back

contents

next

Blow Up



Sixty foot high and downing children
Near the cracked sign 'jugs of tea 99p'
Sea smothers then smoothes Chinese heads
The craven waves churning an inveterate operation
Of the big toe severed and sown onto his regal hand

We spied your body bob as an engorged buoy
Way out in the bay fixed now by dried flowers
Stuffed full of knuckle-dusted children
With your white fist waving so insanely
A bouncing fun erect Nazi salute

They dragged us over stones and debris
Rammed us in the inflatable possessed clown
The phographic still sunk
Behind the retinas of every reeling gull
That blew past this blown-up screeching obscenity

Piercing the drums of our lungs as we swept out to sea
Our skewered cherry noses and mouths smeared
With leering bent driftwood and smudged lips
To tolerate the joke was unacceptable
As the last fresh pincer paw emerged

Rotten azul amongst empty shells and cans
Faces tort as sable starless tulips
The abandoned nets caught and swept by hair
Cigarette papered skin gummed with green
Memory lunged and vomited on nuclear beach

Returning bloated with distant echoes
Of the happiest sound in all the world
Children's Wurlitzer laughing aching screams
Boarding trackless trains and faraway trees
The giant clown spills salty custard tears