Poems
The Hair
A black thread scarring the winter landscape
Of a bedsheet, curls into a soft S,
Snakes under pillow into coolness.
I wonder what will happen now if I
Pull the other end, whether it will keep
Coming like a conjurer’s handkerchief.
The magic fails, I just put it down
Among the tissues and stained coffee cups.
It is gone in the morning, when I wake,
Not even a shiny coin its place,
Swept up by a gust from the cracked window
That blows the wind of change into my room.
I open it wide, hear the schoolchildren
Squabbling over kiss-chase in the playground,
But as I look down I see another,
And then more, lazing on a cotton sea.
Every day I find them, so beware.
Soon I will build a new you, hair by hair.
The Fall of Babel
We dated to the distant sound of the tower of Babel
Crashing to the ground.
The sound of families calling out for lost ones
In a hundred jumbled languages.
We went to bars, parties,
Drank punch and stumbled our way through unlit streets.
We stopped, kissed,
Alcohol burning like anthrax through our blood.
Later, at your house, we talked about it all.
I spoke in phrase-book Bedlam,
You, in Trans-Atlantic drawl.
The television, squatted in the corner
Like a glum, grumbling gargoyle,
Filled the dark room with stale smells of war.
And as I looked in your eyes, smelt your saccharine breath,
My heart lurched.
I had bitten a big apple that was poison to the core.
We sat on your sofa and talked about promises,
Politics,
Peace that once we thought could happen.
Seeing the white flag that waved gently in my sore eyes
You kissed me absent-mindedly.
Then I put on the kettle so we could drink tea
And watch The Fall of Babel on ITV.
You faded, slept with your head on my lap.
But I am still watching, waiting for the dust to settle.
The Splendid Trousered Misanthropist
I’m a splendid trousered misanthropist
And my despair of the human race
Runs so deep inside my veins
That if I hear a small child playing in the lane
Behind my house, laughing again and again,
I want to punch him in the face.
I’m a splendid trousered misanthropist
Because every time I go to Tesco or Asda
Some crone flutters and quacks
Then drives a trolley corner into my back
Until I move out of the way of her prune flapjacks
And outside in the car park some little brat
Has written "Wanker" on my Mazda.
I’m a splendid trousered misanthropist
Because whenever I turn on the news
The headlines, read with sighs and frowns,
Are - "New laws to be passed by circus clowns",
"Employment banned in rural towns",
Or "We’ve gone to war against abstract nouns,
Because they’re not our lives to lose."
I’m a splendid trousered misanthropist
And even my trousers are crap -
Because they were made
In a sweatshop far away
By people who just want fair trade
To try to escape the poverty trap.
Because the prick
That sold them to me never clicked
The hands that stitched
The zip together are now arthritic and sick
With hunger while he licks
His boss’ arse for a pay-cheque fix.
And they’ve also frayed around the lap.
I’m a splendid trousered misanthropist
And all I’ve got left to say
Is that I would love to be a serial killer,
That I enjoy the plays of Arthur Miller,
That I use your love like polyfilla
Just to get me through the day.
The Cheese Fondue
We had finished off everything, except what we had lost
Into the cauldron,
What had fallen away
Into cheese.
We sipped
Riesling through a straw,
while the gallumch of fondue bubbled between us.
You dipped
your forked metal tongue
down into the waves, lanced a chunk of cheesy bread -
it dripped
with dairy and kirsch. I stuck a hunk of cheese-soaked beef
with my bayonet blade, lifted it up
and ripped
it apart, savouring the cheesiness,
the distilled essence of cheese
that slipped
down my throat. You found a well-cheesed potato wedge,
I hooked a cheese sprout like a rainbow trout.
It flipped
on my tongue and drowned. You pulled out
a whole cheese courgette and swallowed it,
oil-lipped,
in one. We delved deeper and deeper into cheese.
I dug up a cheese-roasted chicken. You got a leg of cheese-glazed lamb.
I gripped
my archaeologist’s trowel and discovered quails
stuffed with sage and saffron and cheese.
You zipped
Up your wet-suit and dived in, emerged clutching oysters -
open mouths that dribbled cheese onto the shag.
I looked at you then, as you stood there in rubber, cheese-faced,
Cheese-hipped,
And told you that I couldn’t take any more.
"No blame, no blame.
It’s just that, after a while, it all tastes the same."
Chris Lambert lives and works in Cardiff having recently graduated from his master’s degree in English Studies at the University of Exeter, where he specialised in Creative Writing. During this time he wrote two anthologies of poetry, a collection of short stories, a sitcom script and a full-length screenplay. He also got involved in Exeter’s TEXT festival and ended up as one of the compères for the open mike poetry readings at the Phoenix Arts Centre. In the future, he hopes to continue writing poetry and short fiction whilst focusing upon a career in screenwriting. Chris also loves acting and directing for the theatre, playing poker and eating Cheese Fondue.