Kicking Prose Read online

KICKING PROSE

  poems

  Jay Slayton-Joslin

  Copyright © 2014 by Jay Slayton-Joslin

  (KUBOA)/SmashWords Edition

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  Musings of a Beautiful Girl

  in a Spanish Town

  Language may try to break

  us apart

  yet walking through this rural Spanish Villa

  I tried to look at churches

  castles

  culture, but cannot focus on anything else because

  Secrecy would never die, for fools would try

  to translate, for if your looks withered like

  the flowers on the villa walls then we have

  a language each but never one together

  So what if you squeak when you yawn

  scratch my back when we lay

  want to spend a day in the sun

  and we eat out and I pay

  For we have the set up for perfection

  and I have ruined said things before like

  crushing a glass in hand

  and out of fear I cannot say hello

  olla

  not for fear of refusal

  but for fear it would go right

  Moral Come Down

  We may think things that we have done

  will haunt

  us, yet lest we forget that no old man

  other than those who have cheated, robbed

  or been to war

  sat down and counted their regrets

  but always said

  I wish I’d done more

  And if things were meant to run for a week

  but run for a day longer

  then let them run these extra few days

  for a zebra may count those extra few steps

  and cherish them

  before it is eaten by a lion

  So when we regret let us wait days till time

  and if then we say no,

  I regret,

  then we don’t do them again

  what is next?

  Absence

  Dear lecturer,

  I am sorry I can’t

  make it in today but

  no earthly man should be up for 11 am

  I apologies for my absence but my

  antidepressants are not

  working

  and I was never prescribed beta

  blockers

  And every time I go into class my heart

  beats so fast

  it feels like a coyote

  is chasing it across an unnatural plain

  Oh, I’ve also slept with some

  of the girls in the class too

  we shared everything physically

  and nothing emotionally

  so we avoid glances and pray we do

  not discuss

  and I’ve tried with most, too – lord

  knows I’ve tried

  But I hope I feel better next week

  and see you maybe there

  I Remember You

  Doesn’t matter if in darkness

  or light of day surrounded by others

  I get lonely

  and I think of you

  and in the same way a curtain blocks the light

  I stop to care about what’s around

  me and think of

  playing in the ocean

  the sex good sex

  the moments of sheer honesty

  and that look on your face when you think no-one is

  watching

  and I bore myself open

  and showed a map of my mind to my heart

  which few people have ever glimpsed

  let alone seen

  So my question is

  do you ever get lonely too

  and if you do

  do you think of me?

  The Nine Grand

  Education Fees Foxtrot

  What if the writers, artists, doctor and scientists

  slept on the streets

  to pursue their craft

  and show dedication

  because, it’s what they were born to do

  yeah, born to watch films and discuss,

  comma placements.

  throw false academia under

  the bridge

  and put the homeless in our private accommodation

  so they can get a job and pay taxes,

  that we can be given by the government

  to learn, about types of soil

  and I’m the worst of them all

  because I live for four years free

  watching movies and spending

  eight hours in class a week

  thinking what to

  watch

  next.

  Lighthouse

  My life could never be a lighthouse

  because I cannot always be tall

  I crawl underground in my sadness

  so far yet never found the cause

  the upkeep is too much for one

  they would say

  you expect me to eat here, to sleep?

  there’s too much work to be done

  and I am a man who enjoys pleasure

  not kindling it out of murky air

  How can I beckon others to safety

  when I am crashing in the rocks

  that they are unaware of?

  Did I say don’t be like me?

  If I was staring out into darkness

  round and round like a siren

  and for others I was the only glimpse of land

  they would rather be at sea

  The Einstein Blues

  When you want time to stop it never

  does

  I think it’s called relativity

  but the terror of relativity is it

  assumes the familiar

  it nags at you like a dimensional parasite

  and when you want time to go it

  makes you stop and buy a ticket for your happiness

  so the lesson I’ve learned is

  ask for nothing and just wait

  and maybe read a book or think about

  the world

  but not for too long

  because that impartial in between

  is how it gets you, and if you can trick it

  than do

  because it will always trick you

  Visions of Codeine

  Dean said he had codeine from the head

  injuries

  and I wanted to dance and take them

  all

  and drift into darkness

  have an angel reach out and prove me wrong about god

  and the angel will say “you tried”

  and I’d look back and then look at the angel

  in his beautiful baby blues and say

  “but did I really?”

  English Masculinities

  What does it mean to be masculine

  to be a man?

  I fuck women

  I drink my coffee black

  and I have a cock

  and right there the list burns into midnight

  and I look at men and think I am not one

  of you

  I look at women and think

  I just want to be with you

  so I walk to no destination

  see faces I never familiarize with

  and if there is ever a street light of hope

  I stand underneath it
br />   look up at it

  let it glimmer, flicker, diminish.

  For All The (Potential)

  Broken Hearts

  For all the lovers I tried for

  I apologize for not being the man

  I should have been

  for not saying how beautiful you look

  for not sweeping you up

  but instead

  passively looking

  and romanticizing a life

  and not flexing the seduction muscles that I have.

  for looking you up online

  and not acting on my impulse

  I walk on and only promise

  that next time I will be Casanova, Valmont

  I will try

  The 3am Thoughts

  Jay Slayton-Joslin is an English writer from the London suburb of Beaconsfield, England. He has work published online and in print, in journals such as Blink Ink, Solarcide and Leodegraunce. His writing has been anthologized in the anthologies In Search Of A City: Los Angeles In 1,000 Words, The Tobacco-Stained Sky and Flash Me! The Sinthology. He is currently studying American Literature with Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Kicking Prose is his first book.