Ornamental Onion (American Tan)

by Penny Goring

colour him american tan

he imagined himself & he was heliotrope harlequin international klein blue ghost ridden crepuscular groom

& he loved the heliotrope jungle

& he wore the hooker’s green

i want to stand where no living thing creeps

i want to stand where there are so many colours, where light trembles, where night shiver cobwebs cling to trees in the shrink of distance

I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU ARE

i want to stand where we slip slightly, thrilling in the stoned river, falling sideways to a ramshackle future, where none are more fuschia than us

i want pyrotechnic planets to plunge

i want blasting moons astral projecting slippery gibberish over the high-rise roofs

i want you muffled in gibberish, all over everywhere, all over me

all over

i want to stand where dead things crawl

SPEAK TO ME, HELL-BLAST 24

I DON’T CARE WHO YOU ARE

i imagined you & you were heliotrope harlequin international klein blue ghost written crepuscular house with one room

& you bled bad dreams

& you wished old lies

& you kissed cold sweat

& i do, i do

i kiss the shrink of distance

where bad days cling damp to trees

where bad dreams cling to these my arms, these my fingers, these my eyes

where good days rattle in the wreckage

where good dreams float on flame river

where good days rattle unattended in the anti-flash yellow white cupboard

& i bleed bad dreams

& i wish arsenic morning

& i kiss the colour of darker

I DON’T CARE WHERE YOU ARE

& i don’t care why you are – i just want to get in your car, not going very far. i just want to get in your bubble & cause you my kind of trouble

colour me AuroMetalSaurus

& we will meet in Peckham on that rancid street by the bus station & I’ll insist we buy strong lager in multiple packs of four & I’ll walk before you down the risky road & you will observe my lop-sided bum wiggle & I’ll remember you like me best …

(in royal blue vyella

my face is ugly beauty like this world

the ornamental onion is unpeeling

unpeeled – revealed – sloughed off)

… later on we’ll go to Film Nut’s private view. too rarified the atmosphere, too banal the paintings – endless tiny aeroplanes flummoxed with airfix precision in colourfields of flatdead greyblue, & there are videos of Film Nut painting his pointless aeroplanes, to be hung on the walls of office suites and the walls of in-crowd outhouses. colour me drunken blackout. i will march up to him and call him out for the void and the crapness & the last good hoping. when he flinches politely i will see red and kick him in the goolies. when he doubles over i will see yellow & slap him round the chops. i’ll never give him the apology he waits on. back in your seedy room we’ll make memories you’ll hastily regret. you’ll refuse to remember and I will never forget.

I ransacked my bones to find you and I found bones

I walked in circles on the beach and I found stones

I looked out to sea and I saw more sea

I looked inside myself and I saw more me

I go on and on and I’m sea-sick

me and me – we are this thick

I want studded codpiece with piss flaps

I want studded heartpiece with lie flaps

I want studded headpiece with dream flaps

are you a bigger creature?

i come from The World of Thing near The State of This

your face is ugly beauty like this world

FUCK WHO WHY WHAT WHERE WHEN – do it sharpish, slap-happy – make it snappy

unpeel yourself for me you golden ornamental onion

fuck yourself for me

fuck your life

fuck your wife

fuck me

in my world, where you can slip slightly, fall sideways or head first & be a goner

long gone

out the window

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