photograph by Simon Marsham
Alex MacDonald lives and works in London, he has recently had poems published by Clinic, English Pen, Rising and the Oxfam Book of Young Poets. He was a runner up in the PigHog / Poetry School Prize and he ran the reading series ‘Selected Poems at the V&A Reading Rooms’.
The Dark Wash
When the presenter calls my name
and speaks of my achievements
like they’re the qualities of a dusty wine,
the video will play out my highs and lows:
the trip I took to the self-mummified priests of Japan,
me drinking the blood of the ruby tree toad,
showing how it influenced my sound, my whole image,
then my tiny beginnings, my music teacher
with a homemade t-shirt, my face ink-jet printed,
and then finally the fall of my glittery opponents,
their faces atomised into thumbnail pixels.
And when the dry ice rises and I’m finally alone,
I know I’ll wince and think of how each song
is like pulling out a knotted jumper
from the dark wash, hanging it on the line,
pinning it up to the evening sun.
Do Your Thing
Love you sleep so well like a dachshund
kidney bean shaped in diminishing Zzzzs
now putting on your clothes so good
I want to dress just like you
shirt collar and cuffs and new age necklace,
our love is so androgynous,
French plaiting your hair, when it falls
its colour could blind the weak,
our love makes us run past the eye hospital,
your laugh is like the opera libretto
where the subtitle says “love” in capitals,
and now if I can invite your eyes on stage
whoosh the tablecloth trick worked
but knotted in to the emerald marble
are your pupils starring as two black swastikas,
and now you’re heading for the stage door
on your way to become the Viking of 6th Avenue
with a cat stepping between your helmet’s horns,
when will I see you again, until tonight
my beautiful Danish Prince?
