sean burn


is that a bruise or a tattoo?

where the sound is pebble-dash dash dash
pigeons whisper about a coup-coup
parcel delivery became logistics
spoon-rests got ergonomic
and bra-straps see-thru
hammers held crookedly
pornography's actually read
and a minute erases all the clocks

the dawn chorus really doing my head in,
open windows, shouting the birds to stop
— their blind fucking optimism, where's
all the conversations we've never had?



chips in curry
paper folded to
new transsexual
in 07980 and bold
                who attends
massage parlours
asking no extras
like ever?

marble-white butterfly
boogie-woogies
random beauty
inches from
briefcase n boots
quits while ahead
as calf-skinned board



the pissing-it-early-hours insomnia, opening door to your chipped-tooth borrow some milk? i'm bearing engels condition of the working class in england, 1845 open (no lie) to social war is avowed and openly carried on

fought with saucepans over-boiling, fought with the milk-souring, fought with cartons tearing you've fought / fought with costume jewellery crucifix ex placed round yr neck, fought the bruises rising and your panic rising / fought with the stairs and stars / with doors and keys and shopping handles bust / fought with fag-ash and smoke rings and burn patches ringing you've fought / all the wastelands silence, the paramedics and casualty you've / remotes and repair bills and tv licensing folk refusing to show their i.d. you've fought / fought for the inches to be lopped most of all you've fought you've fought for that most of all / and won thru, who'd of thought?




is that a bruise or tattoo? — there —
between your shoulder blades
the snake at base your neck

those with glass-hearts (shouldnt)
throw stones, you slip citrus to late pockets
wanting to peel you smell of oranges

chain tattooed round your ankle
apples around your hips
cant avoid being fucked to somewhere

switchback shimmy lips, latter-days
whistle blown, each canned heat and
sweetmeat freezing, clang steel

the dance floor, cock-ring speeding
puzzling faces, hit the door wide
the rest are bread-crumbs over empty beat

broken bottles are eyes on the street
the cctv of indiscriminate mouths
swallow-tattooed and wishboned

pubic hair like rolling tobacco
swimming pools need building
so tv's can be thrown

sky thin as dynamite
dreaming quick liquorice whip
in a ten pence pot of sherbet

strong as licit first kiss
first kissing in creosote dark
exploding lovehearts every shade

your heartsweet candyshop
fizzing tongues
unable to piss nights to come






happy hours five to eight
the neon acid pink, all
rubbersequinfishnetfeatherboas
and half price lilies
— atlantis / stargazer / freakwiles

and all the young wanna
wanna b 18 again
sex flyposting
the largest selection
of cream cakes
a hole lotta shaking
the toast? in bronze
and arm n arming
keep your passage
honeymoon fresh




arizona is no the state i’m in and tho your tears have gritted ma desert

                               i feel
                               i felt
                               that is
                               kind of
                               maybe
                               you know
                               you know         kind of?

fuck      it must be hard enough growing up straight
                never mind this other stuff






starlings clenched black fist dead to gutter
fascists talk of colour when all blood is red

lovers discuss the most diseased animal
squirrel-pigeon-rat while jog-txt-coughing

faces hard as the municipal waterfall
grapefruit heavy as babies head

orange smile and seroxat anti-dee's hold-all
slipknots kicking out at clumsy pilgrims

g-strings tugged from bleached cracks
bling rimbaud would die for all over again

the rockabilly three giving it laldy
don't blink, attuned and in sync

until this rhythm-spill kid blowing bubbles
her lustrous moons of hope

infecting us all one way or another
flickering thru the big issue

see if you're still listed as
missing in action all these years on

the fucking dawn chorus doing me
where's all those conversations we never had
 
 
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