Gabriella

And even when she wasn’t there

as the life and soul who everyone loved,

She was, magpie-like

Always looking down on us

Gabriella, ‘strength’ in Hebrew

An Italian with broken English

And a broken sense of direction

She was, not pigeon-like, no formel

But she was as loyal as any she-wolf

Always looking out for us

I met her in Hackney, late Ni...

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I’ve done the heart

I’ve done the fist

What will I speak through next,

this poet-cum-ventriloquist?

It just sort of crept up on me

My bus ride to the station

Me buying of a flat white

Me fancying a man on the platform

All the people going about their business

It all seemed very normal

I had no reason to fight it

because I didn’t know that it was ther...

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Centipede

Have you ever engaged in radical deep listening?

Do you listen to what’s crawling around your feet

but is making the loudest sound?

There is no sound as loud as silence

But the centipede is not silent

Listen carefully and he will deafen your drums

Why do we only hear

the loudest speaker with his mic?

The centipede is the one creating

the loudest sonic ...

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Image: Mum’s, Anne Campbell’s (nee Styles)  sewing kit circa 1959

The heart is a muscle

Caller:  Hello, is that Lee?

Me: Yes, speaking

Caller: Hello, I’m Paul calling from The Missing Bodies List

I am pleased to say that we think we may have found your heart

It was found outside shivering in the cold on the side of the road

by a late-night drinker. Broken ...

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POW! WOW! WHAT’S THIS?!

Susan Broadhurst, author of Liminal Acts

writes that my work challenges what performance is

and at the same time interrogating liminality

meaning the ‘in-between’

For me, the window is a liminal threshold

that is neither private nor entirely public

When I was around 15 or 16,

I slept with a glass jar on a table by my bedside

Inside...

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See, I thought I’d found my Tiana

A nice little smoochy snog,

behind that rock shaped like a toad

your kiss turned me into a frog

Not way it’s meant to be I thought,

was like that fable in reverse

Your kiss made this already prince

into a toad, your kiss was curse

And though your kiss was rather nice

and pleased as hell we did it did it

Opened my mouth to my...

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Surprised you’re not a footballer

You played a blinder tonight

Surprised you’re not a tailor

You stitched me up good and proper

Surprised you’re not a barber

You had me by the short and curlies

Surprise, surprise, mate,

you ain’t worth the agg.

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Collaboration is about being in the world

unless you want to be alone in the woods somewhere

And it is not about perfect unity,

collaboration is, as Tim Etchells suggests

about differences, collisions, incompatibilities

Are you ready to feel the embodiment of these terms?

Or are you feeling them already?

Friendly, convivial and equal collaboration,

is that possible...

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CREEPER

It just sort of crept up on me

The bus ride to the station

the buying of a flat white

the fancying of a man on the platform

the people going about their business

It all seemed very normal

I had no reason to fight it

because I didn’t know that it was there

Until I started having this feeling

and so, I butchered its body

Into pieces but as a whole...

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Thought is made manifest in the mark as a trace

but let me tell you about the trouble with traces

I rummage through life’s leftover marks

Traces from a previous exhibition

Text left on a wall,

plinths not yet been removed,

drawings now dumped in a corner as rubbish

I am for a poetry of embodied debris,

left in the aftermath

Speaking bodies caught

between memo...

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‘If there is a troubadour washing, it is he

If there is a man about town., it is he …’

It’s the liminal hour, neither night nor day,

2am is when troubadours come out to play

Urban street savages roam around the pitch black

Most people fast asleep but not in next door’s flat

where two male cubs through the walls, I hear growling

It’s not just the foxes outside that ar...

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I’ve got a crush, I’ve got a thing

For this mister, fancy him

In my local fat boy slim

‘Fat boy,’ Cockney slang for gym

He’s my treacle, Mister Romeo

Go hardio on cardio

Go fast on him or slomio

Go hardio or homeo

Go faster, increase speedio

On him, I start off medio

Increase my pace if needio

on Instagram Live video

A crush, I’ve got a thin...

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Tremors he gave me confirmed

The heart is a muscle

Never my heart beat faster

than standing next to him

Sadly the stars didn’t align

Our hearts not in sync

Cards dealt me cruel hand

Losing both him and Mum

Find Mum’s childhood sewing kit

Anne Styles’ thread and pins

Fleshy muscle torn by grief

Sew it back together again

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I’ve come to realise 

it’s time to let go 

and that saying goodbye 

means saying hello 

to a better me, 

the best I can do,

the realisation of what it is

I love about you, 

your qualities that bring out

 the best version of me 

So, I will try being the friend 

that you need me to be. 

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I was hungry feeling whack

Drunk a few with James and Jack

Got last  train departing at

midnight but the driver slack

Did he go off for a snack?

Having piss around the back

whilst he doing line of crack?

Maybe likes a little smack

On my train, got on my track

6ft Santa, sexy black

in his costume with his sack

Lets just say he had no lack

Ooh ...

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Better keep quiet

This moral dilemma

cannot get out

Keep your mouth shut, boy

Better keep quiet

Ever breathe a word

of this oral dilemma,

I’d have to tie your tongue up, boy

Words are mapping pins

Wasted mine on a charmer disarmer

Fuck his reticence!

Few pins he ever spoke never showed the alchemy of his flesh

And you, poet, smiler boy, fuck yours...

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Light as violence

Light as violence

Light as violence

Light as violence

LIGHT!

You do not necessarily need to ‘see’ something to be a witness.

Implicate yourself in an ordeal

through oral connection by means of

conversation with your inner voices

Self-reportage bestowing upon you 

a certain involvement and moral dilemma

My two eyeballs hanging on t...

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You do not necessarily need to ‘see’ something

in order to be a witness. Implicate myself in this ordeal

through oral connection by means of

conversation with my inner voices

Self-reportage bestowing upon me

a certain involvement and moral dilemma

The pins started to fall one by one in domino effect

Now my continual fight to be heard and seen

must take an involunt...

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Bruv, you know that thing, that thing we were talking about

when we went out for drinks and we almost passed out?

Bruv, you know that thing, that thing, the other week in the pub

we were chatting about when we were out

on the lash and I was up for a snout?

Looking back, I regret it, like what must you think?

This thing that I told once I’d had a drink?

You know ...

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We are cut  

from the same cloth

Our poetry, our words 

are mapping pins

The inner rip

The visceral tear

The internal cut 

Fist rage embodied 

in every silent tiny prick 

of the mapping pin 

Your pins,

in their cadence, their sound,

Gravity loss in my pins

Damn it! You’re clever

you keep my feet still on the ground

Your pins map the ...

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I’m going about my day

NEWSFLASH!

Unexpectedly

like a bolt out of the blue

my body interrupts me

46 years of chronic pain sciatica

has taught me the disruptive nature

of the body’s physicality

Visceral newsflashes

Corporeal shoots of pain

Physiotherapy and Amitriptyline only temporarily numbs

My body heckles me

Poetic, lyrical, unexpected, transformative interru...

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Following my feature set,

sharing poems about losing Mum,

the next artist started his

shouting something rather dumb

‘BIG UP ALL THE DEAD MUMS!

My Mum died years before your Mum, Lee.

And I was much younger than you

when my Mum died. So, I WIN!'

This woman in the audience then shouted back,

‘IT'S NOT A COMPETITION!

NOT A BATTLE OF THE MOURNERS’

I would no...

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HOW TO LINE MANAGE A NARCISSIST 

I used to work with Blowers-Browne
who gave everyone dirty frown
Though I line managed Blowers-Browne,
he thought it HE wearing the crown
A narcissist was Blowers-Browne
who liked to put everyone down 
He had this voice did Blowers-Browne,
everything else out it would drown. 

In Chelsea, claimed lived Blowers-Browne,
but bet he lived in Canning Town 
...

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Discover the same other

whilst under the cover

Creeping seeping peeping

covert operations

my teenage fascinations

awkward altercations

with non queer populations

Sensations that taught me

if ever they caught me

side cautiously er

deliberately blur words that infer derogatory slur

I got very clever,

very clever at seeing without being seen

...

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I’ve lost my body

Where is my body?

Has anyone seen my body?

Mum, I

miss you.

Ever since

losing you,

I’ve lost

myself too.

Life events

you prepare

yourself for

play themselves

out in

front of

me. I’m

a spectator

in my

own body.

The audience

in the

protagonist’s skin.

Like I

am watching

my life

...

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DAD BOD

Link to poetry film online 

https://filmfreeway.com/DADBOD2024

I spy, my eye

Summer day in July

Lee go lido

Know just where me eye go

Hairy chest bloke

over female breaststroke

Cute lad, sad sod

and oh my god his dad bod!

I spy, man boobs

Blimey, look at his moobs

Dad Bod swagger   

Hardly Moves Like Jagger

Quick flash, bum crack

makes ...

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Who’s sat there on that bar stool

with half a cider jar full?

Big Head Ben - dirty rascal

of Elephant and Castle

He’s never been to charm school

A handful and an armful

Up your Dover, partial

Like Dad, an army marshall,

the apple don’t fall far fall

At night as shooting star fall,

there underneath the tarpaul

in Ben’s Capri, his car full

of men eating ...

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Image: Me aged 18 at Maidstone College of Art in 1996

LOOK AT YOURSELF! 

‘PAINT! PAINT! No, you ain’t!’

said Mike Addison, my Graphics tutor

to me at Maidstone Art College in ‘96

‘PAINT! PAINT! No, you ain’t a graphic designer!

LOOK AT YOURSELF! You’re covered in paint!’

Hands in paint! Mate’s complaint

I can’t stop painting hands

The words ’BLOODY HANDS’

gr...

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(Image: Me at Maidstone Art College in 1996, aged 18)

‘PAINT! PAINT! No, you ain’t!’

said Mike Addison, my Graphics tutor

to me at Maidstone Art College in ‘96

‘PAINT! PAINT! No, you ain’t a graphic designer!

LOOK AT YOURSELF! You’re covered in paint!’

Hands in paint! Mate’s complaint

I can’t stop painting hands

The words ’BLOODY HANDS’

graffitied in black pain...

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Word famous landmarks. Wonders of the World

Golden Triangle, California road trip, 1993

Me, twink. R.E.M mix tape on my Sony Walkman.

One of the things I remember most, what I still carry as a souvenir,

is being winked at by guys sitting outside a bar in West Hollywood

as I walked past them sipping cocktails

If I had only had the confidence back then and known my true sexual...

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I spy, my eye. Summer day in July

Lee go lido. Know just where me eye go

Hairy chest bloke over female breaststroke

Cute dad, sad sod but oh my god his dad bod!

I spy, my eye. Swimming pool in July

Fee, fum, fi, fo, get me bum off lilo

Dad bod, back stroke, butterfly or front crawl

Towel fall, all pool sees daddy fully frontal!

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He gets home

and locks the front door

Confronted by a sound

so deafening, so loud

Its noise goes in one ear

and out the other

A hissing sound with a frequency

as devastating as the fear

 of being eaten alive

by white noise

He sits there and imagines

she is in the other room

Even though they often spent evenings

in separate rooms,

they were together...

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Keep on the bics

Keep off the box

Keep on the kicks

Keep off the cocks

Keep on the dicks

Keep off the dox

Keep on the fix

Keep off the fox

Keep on the hicks

Keep off the hox

Keep on the icks

Keep off the ox

Keep on the jix

Keep off the jocks

Keep on the licks

Keep off the locks

Keep on the nicks

Keep off the knocks

Keep on the pics

Keep off ...

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Cut off your pee

Cut off your piss

Cut off your bee

Cut off your biss

Cut off your sea

Cut off your sis

Cut off your dee

Cut off your diss

Cut off your fee

Cut off your fist

Cut off your gee

Cut off your gist

Cut off your eye

Cut off your iss

Cut off your key

Cut off your kiss

Cut off your Lee

Cut off your list

Cut off your me

Cut ...

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Boys’ changing room, Dan hid my towel

School bully boy, he not my pal

So, I nicked his, nicked it somehow

He lucky boy, so well endow

The size of it made me go, ‘WOW!’

I knew right then what I’m still now

I’m into boy, not into gal.

I fancied Dave off Emmerdale

Made straight things gay. State not allow

gay pics back then, that Tory cow

Thatcher threw men lik...

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Teenager in Nineties Britain, always had in my hand

a pencil to make drawings, to help me understand,  

the world I was born into, which felt like foreign land,

my homosexuality was not what they had planned

Me drawing in a straight world, but mine was gay instead,

I made drawings in secret, hid them under my bed

I drew the world I longed for, imagined in my head,

I wishe...

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** Italics means Polari slang – some translations like ‘nosh’ into English (not ‘food’ in Polari) are too rude to print ** 

State school in ‘90’s Britain, near posh boy’s private school

From working class background, those posh boys were so cruel

Laughed at Dad’s Ford Cortina, my Iower class accent

For them a double no-no - being common, being bent

They shouted through the s...

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Losses

are also traumas

Embed themselves

in our bodies

May be surprising or shocking

after several years

That you're still living it

almost as if it's the same day

Immediate kind of rawness

when something first happens

Like the top layers of your skin

have come off

Ebbs and flows, not linear

Comes and goes

in waves.

Can't always know

whe...

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Memory Scents

I used to buy Mum flowers

Put them in a vase

Their petals fell where Mum

looked out the living room window

Their scent filled the room.

Dad now buys Mum flowers

Puts them in a vase

Their petals fall where Mum

is now buried.

I urged Dad not to buy plastic flowers

because the scent of real flowers

fills me with memories of Mum

I be...

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In for a penny, in for a pound

In for a benny, in for a round

In for a hurry, in for a half

In for a murray, in for a laugh

In for a penny, in for a poke

In for a jack, in for a joke

In for a smack, in for a smoke

In for a sack, in for a soak

In for a penny, in for a pop

In for a tip, in for a top

In for a blip, in for a bop

In for a slip, in for a slop

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Handkerchief on his behind, has this gay guy called Frankie 

Know what’s on his mind, just from the colour of his hanky 

Red means only hands, he wants just winky wanky

Shower, if it’s green, must clean your pinky panky

Black, the flip of that, he likes it minky manky 

Blue hanky, his behind, has our guy called Frankie 

He’s feeling so inclined, up for some hanky panky 

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Mum, I

miss you.

Ever since

losing you,

I’ve lost

myself too.

Life events

you prepare

yourself for

play themselves

out in

front of

me. I’m

a spectator

in my

own body.

The audience

in the

protagonist’s skin.

Like I

am watching

my life

and I’m

in every

scene but

my body

is elsewhere.

I , the

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‘Anne Campbell’s

birthday today,

June 4th' 

just now

on my

Facebook feed

popped up.

Yesterday was

my birthday,

June 3rd. .

Happy but

sad birthday.

First birthday

since Mum

popped off.

When I

blew out

my candles,

I wished

that Mum

had for

my birthday

popped round.

I’ll do

like I

often do

a...

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MR BRIGHTON BEAR ’24

I’m in the finals, guess what for?

Brighton Gay Bear ’24

Guess entry made selectors ‘Phwoar!’

But what dare ask, is there in store?

I’ll make those voters drop their jaw

when I get speedos out the drawer

Strip down to them on Brighton shore

And if I must, I’ll strip down more!

Yeah fancy week in Ecuador

If I win prize, oh what galor...

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SELF-COMBUSTING LIFT

(written in response to seeing sign displayed by lift in Vienna)

It’s best to give this lift short shrift

because it’s known for giving gift

of you inside it, in the midst

of fire!

FIRE!

Lift sets itself on fire!

When you saw sign, you look quite miffed

It’s too late mate to catch my drift

Best have a brandy, have it stiff

Yeah, fir...

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Sat in the sun and most awares

of cubs giving them quite the glares

On Brighton beach, in their deckchairs

sat Goldilocks and his three bears.

See cubs like us, like men with hairs

all over their bodies and everywheres

And boy they knew, they answered prayers

did these Brighton beach burly bears.

Hell yeah I’ll stare at Ben’s, Pierre’s

meat, potatoes, their pom...

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Take me on a journey with your

words.

Let your words  soar off the page like fire

birds.

Take me on a journey with your

verse.

Let your verses cast a spell or even 

curse.

Take me on a journey with your 

rhyme. 

Let your rhymes create new rhythms in space and 

time. 

Take me on a journey with your 

beat.

Let your beats turn up the volume, turn up the 

h...

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HOT MESS

You made

me feel

I had

to hide

everything about

myself when

I was 

much younger, 

whilst I

fancied the

hell out

of you

straight man.

Tonight, I

bumped into

you on

way to

queer poetry

night in

London Bridge.

That second,

I became

hot mess.

Pulled on

strings of

your backpack

to stop

you and

say...

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HOT MESS

You made

me feel

I had

to hide

everything about

myself when

I was 

much younger, 

whilst I

fancied the

hell out

of you

straight man.

Tonight, I

bumped into

you on

way to

queer poetry

night in

London Bridge.

That second,

I became

hot mess.

Pulled on

strings of

your backpack

to stop

you and

say...

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Try educate the ignorant straight,

doubt anybody could.

Doubt Jack the lad does contemplate

and why he ever should

learn all about queer history

and those misunderstood.

History shows ‘gay’ beyond Pride day

and sex up Hampstead Wood.

If you think true, Jack, your IQ

is size of your manhood

when you told me, sure as can be,

‘You gays have never had it so good!’....

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