Stephen Pain

Stephen Pain is currently living in Japan. Born London, 1956 a stone's throw away from John Keats' house. He can be reached at s.pain@uea.ac.uk.

Whiter than White

I can see through the

prism of a glass door knob

the city of St.. Petersburg

so how can you tell me

you have never heard of

Andrei Bely

He stands there in the snow

a first class snob, his lips

quivering as he tells us:

did we listen we weren't born

did we look we had no eyes

So today when cockroach whiskers

are once more in fashion

and blockheads stumble into

fable and State

what do we write of

Love songs and nature poems

extolling the virtues of the hairline

contusions in rocks and stones

breathless we return

to those eighteenth century fops

preening ourselves in mirrors

sniffing glue

while girls in pink genitalia

sing I love you

What do you say old chap?

we can slip in unnoticed

like two oblique references,

no strings, no attachments, no names

as two ghosts we can tease

the middle-class couples

sitting so comfy

in their armchairs

stuffed with moribund

philosophies

and then in our stroll

we can stop and salute

the bronze horse

without its rider

starting with Genoa ending

in Marvell

Oh Come on, it'll, it'll be marvellous.

Stephen Pain