And if I have to hear you one more time
say, bet we haven’t heard the last of her
I promise you I’ll scream because believe me,
I’m fed up to the back-teeth.

Quite literally my own words start to choke me
watching hers impress you.  It seems a flash
of pen or a well-thrown line and that’s you sunk.
She’ll eat you for breakfast.

Why do you never listen to me, you pillock.
The bitch is using you to suit her ends.
What makes you think she’ll want the likes of you
when once she’s made it?

Whereas you and me, Robbie, we’ve grown together.
We’ve scratched each other’s backs, you get my drift!
We should try to get to know each other better.
Nothing dodgy though!

Your passengers have stripped you bare.  It seems
a re-fit’s what you need, and while you’re here
best drop the erotic colours from your flagpole;
they’ve led you astray!

Crippled by a cargo of translation
that drags you down below the water line
you creak and whine and make your invocation,
to the god Obscure.

Iced quatrains and measured Canberra couplets
help me ride the storm, but even so
concrete fore and aft is not enough
I’m tossed like a cork,

and bounced about by sexy stanza makers
with ropey rhymes that skim along your decks.
Unrated prats like me with no commission -
We keep you afloat.

Plot a middle course between the rocks
of old volcanic form and swirling spume.
I’m sick to death of sailing round in circles.
Cut me some slack.

When a DJ drags me off into the floodlights,
(a traitor to his own poetic cause),
and drops me, his class act onto the deck
to grope around the half-lit stage in fear

I admit I’m flattered; wouldn’t you be?
Then I hear the mutterings from the floor,
how her sort are the thin edge of the wedge;
how she’ll kill this place and ruin Davey’s cred.

A boy-band on before me gets applause
that brings the house down; I begin to shake.
Too late to run and hide, I’ve burnt my bridges,
I sense I’m going to end up on my arse.

Now the DJ, silly bugger,’s terrified;
despite the cheapo beer he’s organised
it’s dawned on him he’s serving neither cause:
by playing away we’d had it from the start.

He’s well and truly caught, pathetic dope,
between the usual rock and poetry’s hard place.
Too scared to sing my praises he lopes off
to find himself a safer watering hole.

I shouldn’t have submitted to this coupling;
and the masters of the web have barely started.
Miles from poetry and everything it means
they’ll U-tube me and stick me up on Face-Book.

Ignore my email, trash my sarky poem.
Don’t forward junk, it just makes matters worse.
My God, but you’re your father’s son all right.
Shred the bloody thing!

No women’s writing groups, no gender mags
cause laddish authors’ droop: they still perform.
No one-too-many, washed-up poetry coach
bangs on quite this much.

Your anger’s grabbed you firmly by the balls.
No heated row or threat of sharp reviews,
no casting you adrift from writing circles
makes you shut your trap.

What’s said about your poetry isn’t true
despite the buzz.  If God’s name doesn’t calm you
nothing will because you’ve got yourself
into a write frenzy.
I’ve warned you lots of times about the critics,
the freaks who make and break us at a stroke,
but you can’t wait to take things to the line;
fire everything up.

The spicy sauce you drizzle on their plate
is not enough to hide your thinned-out verse.
They’ll bring you down and tear you limb from limb
then hang you out to dry.

They’ll make you eat your words: And this idea,
this view you hold, that most things go my way,
for me the sun will literally reverse,
it drives you red with rage.

Your work is strong, but fury grinds you down.
You plumb the depths and turn your students off.
You need to warm your words or see your class
razed to the ground.

I’ll dump the worst of verse, (that’s yours, not mine!)
Recycle poems, take back all I’ve said.
We must be friends again: bad blood got me
when I was your age too!

Denise, you gave up England’s northern coast
to go down under where the surfers play.
Your Grove Hill voice has moved in as my muse -
her mithering fills the block at Clockhouse Wood.

Beyond these iron gates there’s no false coupling.
Our verse will trickle, free; it won’t be damned.
Our wet-behind-the-ears-kid poems will ripple
the sluggish surface of that speechless Tees.

Remember how you nudged my writer’s arm?
I’m glad to say it goes from strength to strength.
So come back home and share in my contentment.
Come on, Denise; we’ve suffered for our art.

Be molly-coddled in my wood, it’s safe.
I’ll keep the poet dog-eat-dogs at bay.
Complete your script and toast your oeuvre with Asti:
We’ll not make cock-brained, piss-heads welcome here,

or ratbag critics to crush your confidence
with bad reviews.  You’ve no need to be scared
of back-biters who’d sink their poison in -
there’s no one here to dress you down to size.

Who ever saw a canny two-pints writer
get lover’s block or cry into his beer?
A drop of good stuff helps unlock ideas.
Know when to stop but don’t be lost for words.
Drop your fighting talk, don’t diss your peers.

Up here we’re all supposed to hold our ale:
Just bear in mind our northern pride’s at stake.
Don’t make that Gazza no-holds-barred mistake
of gloves-off free-for-alls that end in tears.
Incestuous worlds like ours will see you fail.

First you blow your trumpet then your mind
especially when you’ve liquor down your neck.
You bandy stanzas, you’re a total wreck,
and as for bringing poets down to size -
Talk about the country of the blind!

You’d better keep a tight tongue in your head.
Don’t view things through the bottom of a glass.
I’ve shared a toast or two myself and gassed
with great and good; with famous and unknown.
Let others praise your work: don’t praise your own.

Of late, I seem driven by Cupid.
Feelings that had died have struck like lightning,
unexpectedly, again,

ignited, perhaps, by a nightly tipple,
and the idea of having rubbed shoulders
with the T.S. Eliot list.

Such notions set me on a slippery slope.
There’s not a hope that Carol Ann or Sheenagh
would see anything in me.

And yet I find I have to toy with them;
swirl them around for flavour as you do
a delicious mouthful of red.

Desire has taken over: when at last
my sturdy pen is ready to perform,
idle thoughts are curdling the ink.

Folk keep telling me to act my age. OK!
I’ll sacrifice my wilder plans, but please
give me a poet to embrace.

Note:

The T.S. Eliot Prize  shortlist for 2005 was Polly Clark, Carol Ann Duffy, Helen Farish, David Harsent, Sinead Morrissey, Alice Oswald, Pascale Petiit, Sheenagh Pugh,

John Stammers and Gerard Woodward.

Don’t just pore over my meagre emailed words,
come up and get ratted on my hard lines
knocked back with Newcastle Brown
in proper bottles I bought from Yarm offy
especially for you Stephen,
distinguished, kindly scholar,

while you’re applauded by ranks of students
            on the banks of the Isis;
and lecture theatres, shaken by your knowledge,
echo your professorship.

You can savour vintage Latin poems
and enjoy classics from the Italian grape,
but no Sicilian vines, Roman hills or conjugations
will flatten  my Northern beer
or soften  my rough voice.

Girls, don’t be scared to fantasise, sex sells,
you boys as well, erotica is hot.
Use basic instinct: that’s what hits the spot.

Young women watch Madonna light the stage.
She revels in her form, gets in your head
to stir things up that otherwise were dead.

Lads, why not take the pop stars as your models?
Their stubbled sex appeal is ripe for books.
Arouse with rhyme what Robbie does with looks.

Those two could break your block, stuff empty words
with promise, give your editors a ball
and drive the weakling-writers to the wall.

We genuine poets don’t have to take the flack
that other writers take from jealous peers.
We’re never crushed by critic profiteers
who just can’t wait to stab us in the back

and even when we stray beyond our limits
into topics never visited before,
our talent is described as fresh and raw
we’re not dismissed as just a bunch of dim-wits.

In fact when I express myself from Teesside
and leave my comfort zone to head down south,
the famous fear what might come out my mouth:
they grit their teeth while swallowing their pride.

And yet that Hughes’ wild dog creeps in and howls.
With ears pricked and razor teeth he blocks
my mind and keeps it blank before he locks
ideas down to consonants and vowels.

Put me with those certain, sexy women,
your Shapcotts and your Duffys and your Olds.
Though what I have to say won’t be as bold
I’ll use the little gift that I’ve been given,

to crack this nut and make my writing ring.
I want to get my feet under the table:
dear tutor, tease my words then I’ll be able
to love my poems at last and make them sing.