; was always going to be;
or potentially will, dependent upon feinting
and the attitude of the rabid man-hating widwife
who gets a kick out of dilation
and treats everyone like shit.....
I am going to be there, and will play
an important, supportive role,
though the emphasis is on superfluous:
I want a child that looks like me.

When Life meets Art (and loses)

2006-10-28T02:20:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately this is not a poem,
because I did not hear a curlew cry,
nor did I skitter to the bus stop:
instead I went to parenting class.

I hate medical stuff, not that I felt well,
I've had a headache for a couple of days,
and have been feeling feint, so
this shite doesn't help. I really don't want to be here.
For fuck's sake (perhaps not the best expression)
(under the circumstances) but anywho....
what is the point of this.

I would rather be skittering around
in the fresh air, listening to curlews,
pontificating on which way the wind blows
and writing meaningful poetry about shite.

That Last Weekend

2006-08-12T02:35:00.000+01:00

I remember watching the Pope
on a balcony, doing an impression
of Sooty: and thinking, that despite
the intoning commentator
that it was not a dignified death.

We arrive at the ward as visiting closes
and loiter around: half expecting;
perhaps hoping to be turned away.
What lies beyond the curtain breeds fear.

He is happy to see me, his twisted
face and toothless grin, combine
with his newly chemo'd hair
to give him the air of a parrot.
Harsh but fair. He loves animals.

The last attack, the one which should
have killed him, has whithered his legs
to skeletal reminders of Japanese cruelty;
and like the Pope, I am reminded of
glove puppets: no strings attached.

I am too emotional to deal with
my cousin and my aunt, who chatter
at us, as if this were a wedding.
I bury myself in newsprint; read twice.

I have consoled myself in many ways.
I am thankful for the peace
that allows me to bury my father:
though my counselling sessions hint
at the war in which he buried me.

And then we are alone. My mother,
and my girlfriend, go to find tea
and company, and with them goes
my daughter: secure in the belly
that keeps her from his arms.

For nearly forty years we have
swung from silence to anger and
onto indifference. Now I make
small talk. The tumour on his brain
prevents his reply.

I talk of village gossip, but
mainly I talk of my daughter.
I see by his face that he approves.
I burble and flow like a bore
encouraged by the stroke ridden smile.

That night at the club I am asked
how he is. I do not hide his death.
My mother calls it passing and
hides from the world; I understand.

The ritual of the bar; the gossip
and the laughter, the absence of weakness
and the drone of the kareoke
cannot be easy for her. As her love
slips to memory like bubbled beer.

He is again pleased at my coming.
But the stay is shorter. He needs
changing, and it pricks the soap bubble
line between illusion and his dignity.

I make hurried excuses. Forced from
my chair by a bolt of electrity,
at not wanting my memory to be of my father
as a man in a hospital bed; hovering
between infantilism and death.

I take his hand for the last time.
I stoically smile for the last time.
I look into his eyes for the last time.
My last image of him, is a man
recognisable as my father, with tears
in his eyes; his spirit rising
from the bed to follow me.

I do not speak for a long time.
Not until we drive from the hospital
grounds, navigate the round-a-bout
pass the crem and reach the turkey factory.

In Exile

2006-01-30T19:33:00.000Z

OI hin't herd a cuckoo this yair,
liven as OI do in a town.
Nor hev OI wand'd threw grass
catching thistledown
on mOI trewsers.

The sun it still rise in the skoi
but it don' reach the hoights of my youth.
This land of concrit and tarmac
it do block out the sunset,
shield the sky, deny
the booty of nature.

But don't think me ow'd.
This in't a whoin
of bohnes growen stiff.
Or fingers loozen grip
on the mug.

It is a wish to see the sea;
to feel the loif risen
through my feet,
t' see the stahrs
and the stunnen oranj un red
of a dyen Norfolk day.

Bondage

2006-01-26T13:50:00.000Z

We the nuts,
are joining with the Quakers
to create a new form of muesli. Sympathetic
sandal wearers will rejoice at our movements.

We the nuts,
are joining hands with the Buddhists
to create deep meditation beyond the chemical cosh.
Togethe5r in sandals we will find enlightenment.

Dressing to the Left

2006-01-26T13:38:00.000Z

You know you are in a 'political' meeting
(small 'p', describes the bunch of pricks)
because the bloke at the front
has a shaved head; and is talking
of reaching outside the ghetto
to the peace movement, greens,
feminists. In other words
the aim is to replace the wall of scorn
with a glass ceiling.

Instead of nuts talking to ourselves,
we will talk with other groups
and draw ourselves further to the margin:
if not completely off the page.

Haiku for a Past Girlfriend

2005-12-27T00:08:00.000Z

Sex with yon? Tied
hand, foot and heart, to a slowly
swinging five bar gate.

Rape

2005-12-08T04:31:00.000Z

Remember Dubno;
remeber how propganda and thought control
led the moderately educated, fuelled on
electoral eostrogen: to create absolute victims.

Remember Dubno:
when those moderately educated people
issued reports: which they call shocking
but in reality represent the democratic will.

Remember Dubno:
now the organs of electoral eostrogen begin
pumping out the message of fear. Facism
breeds not in ideology but in the vaccuum.

Forget about Dubno:
as if you ever remembered.

The Feminist Case Against Crossdressing

2005-10-26T02:41:00.000+01:00

Scene 3

Hera enters, dressed as a shop assistant. She carries a manikin draped in a baby blue baby-doll nightie.

Hera
Oh spite, be damned, witness this hatred,
This sluttery and degradation of wantons
And flighty females to dress them thus.
Is it not enough to endure the pain of birth?
But before and after to be dressed in scantiness revealed
And break the pleasure of a wife’s
Rehealed virginity: for pleasure.
For shame! For double shame of giving
Twice the pleasure than a woman receives;
And all the while risking the pain
Of children and the worry of nurture.

And these children,
When pulled from pulled from the body,
Are split into warriors for the state to slay
And frippery to dress thus, be tricked,
Be downcast and exploited of their maidenhood.
It is the curse of patriarchy:
Which word when sliced
Makes war into patriotism
And anarchy in the lives of women.

And just as the glories of the female form
Have increased allure, when draped sheer
In disguise of the impurity: so
Aphrodite’s waters, masks the sin of pettier pleasure
And call it love. I would as rather
My pearl were plucked,
That I might be senseless
To the assault. Than I would dress thus.

And this curse I lay, be it carried by the dutiful wife:
Since her life is without joy, and her trust
Without reward, for men take
The form of beasts at will
To double their double pleasure.
Let men be narrow in sensuality.
For if his licentious joys increase,
Even in the scruples weight,
The balance will o’er tip
And his need for woman will disappear.

Prologue

2005-10-25T19:51:00.000+01:00

A drum beat begins to beat out a dythyram.

Dionysus enters. He wears a crown of ivy, A thyrus and is dressed in a fawn-skin.

Dionysus
I am Dionysus, son of Zeus. My mother was
Semele, Cadmus’ daughter. From her womb the fire
Of lightning-flash delivered me. Oh right….
Sorry; you didn’t study the classics at school.
Ok. Right. I’m Dionysus – who, if you know me at all –
Fat chance – I blame the parents – oi, you with the drum,
You can stop now. Where was I? Oh yes….
I am Dionysus, the God of wine, agriculture
And fertility in nature. Oh yes, and for my sins
I’m also the God of the stage…. yes I know,
It’s all gone downhill, just look at the West End,
And it’s not my fault. For one thing
How many of you knew that I am the God of theatre?
Exactly. Talk about dumbing down.
And I suppose I will now have to explain my birth
And why it is of significance to this ‘play’:
And why the playwright, a certain
Mr Young, is forced to use the Deus Ex Machina
As a prologue. To be honest I am being a tease;
Since I am sure there are some of you
Grown up enough to think for yourself,
Or indeed to show yourself wise,
In the words of Aristotle, ‘It is the mark of an educated mind,
To be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.’
Of course the themes within this play
Will prevent it from receiving Arts Council funding,
Which is both it’s strength and a sign of the dullness of art.
And to be honest, I doubt it will ever be staged,
Since on the one hand you live in a puritan age
Which despises my gifts. And on the other, Mr Young,
Has not been to university and is therefore
Unpolluted by the social conventions
Necessary to get scripts past the censors
Of pseudo-Intellectualism. Bring back
The Lord Chamberlain, I say. Oh…. And, also,
As he is a drunk, and my true acolyte,
He seeks to tap into the nature of things
And not to rely on a base appeal to your reason.
It makes the censors look clever, you understand,
To have soulless cliché paraded around,
And it ticks all the right boxes
For lottery funding and targets for social exclusion.
Besides, I doubt many of you will be able to cope
With what is about to appear before you
And will quite possibly be sickened.
Oh for the old days, when audiences demanded
Eye gouging, the villain being torn limb from limb
And an expression of the nature of the human animal:
Without this kind of disclaimer. Oh well!
I’ll get off now. I can’t believe it has come to this.
That I! A man whose mother was murdered by Zeus,
With bolt lighting, and was then sewn into his thigh
Until I delivered myself…. That I! Should sink
To the level of being an unpaid part-time lecturer
In order that you…. Yes you…. Should be able
To watch a play without walking out
For no reason greater than your own bigotry
And ignorance. Hey-ho…. Needs must when and all that.
Oi, drummer…. Strike up the beat for my exit.
Oh how I long for the return of show don’t tell theatre….
Not that we ever had it really…. You wouldn’t believe
How much explanation it needed the first time
Euripedes showed the Bacchae.

Exit Dionysus.

An American Ride

2005-10-11T00:31:00.000+01:00

Two marines offer escort, each armed with M-4s;
one has a grenade slung from a webbing strap.
Our SUV picks it's way along the potholed road
past Dairy Queen, a washed out McDonalds
and the Lucky Strike casino: on which rests
a shrimp boat: left as if by a child.

The K-Mart appears deserted. One marine
signals that we should stay in the car, as he swings
out of the Humvee. He carries his rifle;
wary, watchful: hinting at recent times;
perhaps in Iraq, or Afghanistan.
We sit and watch as he talks to the National Guard.

He comes back, to brief us. Eleven dead on the roof,
forty five found among the aisles
and twenty assorted bodies in the cars
and surrounding area: the place is clean.
No news of our supplies, though a Canadian Mountie
reports seeing medical trucks yesterday.

He salutes and assigns us to the National Guard.
Only the A.C. makes it bareable.
Hour on hour we wait in the car
to keep out of the way of the clear up.
This is Indian country, and we the cavalry,
remain behind the hill: frustrated.

Eventually, a truck arrives, like Santa's sleigh:
MREs, medicines, beds, blankets, water.
Excitement breaks the boredom
as we sweat to offload this treasure.
Within the hour, from choas, we have order
and a fifty bed hospital: complete with check-out.

After supper I plan on a stroll, but am stopped
by a lofty North Carolinian sergeant.
Intrigued, I tag along with him.
He does the talking; when he discovers I am a doctor
he tells me the best way to handle combat wounds
and shows me snaps of headless raghead corpses.

Suddenly, he takes my arm: stopping me dead.
Away down the corridor in the darkness
is movement. An eye glints in the flashlight,
a creaking like leather: a burst of gun shot,
a shattering, a crash, a roar
and the alligator rises and falls dead.

The sergeant empties his magazine in the beast,
reloads, scans the room, we are alone.
Though not alone. All night, through the thin brick walls
we listen to the sounds of circling animals.
Our guards use the barking to pinpoint lost fragments
of lives lost: never to be refound: except in dog shit.

Over breakfast, I listen to the bodycount:
two small gators, various snakes, a wild pig
and eight dogs. Congratulations are expressed
that none broke through the perimeter: boyish, shy smiles
answer bashfully the praise of expertise at arms.
I barely taste the food: and struggle to keep it down.

The sun has just touched the treeline
as we pull out of camp K-Mart.
Driving south, in the gently heating morning,
through a warzone of smashed houses,
dispatternation and match-wood,
I try to follow the map: I give up after twenty miles.

I have not closely followed the news: blame is not my game,
but the further we drive the less I recognise my country.
And, the less I recognise my country
the less I recognise myself. The eyes in the vanity,
on the back of the visor, stare back
in blank unrecognition. Only the doctor remains.

A raggedy guy, in a Steelers cap flags us down.
He says he has stood there for days, we are the first to stop,
and somehow I believe him. His flacid, sunbaked tongue
wags behind gapped teeth.
The bald brow and bristled chin
make his head appear upside down.

In the back of the SUV, he devours bread ad apples,
an arthritic finger points left or right
at each junction: taking us deeper into the woods.
For some reason, my mind begins to run movies
of that Freedom Summer, in black and white.
His words run into a single trail of thick drool.

The house is not a house, it is a shack, resting against trees,
the supports stand friendless fifty feet away.
Three children stand by the door,
a boy and two girls. A casual glance
tells you immediately that the new mommy
has held this forlorn family together.

They are all tired and weak: the boy has diarrhea:
they all have a pimpled rash.
I am reluctant to ask questions
and even more unwilling to hear the answers.
The mommy takes me to a clearing
the freshness of turned soil speaks volumes.

Inside the shack is a microcosm of twisted Americana.
In the centre of the room, a smashed screen television
before which lie three sleeping spaces of blamkets.
A crucifx hangs on the wall. There is nothing else.
Except for the pot on a battered stove
containing a thin stew of mixed canned goods and shot birds.

Mommy doesn't want to leave; she's maybe nine.
She speaks for her children, but the borther comes first
and it would be unusual punnishment to leave them.
In a moment of inspiration, we connect her
via sat-phone, to her grandparents in New Mexico.
The damn of resistance breaks, her pretence falls
and she is a child again: a child needing rescue.

At last we reach our FEMA designated destination.
The marines are there already. There is one truck for the sick
and a second dead; but nothing for those in between.
If God helps those who help themselves
then in this underworld, in the underbelly, is the place of the damaned.
The Red Cross pulled out three days ago.

Here, there is no water, sewage control or gas.
No electricity, no radio, nothing.
The people speak the same language
but are somehow more noble than we.
This is the place of the pioneer
the last frontier of God before Nation.

I snap. In a gesture of futile christianity
I give my neighbour my coat, my food, my water,
their need outstrips mine.
By the time it comes to leave,
to make return to Camp K-Mart,
I have only my sneakers, shorts and T=shirt.

I wonder how i can go on.
I sit apart over supper.
The gallows humour of the soldiers
leaves me frigid.
I long for RTAs, strokes, childhood fractures,
the everyday of a doctor's life.

String Theory

2005-10-06T00:45:00.000+01:00

I googled 'pet care' - don't ask -
when suddenly -

the hard drive whirred,
the screen froze,
media player loaded,
and onto the screen
came a Russian couple,
fucking in the snow.

I liked her skirt suit,
brown, nicely cut, tight at the waist -
but -
it was her boots that really intertested me.
That, and the green blue skin of his manhood
which almost made me check myself.

They were at it hammer and tongs,
her on top - in a lovely satin taupe blouse -
leaning backwards with her hands on his shoulders:
and I thought -
nice stockings -
I've never done it like that.

It lasted 42 seconds, though it seemed like hours.
But, at the vinegar stroke,
she hopped off,
he stood up,
she knelt in front of him,
and he pissed in her mouth.

Which reminded me
that I needed cat litter.

A Love Triangle

2005-10-04T20:38:00.000+01:00

Embittered by hops
and sour as the beer
drawn through unclean pipes;
he sits in the corner,
running his fingers
around the bump of the glass.
All his memories
are held in this embrace,
this gentle foreplay
between giro
and lavatory
and the promise of sleep.

Pause

2005-10-04T20:32:00.000+01:00

We live in the gaps between songs,
those quiet times in which no narrative
takes hold of emotional memory; nor
stirs the passions in dance. In this quiet
all life escapes cliche
and drips like raindrops on the pane:
after the clouds have passed.

The rythem of rising and falling
remains to move us, but, the beat
slows to dull thud of lonely heart beat.

September Sketch

2005-09-15T01:57:00.000+01:00

The yellow moon bedecked by clouds,
like a coy schoolgirl: peeps through the crack
between the locksmith and the woolen trader.
Night creeps in on an autumnal wind
draping the town in orange and black.