Poetry & Arts
Welcome to Poetry & Arts
A Womans Life
Autumn leaves that remind you of what has passed
dry and brittle underfoot
s h a t t e r i n g to dust
sighing their last
breath
invisible in autumn air.
Words sprouting from the saplings of
the future
who hold, not only
the
physical
beauty
of
form
but the metaphysical chlorophyl that courses
thru' their soul
metabolised by experience and environment.
I prefer summer as my roots grow old and
ache for warmth, soft ground to breathe in with
just a whispering rain to refresh me.
Even though, as traditional expectations of heat
are flouted by fickle climate…
in the random days of +20c
muscles loosen
blood warms
I can almost remember sap rising
I can almost remember youth.
Sept 2007
A WOMANS LIFE
She started with dolls, a toy oven, in pink
The boys began with football then went onto drink
Bang bang bang bang
While they were playing soldiers
She was shown the kitchen sink
Bang bang bang bang bang
Now he’s doing time, but for another crime
Not the one that left her battered, raped
Miles from her scattered kids
Limbs like sticks, paralysed with fear
She drank draughts of terror
Whilst he drank scotch and beer
Bang bang bang bang bang bang
So she hides beneath the sheets now
The speed he forced impales her brain
She can’t recall a tender touch or flowers
Just the blows again and again and again
Her nails dig hard into my arm
Her pleas to kill her fill my ears
She breathes so fast and begs to die
Soaks my shoulder with her tears
Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang
My arm around her between wall and head
To stop the spread of self-harm bruising
The fight is on to bring her back
A battle I fear we’re losing
A woma’s life not half lived yet
But valued oh so cheap
How else but with more violence
Do we give her chance to sleep?
Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang
A woma’s life, worth more than this
Potential totally ignored
What is the price she’s had to pay
What depth of pain has been installed
In her tragic broken frame
What hope lies in her tortured soul
A non-stop nightmare, sensurround
A total overload
Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang
2003
BUTTERFLY
Calm your fears…
There are no gossamer nets behind the door
You should know… you’ve been there
Or haven’t you really seen?
Just homed in on the Maverick venturer
No games, no sting in the tail
Just joy in shared experience
When honest, focussed
Save your tears
There are no (ulterior) motives
No transparent and shallow votives
Behind the warmth
You should know, you’ve laid there
Or weren’t you really with me?
Just homed in on the Maverick venturer
In a moment of recklessness?
No games, no sting in the tail
Beyond your years
There are no expectations
Behind the invitations
You should know, for you learn fast
Or are you not seeking freedom
Not yet homed in on your own sexuality
Overcome with curiosity
No blame, no junk in the mail
No fame, no need to derail
No shame, it’s in the detail
No claims, no sting in the tail
The first person to share my bed since transition.
What a waste of an occasion…
2003
EL FUEGO
She, was used to beds.
He didn’t care whose mattress he inherited
subverted
insubordinated
when horizontal environmental aesthetics went
OUT OF THE WINDOW, but she…
she was svelte, sensuous and smelt of vanilla.
It’s not certain he was aware of this,
carrying with him his own cloud
of polluted body odour.
Not a ripe and fulsome pheromone
but a rank fabric rotting testosterone
aura acquired through weeks of inter-active sloth
unchallenged by hot water and cleansing agents….soap.
The Water Board sent him urgent letters about his
worrying under use of their services
Unilever quivered in their calcified corporate nervousness.
Recovery vehicles, St Johns Ambulance
independent good Samaritans
hovered around anticipating
an epidemic of retching and fainting
and epileptic passers-by
succumbing in his vicini..ty
The Latin paramour disappeared,
her attraction to the rough hewn hulk
and his animal aroma shattered
by exposure to the skid-mark scattered
bachelor landscape behind once proud door
now sadly patched in five separate places
to cover the drunken blows inflicted the nights
keys had been lost or simply overlooked
in the fumble to gain entry.
So, overwhelmed by the basic lack of hygiene
and appreciation of olfactory nuances
(she still had not recovered from his insistence on
shared nocturnal flatulences)
our disillusioned olive-skinned beauty fled
the neighbourhood first taking refuge in a garden shed
then the opulent ambient converted loft
of her English as a foreign language Prof.
DE MAL EN PEOR!!
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE!!
Better homeless in Hampstead than Hackney she’d thought
as a well manicured hand round her shoulder had sought
to bury itself between muscle and breast.
The Old Spice was cloying, the hand headed West
now the torso that flexed to a hot Bossa Nova
was twisting away from a greying Casanoa
Her dreams of romance fell apart at the seams
was she doomed to be feted only by Queens?
For the only good dancers were as Gay as you liked
and the best sex she’d had? With a transgendered dyke…
The city made her shiver with its cold retentive life
and she dreamed of Buenos Aires
and the rule of gun and knife.
At least the men were macho (and clean!)
and had something left to prove,
if you didn’t fight you wore a big hat
and were a Patron of the Groove.
The roasting coffee caught her as she crossed another street
she bundled in, dishevelled, thin
ordered Cappucino, slipped off her shoes, rubbed her feet.
The Gaggia squealed excitedly as she lit her cigarette
a local eyed her lustfully as he lay another bet
eyes closed she wondered
“How much worse this gonna get?”
“Cappucino” purred the rusty voice
raising hairs upon her belly
she opened her eyes _ saw a goddess in her sky
and her legs quite turned to jelly.
“com’esta amiga? Es tu vida una mierda?
“aieee mondo mucho macho!! Ees your life getting weirder?”
They left the bar much later and strolled off into the night
and unless you know much different
they seem to make a lovely sight
and now El Fuego burns so fiercely turning
night-time into light.
2000
I KNOW YOU
I know you – mistrust me, I can see it in your eyes
your rheumy indulged arrogant eyes
and florid sagging throat twitching in the parched prickly
desert heat of your magistrates bench soul.
Beyond all description, I, manage to challenge
the very foundations of your existence and
unsettled, not touched, by my presence (dear)
confusion rains down turning your straight and narrow
into the deep and chaotic quagmire that is Glastonbury ’97.
I know you – fear me, I see it in your body as you tense
like a beaten but defiant stray dog
trapped by the man from the pound.
But I’m not here to put you in a cage
I’ve been in one myself for far too long and
if you’d let me I’d cut off that too tight
excuse of a collar that’s choking you, and yes,
I’m wary of getting bit,
but that’s the way it is with life. Innit?
And you of all should know how it feels in minority.
I know you – hate me? I see it in the redtop
scatological psychological brainwash at the week-end
fuelling the fragile stability of canteen culture,
a printed two dimensional fertiliser for the seeds
of ignorance and disinformation that will blossom
into full blown phobia and demands for
the genetic modification of the strain before it gains
a foothold in the concrete of this decaying society.
Too late my friends, we’ve been here just as long as you
and, if anything, are more capable of hybrid excellence
having been grafted from the best of both worlds
and tended by the loving hands of family.
I know you – don’t understand me,
most contemporary cultures are losing the ability
to recognise Ying and Yang, black and white,
two spirits when they meet them.
Winyanketcha – the Native Americans call us
and along with their Antipodean victim partners
of colonial oppression are perhaps the last living examples of how it could be if we just listened to and
respected the planet that feeds and nurtures us.
I know you – I’ve lived with you around me
ALL MY LIFE
Cutting me dead, corroding my future with
your acidic sneers and patronising parentheses
but I don’t fear you, hate you, reject or revile you.
I believe and exist in a secular way
my philosophy blended by time with so many
diverse and exotic, pure and quixotic believers in life
gave me faith, in myself.
I’ve transcended the notion of gain for the ‘NOW’
but my credit for later is assured I feel somehow.
Just a vague intimation that all is o.k.
Carried forward, with interest, no charges to pay.
Andi Langford-Woods ©
2000
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
Yes!! Gender vagabond - burning more brightly
Confounding the staid – loosening the thongs of conformity
Till blindfolds fall from eyes and they begin to see.
Once so close to the fire till blood bubbled, brain stumbled
Unused to profound conundrum, feeling no history
No connection, adrift in an alien world
No signposts just shadows
Scarred and screamed, crushed by cares and lies
Raged in anguish, isolated in limbo
Searching for voice, soul, place
Now painting with simple palette
A love of verbal imagery
Defined by naïve vocabulary
Depth of feeling outrunning lexicon
Inexpressible sense of before, guidance, potential
Open receptive hungry, cautious
So many signposts! So much light!
Standing on carrefour
Out of the shadows
Out of the night
2001
SHE BURNS
The kids have done their worst and
All the neighbours give her grief
When she comes home from the fields
From chasing cows and catching sheep…
The ragamuffins down the lane have scratched
And scarred their gang name
on the side of her brothers car
The cash she made at the Boot Sale
Won’t get them very far
The TV’s on the blink again, the dish is
falling off the roof
The Ann Summers party was a flop and
now her only friend from the village
is being quite aloof
her mothers coming down for Christmas
so there’ll be no sex that week
‘cos her mum can’t stand her latest fella
calls him a bloody hippy freak
Her lips are dry and cracking with
The winter air doing it’s best to bite
Her lack of motivation leaves her
Finished for the night
The kids are in bed after shredding her
With normal childlike needs but she hardly
Sees the innocence under voices shrill as reeds
Wiped out before she hits the sack
Body and mind unconnected
Auto-pilot gets her there
Thoughts senselessly directed
Almost asleep as she climbs the stairs
Legs stiff and stained with dirt and sweat
The thought of bathing spurs her on
A last moment alone just for herself
The sky is burnt in violent red and
Clouds explode in purple anger overhead
Her night time world a battlefield played
out inside her head
Joan of Arc, and Xena, Boudicea too
all stand beside her rage her passion
shrieking banshees mourning justice
furious powerful full of fire
she burns pianos in her wildest dreams
in protest at banality
the only way she ever sees to change
the sound of vanity
the loss of rhythm in city life
the absence of a friendly smile
the war , the greed, the poverty
integrity reviled
she burns pianos in her dreams
she knows it seems perverse
but it’s the only really bad thing she’s done
she can’t think of anything worse.
2004
There is Debate Abroad Tonight
Tribute to beauty
There is debate abroad tonight
across the centuries and might
it fall on history’s greatest
to thus define in celebration
the best of nature’s skilled creation.
From Sapphic lyricism to basest cant
The Perfumed Garden to rappers rant
Mahabarat to pillow book
Goddess and daemons all forsook
the teachings of the holy books
to gaze upon the wondrous vision
blatantly ignoring rank derision.
In Bloomsbury cellars
Chelsea salons
be they fellows, women, felons
all agree their wealth they’d ship
for a simple taste of someone’s lips
Picasso, Dali, Van Gogh, Klimt
all crazed in search of elusive tint
to replicate the bee-sting shade
of the smile of a much treasured Hillgrove maid
Dec 2006
Andi Langford-Woods
HAPPY NOW
My friend says you are happy now
with your new Brazilian girl-friend
your rich, Brazilian girl-friend.
I can’t say I echo the sentiment because
after nine months of thinking “ok I’m cool,
I’ve got a handle on this shit”,
I find I could happily let you rot in Hell
for that’s where I have been
wondering where the deceit, untruths and fantasies led me.
Those carefully doctored photographs
unfortunate mis-timings with Cuban mail
your pompous hypocritical Catholic morality
your alleged shyness at meeting strangers.
What a fool I was to believe that by
opening my soul and world to you
it would lead to a life of happiness.
Huh!! I heard so many alarm bells ringing
and ignored them all.
Well all I can say now is
I know my truth, my integrity
and whoever you are fucking now,
they are welcome to you.
Sept 2006
Nerve Ends
NERVE ENDS
So we’ve been fed through the centuries
with an infinite number of reference points
about physical beauty
from the iconic depictions of Adam and Eve
in Christian history, note.. strictly heterosexual (-ish)
she didn’t get it on with the snake…
to the ancient art of Hindu, Egyptian, Grecian and beyond
where the great diaspora of love and it’s celebration
is documented beautifully blatantly
for us all to cherish.
Who is to say that Leda and her swan
didn’t have a shit hot dialogue goin’ on
as well as a penchant for feathers?
Who can say that the donkeys in ancient Rome
couldn’t do more than hump the fuck out of the dissolute orgiasts
and bray about who came out tops
in the three thirty Gladiators show?
Duh!! not the lions again…
Who is to say that Kali didn’t slope off into the desert
for a clandestine tryst with Ganesh,
impressed more by his wisdom, knowledgeable eyes
and sensitive exploratory trunk,
than his other bestial attributes
that she alone could accommodate?
How many times have we heard criminologists, psychologists
dieticians, hynoptists tell us
“It’s all in the eyes…”
Bunkum!! add body language and words to the list
as they too tell you who and what
you are connecting to but…
(this is where the whole thing gets fucked up)
we’ve been conditioned to appraise and evaluate
by that first sight syndrome
so gut feeling gets ignored and over-ruled
by reaction to subtly programmed stimuli
what is pleasing to the dumbed – down eye.
So many potential adventures, relationships
vital connections for future good
are missed by the blindness of stereotype
jigsaw formats imprinted from childhood
conduits blocked by social stigmata.
Energy flows
energy is fluid, flexible
multiform
Energy is us, it is water
we are water
It is sound, it is heat
We are random in existence
though deluded in consistent
affirmations of magnificence
we overlook the content
as we gaze upon the packaging.
We have become insulated from the electricity of meetings
earthed by aspiration to be considered cool
metered by social standing
until we can no longer plug into our own souls.
We are energy
random nerve ends
we are fluid yet…
We forsake the prize of conscious thought
and settle for a transient bliss
the roaches, the ants they will survive
whilst we dissolve in a chemical mist
Nerve ends
we should use them while we can
Andi Langford-Woods Oct 2006
Fairy Nuff
AND I AM FAIRY…ERR OH!! FAIRY NUFF…
I CAN’T GET NOWT TOGETHER
‘COS ME BRAIN’S SHUT OFF AND I’VE GOT A COUGH
IN THIS LOUSY ENGLISH WEATHER
I CAN’T THINK WHAT I AM DOING ‘ERE
BRISTOL WASN’T ON THE LIST
I TICKED THE BOX FOR SENEGAL
LOOKS LIKE ADMIN’S ON THE PISS… AGAIN
I WAS PLANNING ON GOING SOMEWHERE WARM
MY SECOND CHOICE WAS TAHITI
I DREAMT OF SLEEPING NAKED UNDER THE STARS
SO I DIDN’T BRING A NIGHTIE
I HAVEN’T ASKED FOR MUCH THIS YEAR
NO SCENT OR SOAP ON A ROPE
JUST A CHOCOLATE ORANGE WILL SUFFICE
TO FOLLOW AN OUNCE OF GOOD DOPE
I’M NOT SENDING ANY CARDS THIS YEAR
THO’ IT’S NOT AS HOW I’M MEAN
JUST THAT LICKING THE ENVELOPES TIRES ME AND…
IT’S NOT QUITE THE SAME AS THE THREE PAPER GAME
WITH TOBACCO AND FLAME THAT INSPIRES ME
AND WHILE I AM AT IT THERE’S ANOTHER SMALL MATTER
ABOUT ME OLD NAN THAT’S AS MAD AS A HATTER
I DON’T WANT A REPEAT OF WHAT HAPPENED LAST YEAR
WHEN THE TWINS GAVE THEIR PRESENTS
TO UNCLES AND AUNTS
‘COS I’M STILL MORTIFIED WHEN I THINK OF THEIR FACES
UNWRAPPING OUR NAN’S USED INCONTINENCE PANTS
BUT I WISH YOU ALL WELL AT THIS SEASONAL TIME
AND IF I’M TOO STONED TO MAKE THIS THING… AMUSING
I’LL RESORT TO THE BAR IN MY OWN SHANGRI-LA
WHERE MY LIFE ISN’T QUITE SO CONFUSING…
