Ten Years in an Open Necked Shirt Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Title Page

  ten years in an open necked shirt

  euro communist/gucci socialist

  the ghost of al capone

  i mustn’t go down to the sea again

  the face behind the scream

  90 degrees in my shades

  psycle sluts: part one

  psycle sluts: part two

  the day my pad went MAD

  i married a monster from outer space

  belladonna

  i wanna be yours

  readers’ wives

  i was a teenage werewolf – or was i

  a love story in reverse

  this heart disease called love

  post-war glamour girl

  full-time loser

  the new assassin

  the it man

  evidently chicken town

  the day the world stood still

  i travel in biscuits

  salome maloney

  midnight shift

  kung fu international

  36 hours

  the pest

  drive she said

  valley of the lost women

  gaberdine angus

  i don’t wanna be nice

  health fanatic

  track suit

  sleepwalk

  beezley street

  suspended sentence

  limbo

  a distant relation

  the house on nowhere street

  spilt beans

  majorca

  conditional discharge

  nothing

  23rd

  the bronze adonis

  you never see a nipple in the daily express

  the isle of man

  night people

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Punk. Poet. Pioneer.

  The Bard of Salford’s seminal collection is as scabrous, wry & vivid now as it was when first published over 25 years ago.

  STEVE MAGUIRE

  The marvellous illustrations herein

  Were rendered by my great friend, Steve Maguire.

  I shall always remain grateful for his undervalued genius.

  John Cooper Clarke

  September 2012

  to young macdonald

  (the one without the farm)

  ten years in an open necked shirt

  Lenny Siberia was the bastard offspring of Captain Africa (the lard mogul) and Tracy. The captain disappeared without Tracy who perished alone with her diamond collection, the victim of a mau-mau hit squad, leaving Lenny alone with the one thing money can’t buy poverty

  He was discovered at one year old by a wayward nun; he had been living in the dumb waiter of the zambezi juice bar Sister James (for it was she) lost no time in mailing the child, by first-class parcel post, to a friend in Brussels. Fortunately he was erroneously delivered to the Eros Luxury Club, a converted charabang in the bowels of Manchester’s la quartière latin.

  The proprietor, a swarthy ill-mannered character of Armenian origin, received the package with a bestial grunt. Taking a curved knife from a canteen of curved knives, he slashed it open Lenny gazed into the face of this his first stranger and what he saw was pure malevolence

  He ran down flattened streets patrolled by aimless amputees through a world of refugees, out of the cold war into the deep freeze, he ran out of money, he ran into trouble

  He was adopted by Sheba and Rex, a pair of alsatian dogs who regarded the boy with an uneasy ambivalence They lived in an Art Deco cocktail cabinet by the bicycle sheds of Salford Metropolitan Police compound They were devout Catholics.

  It was arranged for Lenny to attend the School of Our Lady of the Seven Robes of Gold by the Garden of Sorrows in the Vale of Tears which was run with teutonic efficiency by the little daughters of the sick under the iron rule of Mother Cyrene.

  Mother Cyrene was everything rancid to Lenny her mouth a malignant slit in the murderous mask she called a face, her cheesy breath steaming up his spectacles, her eyes like mobile ball bearings – their colour left a mechanical taste in the mouth

  Daily religious instruction furnished his vacant mind with tales of treachery, morbid betrayals, oceans pink with the blood of multitudes, saints looking to the sky their living bodies smashed by hammers before the alien idols of the heathen Incense filled his nostrils with the fatal breath of ghosts, hermaphrodite choirs droned in his ears.

  Each student could elect to spend their free time in one of three ways sporting activities, visiting the sick or in the service of the Knights of the Sacred Orchid. The latter seemed the least demanding, the most hygenic and it also appealed to the lad’s naive sense of chivalry.

  The Knights of the Sacred Orchid held their thrice-weekly routines in the spacious open-plan lounge of the sinister Raoul, who affected the manner of the proto-fascist with psychotic attention to detail His navy blue hair sleeked with ancient grease, his meagre Don Ameche moustache waxed stiff like the legs of a dead fly. He went nowhere without the chums.

  The chums were namely Horace and Boris, the brothers Morris, a titanic duet each in possession of a powder-blue safari suit and arms of anthropoidal length Their physical immensity fully emphasized the stiff angular grace of the nifty Raoul who now led the way into the lounge

  The lounge was furnished by three rows of seven leatherette easy chairs faced by one formica table The curtains were the colour of mustard embellished with the bleeding heart motif The walls were hung with colourless daubs The carpet was monotonous, its pattern gave the impression of a small animal crapping at regular intervals The whole scene was lit by a soundless colour TV and a row of six orange table lamps in which shifting globules of molten wax moved like specimens of rare snot

  Enter Mother Cyrene, flanked by the chums and a hyper-reverent Raoul who wore the look of a man obsessed She stood on the table and began

  ‘Even as I speak a filthy tide of bolshevism issues from the dives of tin pan alley in short the world is a subterranean playground for lounge lizards from every sphere of idleness and crime who their pockets a-jingle with Moscow money go unchecked about their evil business take china cathedrals ransacked churches turned into judo schools I have seen the finest laundries in the world converted into bordellos for the gratification of the lumpenproletariat what with the drink trade on its last legs and the land running fallow for want of artificial manures I leave you with this thought’

  Mantovani strings cascaded from the Queen Anne Dinatron stereo system Everyone crossed themselves and left The chums in their lilac Isetta bubble cars headed for the golden finger bowl where they were employed as part-time knuckle merchants

  Upon arrival at the compound Lenny, to his horror, found the cocktail cabinet in flames and his devoted guardians, Sheba and Rex, their heads split by faceless vigilantes, slaughtered in the rabies scare of ’62 ‘Christ! Where do I live?’ thought Lenny in genuine desperation and the heavy traffic seemed to whisper ‘Raoul, Raoul’

  So for two weeks Lenny resided in Raoul’s broom cupboard which he shared with an upright vacuum cleaner and Doris the chums’ slender loris, a cute little number redolent of the lazoon of Fireball XL5 fame

  Raoul imbued Lenny with the tactile beauty of the luger and the surly prose of Mickey Spillane. Finally, however, it was the prospect of nude fencing lessons that drove Lenny out. Leaving a bag of onions for Doris he left silently via the laundry chute. That winter he got a job at Barmy Sid’s Elephants Graveyard of up-to-the-minute accoutrements, during which time he moved into a bathroom with an all-girl cycle gang. On the back of a Woodbine packet in lips
tick he wrote this his first poem:

  The mopeds head for the seaside

  Yvonne

  Looked at the trees

  And her stomach turned

  ‘That’s arguably the greatest poem in the world today,’ enthused a sudden voice Lenny turned round to see a tall, loose-limbed young man dressed in the beatnik anti-mode of the committed; his lank hair was hacked into a careless coup-sauvage style favoured by the existentialists who were A-1 credibilitywise in the flourishing capitals of the EEC Lenny noticed that although his lips moved his voice seemed to come from the side of his neck

  His name was Reg Trademark, heir to a crumbling biscuit empire who, by virtue of his artistic endeavours, had secured a position of trust at the Marxist-Leninist ping-pong club He persuaded Lenny to declaim his work the following Thursday at the club’s variety night.

  Among those appearing were Harry, Barry, Garry and Larry, the Brothers McGarry, reading a three-hour concrete poem entitled ‘The Yes No Interlude’, a neo-functionalist mime troupe presenting a two-act play based on ‘Stop the World I Wanna Get On’. a novel by Larry Dines concerning the Judaeo-Christian ethic of self as not self. Finally, however, it had to be agreed by all that the night belonged to Lenny, agreed by all but Larry Dines who had been poisoned

  In a vain attempt at bourgeois credibility Lenny changed his name to John Cooper Clarke and under this title embarked on a polysyllabic excursion through Thrillsville, UK. Yes, it was be there or be square as, clad in the slum chic of the hipster, he issued the slang anthems of the zip age in the desperate esperanto of the bop John Cooper Clarke the name behind the hairstyle, the words walk in the grooves hacking through the hi-fi paradise of true luxury

  euro communist/gucci socialist

  for a modern home and cheap electricity

  streamlined functional neat simplicity

  put yourself on the slum clearance list

  dial a dialectical materialist

  find out what your net potential is

  get married to an existentialist

  don’t doubt your own identity

  dress down to a cool anonymity

  the pierre cardin line to infinity

  clothes to climb in the meritocracy

  the new age of benevolent bureaucracy

  i like to visit all the big cities

  museums and municipal facilities

  i strive for critical ability

  i thrive on political activity

  i’m alive in a new society

  i arrive quickly quietly

  the car that i drive is the family variety

  roman catholic marxist leninist

  happily married to an eloquent feminist

  a lapsed atheist all my memories

  measure the multitude’s deafening density

  psycho citizens are my enemies

  crypto nazis and their remedies

  keep the city silent as the cemetery’s

  architectural gothic immensity

  a new name on the less-than-kosher list

  the euro-communist/a gucci socialist

  the ghost of al capone

  in a marble room i was alone

  somewhere in the heart of rome

  through gardens long since overgrown

  down old arcades of broken stone

  i met the ghost of al capone

  upon request for some ID

  he said the guardian angels are working for me

  i call for a cop he said stop or i shoot

  one or two holes in your three-piece suit

  i say steady on old fruit

  he told me not to be so cute

  consider the river and the concrete boots

  the devil and the deep blue sea

  what you saw you didn’t see

  the guardian angels are working for me

  the arms the raving arms

  and the hustle and the bustle

  muscle in i get sandwiched

  between the palms

  the waving palms and the banknotes rustle

  like an international language

  even the recession doesn’t put him out of pocket

  back in the depression he made a profit

  a one-man crime wave who can stop it

  the agéd william in his pocket

  blackmail blue films narcotics

  served with the style of a real neurotic

  and the easy smile of a true psychotic

  a sort of refugee

  from the heart of the apostolic see

  from one flat fee to another flat fee

  the hours are short and the money’s free

  and the guardian angels are working for me

  i under pressure suggested it

  why not confess and quit

  you’re 39 sir and less than fit

  he took my false address and split

  by the dirt road through the fever trees

  in a lamborghini if you please

  to get from a to b

  i beat my heart and bend my knee

  the guardian angels are working for me

  paralysed in precious stone

  canonised i stand alone

  in the clouds of paradise my home

  a million orchids deck the throne

  of the man who numbered al capone

  the man who numbered all his bones

  a personal friend of the sacred three

  the guardian angels are working for me

  i mustn’t go down to the sea again

  sunken yachtsmen

  sinking yards

  drunken scotsmen

  drinking hard

  every lunatic and his friend

  i mustn’t go down to the sea again

  the ocean drags

  its drowning men

  emotions flag

  me down again

  tell tracy babs and gwen

  i mustn’t go down to the sea again

  the rain whips

  the promenade

  it drips on chips

  they turn to lard

  i’d send a card if i had a pen

  i mustn’t go down to the sea again

  a string of pearls

  from the bingo bar

  for a girl

  who looks like ringo starr

  she’s mad about married men

  i mustn’t go down to the sea again

  the clumsy kiss

  that ends in tears

  how i wish

  i wasn’t here

  tell tony mike and len

  i mustn’t go down to the sea again

  the face behind the scream

  this case appears to be urgent

  kindly pull the screen

  cosmetic surgeon

  the son of mister sheen

  is jerry building versions

  of the face behind the scream

  the girl who would be beauty queen

  tells the doctor of her dream

  in which she reads a magazine

  wearing only cold cream

  they call her the face behind the scream

  the image he maintains

  and the silence he observes

  say it’s worth a little pain

  for the figure we both deserve

  a cowboy by profession since the age of 17

  who’s singular obsession is the face behind the scream

  the girl who would be beauty queen

  tells the doctor of her dream

  the soirée in the mezzanine

  the castanets and tambourines

  a careless word an ugly scene

  the doctor knows he’s made for good impressions on demand

  the new nose in the neighbourhood was fashioned by these hands

  he can do it blindfold his instruments are clean

  a snapshot in his mind holds the face behind the scream

  the girl who would be beauty queen

  diamond rivets in her jeans

  wi
ld and with it even off screen

  he removes the bandage and the odd remaining scab

  a flair for fancy language

  the gift of the gab

  hands you a sandwich applies the vaseline

  to show to best advantage the face behind the scream

  the girl who would be beauty queen

  tells the doctor of her dream

  in which she turns her money green

  finds herself in a funny scene

  cracks up like a shatterproof windscreen

  danke schoen ich liebe dich i promise not to hurt

  a telephone receiver clicks RED ALERT

  whatever you do don’t touch that switch the doctor goes to work

  with his bag of tricks in his limousine

  mugshots from magazines

  face creams and photofits

  to fix the face that doesn’t fit

  the face behind the scream

  the girl who would be beauty queen

  surrounded by the regular team

  of pluto brats and coma teens

  in bowler hats and brilliantine

  or bold cravats of bottle green

  such a precious little dream

  to be taken to extremes

  how many times can you be 16

  they call her the face behind the scream

  90 degrees in my shades

  i’ll be there if you want me

  exactly where you said i’d be

  in the easy chair

  in front of the tv

  i don’t care what i see

  the au pair on the bed settee

  with her teddy bear

  and a cup of tea

  i swear she’s out of her tree

  the way she stares right out at me

  i can’t leave i lost my key

  i can’t breathe somebody help me

  visiting the bathroom

  that’s my format

  living in a vacuum

  keeps me warm at

  90 degrees in my shades

  90 degrees in my shades

  surprise surprise that monotone phrase

  idealise this monochrome haze