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Poetry by Stephen Watt

Stephen Watt is a poet and performer from Glasgow.

Stephen’s debut collection of poetry “Spit” was published by Bonacia in 2012. His poetry has been described as ‘kitchen sink film noir’ (which he admits he hasn’t a clue what it means either), punk, gothic, surrealist, and, on occasion, fantastical.

Buy Spit Online

Stephen will be performing at The Glad Cafe, 22nd August, 2015

At Bearpit Brothers E.P. Launch ‘Something Cruel’

– Last Monday At Rio, Cafe Rio, 31 August, 2015
– Smorgasbord of Arts (Scottish Arts Council), McChuills, 3 September, 2015
– High Flight Live, Nice n Sleazys, 17 September, 2015
– Words & Music – featured writer, Lebowskis (southside), 5 October, 2015

https://www.facebook.com/StephenWattSpit

Dalmuir Dog

Self-defence. You howl unintelligible
hokum, curt nonsense
in the hope that babbling
will win temperance, tolerance
with a jury.

Plunge, lunge, thrust, twist,
savage remise
until the dog whines, decries
the blade run down its chest
like a necktie.

Unceremoniously, you use an old
Bugs Bunny t-shirt
to wrap the body; Monday’s trash
in the wheelie-bin
when the crushers arrive.

Airbrush the truth. No consequences
for you. Apologies are kennelled
while the courthouses adjourned.
Proof is a heavy stone
unturned.

Justice fades.
The garden quietens, and a spade
pats the earth with the dog remains.
Crying invades the silence,
then the inhumane campaign begins.

Haldane

*First published in Waterhouse Review, April 2013

Supple leopard-print coats hunt dusty terrains
where ductile, fragile bones become estranged
from blinded creatures in broken homes. Lovers
swing, beneath scaffold and telephone wires
which staff small birds like musical notes;
chimes of the off-license harmony.
Window portraits imitate the moon, eroded
by speed-bump dust, flakes, indigo June insects
split from silk cocoons and Chinese whispers.

Greasy footballs roll like heads in the burn.
Mushrooms sprout, twist, squashed under cow hooves
or stirred in soup pots, turning youth’s stomachs
in the wooded sylvan and makeshift gang-huts.
Dogs munch on pram-crunched digestives, old lady diets,
neglecting the chalked, square mathematics of infant minds
and the rolled-up genie smoke
which sails from the washed steps of my closest friend
guides me home to love, laughter, teasing, cheap weed.

Kilpatrick Hills

Underneath the Erskine Bridge, the Samaritans helpline
appears on a sign, smothered in bat-shit.
The green, flaking skin of a telephone confession box
stores the ridges of fingerprints upon its receiver;
digits of life’s non-believers, since departed.

The pathway into the Kilpatrick Hills has already started.

Sun graffiti’s the leaves.
Sheep play Battleship, either side of the hedges.
Washing lines, outside cottages, string dungarees
performing the can-can in the tame breeze,
in homage to the fat lady’s once-ornate past.

Elves at the brooks struggle not to laugh.

Cabbage butterflies spit out from the yawning chasm
of trees, inclined in narcissistic, rock n’roll shades.
Hallowe’en flowers sizzle, holding bees hostage
until weeds tear out tongues to set captives free,
or a watering can ransom is acknowledged.

Wild plants’ life-spans are frequently impoverished.

On windowsills, radios fight for supporters,
transmitting songs through cat’s hindquarters
in stifling waves of obstructing fur.
Love songs which remind me of her.
Brave cow karaoke fails to stir my thoughts

or spoil the cigarette which I slipped from my socks.

Hours and aeroplanes fly over.
Occasional hill walkers nervously nod
while I share a hangover, talking with God.
The path back down to life now looks blessed,
impressed on these hills like a permanent tattoo.

I turn on my iPod, and then denote my value.

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