Response Poems

this has to be it

by Philip Johnson 

where spiders dangle from chord

swirled down from roses

their webbed homes nit in the mind's eye

somebody else's ass squashed

in your shitty pants

waiting

on deaf ears

for a wet

sponge

so this is it then?

by Karen  Stanley

so this is it then?

this is living "the hit"

hearing the spiders

plunk their off-key chords

like broken strings on a guitar

this is it - wanting deaf ears,

thick muffs to block

the racket, waiting

for blissful silence

and wanting, after

a wet sponge to mop

the sweat and clean the crap

you've got yourself

well and truly into

until the next time

while spiders spin

their tidy webs

oblivious to this among

the bursting roses

that your tired nose can't smell.

He Was Beautiful …

Or, Living The Hit (No. 2)

by Bob Cooper

Outside M&S three hours a day, four days a week,

he plays Cavatina.  His guitar case, with float,

chinks with single January coins.  He’d had dreams

like the hairdresser he sees at the upstairs window,

who reminds him of his daughter, looking down on him.

He’d come 2^nd twice in the Talent Show at Clacton,

Duane Eddy on a borrowed Gretsch with tremolo-arm,

bright-eyed, fourteen, and no longer a virgin.

Then played on the same bill as The Hollies:

the widest of flares, lead guitar with The Five Believers,

all their own songs and a contract with A&M Records.

After that it was Country and Western in Forfar

where he’d been roughed up for playing harmonics

with the fiddle player’s under-age sister and wife.

Then downhill all the way, through bedsits and Johnny Walker,

to squat between curtains of dog-piss on his own pitch.

His little finger stretches, those plaintive single notes

worth a 50 pence piece from the 40 year olds;

then, head at arse level, back to the chord until summer

when he’s Glenn Raymonde again at Prestatyn,

60s songs between bingo: Concrete And Clay -

You Really Got Me - Walking In The Sand.