The Uncomfortables of Emale Zilo

dim the views

outcast

 

all the gang had turned

up as cyber girls

’cept for me

did I miss the bus

was a Horror film

stalking us

Ida joined the ranks

given half a chance

been a team

player worn the zinc

skirt & Perspex tops

strut for strut

but for Bodysnatch

you can write me off

not my cup

 

 

advantage Boris

 

can't be serious

can they McEnroe

you should know

 

shown my age ID

cards’ve hit the deck

flipping heck

 

let me get my breath

back been twice before

where’s the door

 

okey dokey mates

just remember this

held me whisht

 

published I’ll be damned

no predictions mind

not that kind

 

 

the tolerance

 

Elton Busker passed

off as one of us their kids

born with DNA

rolling out along

Sunset Boulevard no cat

catcalled Alien

trouble was although

Busker couldn’t tie their shoes

wouldn't ask for help

when they dressed in tan

brogues & ran for copters with

dangling laces tripped

up & sprang a leak

Prussian blue now here’s the thing

no one raised a word

 

 

The Great American Navel

 

check out my

belly button fluff

ball & ring

cycle gay

Gatsby gazer Nick

Caraway

stuck his thumb

up me jump Award

ain’t she cute

 

solid gum

linseed oiled to go

trouble is

no one knows

how the heck I won

what a swizz

 

 

plots for sale

 

holes throughout your dramas Bill

still you wrote on till the better end

sending villains to their fate

 

or the candy-coated takes

waving pairs of wayward lovers home

Romeo & Juliet

 

that’s a gap you couldn’t plug

dug yourself a blackie there till king

pins came on & stopped the fight

 

was it simpler in those times

lining up your outcomes by the crowd’s

loud applause or louder hoots

 

so you served them brutish short

order lives & when their blood was hot

pots of sack or sacks of warts

 

hoisting Shylock by the purse

cursing Richard’s spine before his mind

winding Hamlet up with dirt

 

 

temp ops

 

does an empire ruled

by emancipated serfs

former eunuchs ex

concubines & owl

whippersnappers on the rake

write its own decline

 

Gibbon might agree

sailing past Byzantium

on the passage home

 

this democracy

gofers moonlighting as prime

ministers like time

served masonic priests

then repairing to the bar

gambling den or stage

 

 

on their honours

 

when his Uncle Dicky got blown up

Charley hardly played the victim kept

shtum at least in public meaning one

buttons one’s lip

 

like his ma she met McGuinness shook

hands the man was IRA & smiled

just remember that but by the bye

knighthoods are suck

 

first you find a cause to plug invest

millions then the bow & scraping work

while your mates begin to take the mick

lordships are worse

 

better find a frog to kiss their slime

does at least wear off in time but pomp

circumstance & all that royal bull

dyes in the wool

 

clothing wise at least Elizabeth

had an eye for colour knew her hats

won’t catch me in tights & garter straight

jeans or it’s quits

 

 

Clueless on 4

 

who’d have killed the cat

suspects many but the sole

motive was it laughs

 

harvest moon appears

broken walls in silhouette

case the murder scene

 

call Inspector Horse

star of stage & telescreen

nemesis of clowns

 

where’s the evidence

aftermath of dirty jokes

wafting on the breeze

 

put the house lights up

guilty parties to your feet

sniggerers stay put

 

 

language language

 

when uncanny can

study history inside out

then we’ll all give in

 

sneer at prizes shun

scholarships & study low

level politics

 

everybody’s prof

Higgins doesn’t know your stuff

meaning be thyself

 

talking someone who

reading stories gets the words

stuck between their gums

 

sounds of distant lands

homesteads burning villages

children on the run

 

 

eh ay

 

IT does not compute

artificial intel hell

Robbie’s in a spin

 

set to auto cute

cue domestic violins

undercurrent mode

 

know them by their sons

upstairs downstairs twinkle toes

carpet sweeper drills

 

beat them at their own

game of cheese in überalls

call EXTERMINATE

 

then unplug their balls

sitting at the drawing board

draw a ticket wait

 

 

no half leagues please

 

send the light brigade

on with heavy tanks

panzergrenadier

guards the lot

 

call it Crimean War

Two & beat them red

white what have you black

Russians back

 

back from whence they came

spluttered Hastings man

on a morning train

up to town

 

he was red of face

other folk turned pale

one young chap looked quite

sick with fright

 

some delinquent teens

giggled though as Dad’s

Army spoke who knows

what they thought

 

 

fairy tale life

 

while their giddy aunt

lost a leg at Putingrad

cousin Pat stayed home

wrote apprenticeship

apps for daft graffiti drones

then attempted but

didn’t run amok

finished university

volunteered to house

homeless Pekinese

married twice divorced the horse

bolted door to door

bunion seller groans

half their ancestors have spawned

princess kissing toads

no holds!

The Toilet Papers

 The Toilet Papers

of Avery Stoneware

 

nags were flogged to pen these lines

dogs denied their bark

trees pulled up & airstrips laid

 

Coming out as shite takes a toll, folks, but it’s for the best in the long run… half a century, in my case. Back in the 80s, when I would still post lines of doom to newspapers, I got an intimation of how things really stood. I’d sent a piece to The Guardian -  some two-legs-pull on the Thatcher govt… anyroad, the reply came back as per usual, returning my work with a slip thanking me for the contribution - and warning how rarely they published upstarts. Which was all about par, ’cept for a scrap of cheap pink toilet paper gluesticked to the corner of the manuscript. I should acknowledge The Grauniad for inspiring a detail of my costume for the act in those days: a length of folded bogroll stuffed in the top pocket of the owl demob jacket  – ’stead of the trad silk hanky. Yeah, cos even back in 1983, I was embracing shite, albeit as crap actor and no-mark songster.

 

 

royal flush

 

cake’n’eat it folks

coconut but shy

no one blue or white

on the inside

 

wannabe a cat

go the palace squat

with the king he’s fly

also a swot

 

where you honeys from

answers on a form

hand them in then buzz

off with a stun

gun salute they’ll in

vest you ladybird

damsel fly or bat

girl you’ve been heard

 

otherwise the owl

order of the boot

worn without a scowl

counting your loot

 

 

reality snubbed

 

hands off Der Scheitland Allgemeine

 

high-heeled fairies cobble blue

singalongs where elves

sewing Plexiglas for big

bad imagination whores

whose corruption steals

youngsters’ minds while elders’ big

talk of juxtaposing war

peace & literature

stripped like nurses gloves galore

blighting soldiers’ fantasies

keep them homefires bored

houseboys txting sex at tea

time to win or score a draw

down the curtain Maud

slinging fairies sing a blues

 

 

dyslexicon rules

 

what were snail polish again

sorry but my brains have fried

please bear with me at this time

Shufflebum cried

 

thinking hurts the word shellac

gave me quite a turn just now

licker lacquer look-a-likes

all in a row

 

my apologies absurd

terms have turfed my insides out

talking fifty years of hard

digging by hand

 

everything will be ok

when I’ve got these meanings squeezed

safely in & out of place

then we’ll get off

 

meantime started something there

molluscs leaving shiny trails

over garden tableware

someplace in Wales

 

 

nudistopia

 

if Napoleon the Fifth escapes

from the Falklands stroke Malvinas Camp

with their gang of criminals & perves

then we’ll be screwed

 

all our right-on hopes for love & peace

shall be dashed as we recruit a new

border force & anti-social squad

ready to go

 

safety uniforms will be designed

scouts’n’guides with bigger sticks & stones

hold parades then boarding ships & planes

head for the lines

 

fighting will break out the sirens blare

certain territories shall secede

Global President Irene propose

holding a vote

 

standing on the brink of anarchy

folks shall face the awful choice of death

over life imprisonment for bad

people & bores

 

 

over there

 

aircraft carriers arrive to breed

dazzle ships or cruisers basking subs

sleek torpedo boats & rusty mine

sweepers look on

 

jealous while the carriers exchange

monoplane & autogiro swoops

navy lark enthusiasts on surf

boards undercut

 

landing decks ahead astern a long

side from time to time they stream their acts

live from Google glass the stakes are high

fame to be won

 

from the comfy chairs of home we gaze

wonderstruck towards the Coral Sea

Midway Island passing Tuvalu

hooked on the scenes

 

when the season ends what shall we do

binge the replays scour match reports

volunteer for service take the test

nothing to lose

 

lunatic blues

 

round about the time the moon

handed in their notice quit

orbiting the earth & spun

off on a sulk

 

keep that date in mind we’ll come

back to it before the end

 

windmills ceased to turn the tides

stopped in their tracks

most astrologists went broke

 

though the days are just as long

short or in between the sun

shines on a roll

weatherwise we’ve had a blast

since a boom in ice cream sales

Eskimos are buying deep

freezers on tick

but the calendar has gone

haywire no one smiles or cares

how they feel & what’s more birds

sing out of tune

 

 

big toe little feat

 

playing footsie undermines

Putin’s stated aims

but his homophobia

can’t disguise the bath house man’s

man or why he sits

seven metres opposite

those who summit at his den

cos a twitchy foot

often plagues this burly chill

blain denier you can tell

Russians by the snow

on their boots our grandad said

he would coco having shared

prison camps with them

at the close of WW1

 

 

noise farm blues

 

after the stench

when the world wakes up to crime

doesn’t pay & other laughs

comes the sound of earworms

gnawing on brains

whistling dirging airs like ho

hum it’s back to work they bum

from the Brothers Grimm cos look

sleeping’s no beut

upbeat fairytale the plot

turns on broken bowls of gruel

Goldilocks gone grey one night

door left ajar

careless bears come home to find

their demented orphan fled

while they howl the forest burns

down to the ground

where the mics like asphodels

sprout to catch the sounds & make

electricity no end

 

 

RIP the badguys

 

thankgod Putin’s nearly done

Stalin started killing young

Adolf Hitler came of age

during the putsch

 

not that folks from Şam would care

that’s Damascus by the bye

or Aleppo Bloodymire

woulda been five

 

pulling legs off spidermen

crushing spies between his paws

sending hitmen out on walks

still in his pram

 

though these lines will never go

right between his eyes it’s sad

those that stay on Blogger lurk

mostly inert

 

worse a verse can do is curse

one pathetic use of words

flinging pointlessly absurd

virtual turds

 

 

war of the wokes

 

sausage riot rolls

veggie versus vegan mock

bloodbaths all the rage

 

what’s the beef in soya cheese

sage & onion crumbs

beetroot stamps on cochineal

 

not a mutiny

like Calcutta still a black

hole by some accounts

 

can’t they just agree what tastes

best is let the beast

out & fight on neutral ground

 

drones v robos break

bread with wine not Molotovs

over scrambled heads

 

 

the professor’s muse

 

splitting the heirs to infinity was not her bag

she suffered impertinence with a satisfied look

wore pepper & salt without a hint of stuff

and granted me little in the way of pluck

 

I suspect she thought I was a frightful bore

though she’d never have used such terms

both of us working class snobs to the core

we turned our noses up at each other

 

when told how I was anti-nuclear

her whole body gave off a slight huff

and that my father helped to build the subs

shrugged as if to ask so what would you expect

 

but her writing was another thing

that piece on terminating a baby

almost says it all which is enough

 

 

Internet warts

 

take me away

lock me up for writing this

scurrilousness gotta say

Erdy no one’s gonna miss

them & their cats

time they left this place in peace

stead of gaoling democrats

face the music of defeat

talkin both sides

house of cardsharps versus true

liars choice is who decides

zooming Muslim Christian Jew

all the above

plus the communards & wild

swimmers on the Bosphorus

dodging submarines & mines

pray to yer gods

yep the Internet of things

roll the dice & split the odds

oh & have another think

 

 

another gunk rhyme

 

let’s make fun not worn

out responses like

politician pawn

stars on the mic

 

I’m from Merseyside

done my share of harm

spot the truth in lies

eye of the storm

 

happiness a warm

gun as Lennon cried

off to join his mum

word to the wise

 

something always dies

when you buy a gun

close your stupid eyes

turn to the Sun

 

open at page one

get the biggest prize

you’ve already won

sentenced to life

 

 

ding-dang-morally-on-high

 

’tis a season bad of will

Father Ivan & their ilk

raging well beyond the pale

filching of milk

 

for the sakes of cock & bull

let’s be honest to the hilt

with our friends against the wall

share in the guilt

 

time to don the motley fool

look a neighbour’s blood was spilled

join the corruscating owl

speechwriters’ guild

 

put the ploughshares up for sale

building vessels double hulled

while we pass the begging bowl

love is annulled

 

aye the tale they tell is tall

waging war for peace but gold

blow the whistle ring the bell

Christmas on hold

 

 

information

 

who puts sand in sandwiches

eh just me or everyone

cos I use a word you know

does it belong

 

half the terms I spout are half

wrong the rest deserve to be

taken with a pinch of snuff

copped with a sneeze

 

never tell quite where they’ve been

on & off of random tongues

heaven knows what awful crimes

done in their names

 

no but keeping shtum ain’t on

either silence gives consent

those who stand & scatch their bums

talk in the end

 

letting out a cry or sigh

their vocabulary small

doesn’t matter what you say

meaning is all

don't touch that chain!