Max Scratchmann's Blog

Hello from cinepoems

Welcome to cinepoems! cinepoems is a new project from poet Rachel McCrum and a loose collective of Scottish and Quebecois poets and film makers, aimed at developing, curating, creating and supporti…

Source: Hello from cinepoems

International Men’s Day

Guys,

If you really want to see an International Men’s Day

We’ll have to do more than buy our own underwear

And change the odd toilet roll,

Because

There can’t be an International Men’s Day

While outspoken women continue to be pilloried in the media,

And corporations use self loathing to sell cosmetics

And men still need diagrams to locate their partners’ lady bits.

And there can’t be an International Men’s Day

Until Malibu Barbie is replaced by

Truck-Driver Barbie

Or Construction-Worker Barbie,

Or even, god-help-me,

Chief Executive Officer Barbie.

And there can’t be an International Men’s Day

While Harley Street surgeons still perform clitoridectomies,

And while men still expect to be applauded for making

The occasional spaghetti bolognaise

While leaving their wives to do

All the other household chores.

And there can’t be an International Men’s Day

Until terms like slut and dyke and whore

are expunged from the language,

And men stop being squicked by body hair

And rapes jokes are just not funny any more.

And there certainly won’t be an International Men’s Day

Until men stop bleating – Well, not all men are like that,

Because, until the male species gets it through their thick,

entitled heads that the fight for equality

Is a human right that needs to be fought for

By both sexes

Then we’re all going to be lumped-in with the lowest

Ukip Neanderthal banging his fists in deepest Surrey,

Because while we all sit tight

In the don’t-make-waves

Comfort of our own political correctness

And do nothing

Then we have to expect to be classified with the morons

Because, frankly, that’s all we deserve.

And that’s why we’ll never have

An International Men’s Day.

Starman

Hello…

Are you there?

Ground Control to Major Tom?

I… I hope you don’t mind me addressing you like this,

But it’s just that I feel I know you,

After that summer,

You know the one,

When we’d bought School’s Out and Aladdin Sane,

And blasted them out for the whole holiday

At my pal’s house

Because his mum was doing summer school

And didn’t seem to mind the catalogue of neighbour complaints

That were waiting for her each night.

And, ever since then,

I’ve had your voice in my head,

The Starman who watches over me,

My own personal Jean Genie.

And you taught me that it really was OK

To be the odd one out,

To be the only person in my year who didn’t like Slade,

And to have long hair and not wear a fucking Crombie.

And, hell, if you could be Ziggy and wear a dress

And still have girls chasing you,

Well,

Then there was hope for me

And I wouldn’t be a Diamond Dog

All my life.

And later you showed me I could wear suits

And still look kinda cool,

That I could say Let’s Dance

To girls that I liked

And, maybe, know a little

Modern Love.

And I’ve always turned to you when I’ve been

Under Pressure,

Or when I felt like Dancing In the Street.

And you gave yourself to my every bedsit room,

Well, at least your posters on my wall,

And I even bought your

Tin Machine CDs although everyone said they were crap,

Because being weird is really all about

Getting it wrong some times.

So, I’m going to miss you,

Ziggy Stardust.

And without your poems I’m going to

Be writing on the walls,

But now it’s time for Ashes to Ashes

And I hope it’s Hunky Dory wherever you are

With Andy Warhol

By your side

And that, by the time I get there,

Heaven will be a weirder place.

Because now you’ve gone and left me out on a limb,

No notice, no nothing,

Not even Five Years,

And though I keep hoping that it’s all a stunt,

And that you’ll swoop down onto the stage

Like Lazarus on a flywire

I’m scared that it’s really true and that you are really gone,

And that I’ll have to

Keep you alive by playing your old records

Like some sad old man,

Because I think the kids have killed a man

And it’s time to break up the band.

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Programme 2015

Source: Programme 2015

Kim Kardashian’s Bum

I went to read the paper, to learn of serious things,

Of wars and death and famine, and cocaine trafficking rings,

But of that learnéd content, there was not much, alas,

But there was a two-page feature, on Kim Kardashian’s ass.

 

So I phoned the busy news desk, said, is all right in the world?

There is no serious content, in your rag, being unfurled,

They said, we’ve got it covered, there’s no need to be glum,

Be assured our top priority is Kim Kardashian’s bum.

 

But what about the genocides, the pestilence and famine,

The corporate tax evaders, the merc’ry poisoned salmon?

But all I heard was silence, they’d decamped to Pizza Hut,

To plan tomorrow’s leader, on Kim Kardashian’s butt.

 

Cassandra’s Portrait of Jane

Cassandra’s portrait of Jane measures about four inches square,

And is said to be “not such a good likeness.”

For,

It seems,

No eminent painter of the day

Lured the good Miss Austen

To his studio to capture her essence in oils,

No sculptor attempted to hew her form out of cool marble,

And no place was reserved in Poet’s Corner for her tired bones.

Today,

Though,

Walk down Princes Street and observe

The Scott Monument towering majestic,

Old Watty and his faithful hound glaring down at passing shoppers,

Though no ladies queue to stroke the moleskin trousers of

Ivanhoe

And there are precious few television re-enactments of

The Waverley novels

These days.

An Interview With Max Scratchman

Max Scratchmann:

Wow, I’m a serious poet….

Originally posted on Visceral Dream Cabaret:

Max Scratchman: Illustrator, Editor and Poet

Max Scratchman is a freelance illustrator whose editorial works have been included in publications in Britain, the US and Japan such as The Guardian, The Big Issue and City Life. He is also a big presence in the Edinburgh and Scottish poetry scene and has performed with groups such as Loud Poets, as well as running a spoken word open mic, The Portobello Poetry Circus.

What got you into poetry, and who are your biggest influences?

I got into performance poetry completely by accident.�� I���d been doing ���author talks��� in libraries for my autobiographical book ��� The Last Burrah Sahibs ��� and they always ask you to ���read an excerpt��� to end the talk.�� Anyway, although I had been a performer in my student days, I was pretty crap at it, but I just-so-happened to see a workshop for performance poetry advertised and���

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Clowns

I’m a clown, though you might not know,

I don’t wear big shoes or a red nose, belong to a travelling show.

For clowns are not always what you expect,

And there are some faux clowns who maybe look the part,

But they’re bad tempered fat old men who are not blessed with the clowning art,

You’ve seen their advertising:

Mr Chuckles, birthday parties, face painting and balloon hats,

In lurid braces performing pratt-falls to take moolah from fat cats,

Real clowns like me, though, are more subtle,

We might make a joke on the morning commuter ride,

Or some witty remark at lunch to stop you seeing what’s inside.

We wear our invisible red noses to cover our shame,

Trip over our big feet to gloss over the atrocities we dare not name.

Men have walked upon the moon but we dare not look too closely at our past,

Dredge up old memories of – say – the year before last.

And though we seem like likeable types and fun to be with,

It is all just layers of greasepaint, our bonhomie is myth.

Don’t trust us further than you can throw our brightly coloured props,

Don’t believe our promises when we say we’ll pull out all the stops

To make reparation for our hundred million wrongs,

I’m sorry, please forgive me, these are our favourite songs.

So by all means, buy your tickets for the circus, watch wild animals roam,

But though you’ll laugh a lot at our clowning, don’t take us home.

This Month!

Those Ladies With The Comfortable Shoes

for National Poetry Day….

Why all the big fuss

About those ladies with their comfortable shoes,

Who mind their own business

Quietly

Sans heels

And brew their camomile tea

And commune serenely With their mystic ginger cats.

Not for them the empty boasts

That one night with them

Will turn straight women gay,

No shouts of “Straighty!”

Or worse,

At passing strangers in the street.

I think that we can learn a lot

From those ladies with the comfortable shoes.