The Last Barman Poet

The world’s last barman pot - Heidi Murphy

2011-02-28T04:22:00.000-08:00

I am the world’s last barman pot

Because I Googled it wrong.

My grammar makes the Oxbridge lot wince;

I am the Spoonerism, the four candles,

Either Ronnie (preferably the alive one),

The Stripper Sausage Dance, performed by Mrs. Malaprop.

I am the Millennium Bug,

The politician’s serpent promise,

I am all the fuck ups, the misdemeanours,

The Santa Claus lie,

An egg, laid by the Easter Bunny.

The chicken and the egg.

The hyperbolic immigration problem about to capsize the country.

I make the innuendo filled typo,

The backfiring PR campaign – I am Tom Cruise’s agent.

I write the ambiguous headlines:

‘protests try to ruin play, actors succeeded’

The adverts – ‘bikini models – both sexes needed’.

‘For those of you watching on black and white TV’

I can misquote whatever you need.

I am the world’s last barman pot.

Throw your cigarettes in me, you can’t smoke in here;

I ruined the atmosphere -

No more thick smog, piss and stale beer.

It’s boringly clean in here.

I am the last barman pot.

Not only do I deal drugs

But whilst you’re getting hooked on every flavour I got,

I can also pour you a shot.

Last Barman Poet: Live!

2010-11-03T01:26:00.000-07:00

A few clips from the live event at Homework, held at Bethnal Green Workingmen's Club:

Martin Figura: Yorkshire Last Barman Poet

2010-10-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

‘ow do

I’m t’Yorkshire’s last barman pooet

a reet Bobby dazzler

I see Wakefield suppin’t’fabulous cocktails

I mek tykes get stinkin’ on summat

I sturr and shek

t’sex on t’bus

t’Schnapps med from fuss

n’bother

t’Knaresborough nipper

t’Yorkshire Ripper

I mek stuff with abuse and broth

t’pink whippet

t’3-toed goth

I mek drinks so sweaty and jazzy

t’kazee

t’iced cuppa

t’ay oopa

t’chuffed

t’ecky thump

t’Scarborough snikket

t’pikelet

t’coal ‘ole

t’livin’ ower t’brush

‘appen y’reckon

yer a reight gud sooart

put wood i’th’oil

quit faffin’

git kaylied

Leanne Moden: The Last Dinnerlady Poet

2010-10-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

I am the last dinnerlady poet.
I see the youth forcing down the fabulous tripe I serve.
The youth feeling queasy on something I boil or bake.
The leftover fish pie, the cauliflower surprise
The cold soup with the skins
The fishfingers from tins.

I make things with suspicious lumps
Unidentifiable meat, boiled cabbage in clumps.
I make meals so unappealing
The veg is grey with the sauce congealing.
Jellied sprouts with sauerkraut,
Gravy so thick, you'll need an ice-pick.

Kids, you're so tolerant of my inedible munch
Why not go into town and have a sandwich for lunch?
The kitchen is closed.

Michael Egan: The last American beat barman

2010-10-15T08:15:00.000-07:00

America I am the last to give you my all and nothing

I see America drinking the human war I make

Americans fucking themselves with the atom bomb I shake

the angelic taking off of clothes

the sex full of tears in libraries

the insane demands

the perfect machinery

I make saints out of want

the sinister joker

those three-toed blossoms

I smoke Communists every chance I get

the closeted English rose

the Chinese lays

the unspoken raver of Amens

the vibrating visionary

the reader of time’s cover

the Marxist on the candystore corner

America you’re devoted to my national resources

but if you want to get holy

why don’t you just get down and get a job

all openings are barred.

Angela Byrne: Electro Kamikaze Mix

2010-10-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

Aisle16: we drink the poem

2010-09-30T04:06:00.001-07:00

Blind Whitman Slim: The Last Poet Barman

2010-09-30T04:03:00.001-07:00

Ian McLachlan: The World’s Last Barman Poet

2010-09-30T04:02:00.000-07:00

I am The World’s Last Barman Poet,

apprenticed to Jean-Thomas Cruz,

half-French, half-Spanish wizard

with vodka, lime juice and thesaurus

via a backpacking trip that didn’t

work out, small misunderstanding –

Not drugs, talcum powder, see?

The times I hated Jean-Thomas,

all his prattle about the holy spirit

of cocktails, the preparation

a kind of sacrament, and of course

the importance of abstinence,

when he was tapping my girl

in his hotel suite every chance

he got. I lay in the room below,

wall fan beating its sultry drum,

alert to the trochee of bedsprings,

him, between thrusts, shouting: Twist

of dark rum! Whiskey! Orange juice!

Until one night I added a good slug

of hydrocyanic acid, thus became

The World’s Last ... you get the idea.

Candida Albicans: the bar sluts last moistened towelette

2010-09-30T03:57:00.000-07:00

I am the bar sluts last moistened towelette

foil-wrapped refresher vignette

she puts her head in the door & even

if there's nobody she knows

she doesnt leave

but sticks around,

probably for the ones she really needs

she thickens the voice & he knows

shes hassling punters ordering spritzers for "wasp whores"

imbibing bribes she'd take

The Daytona Beach

The Anus, singed by Bleach

The Vagina Sanga

The Backend Rammer

If it weren't for me mopping at her gusset

It'd be a stodgy russet (she occasionally bleeds juice and froth...)

The Pink Squishmitten

The Cameltoe Goth

She dredges the trench be with my wet-one

The Liced-Lips

The Kandida Albicans

The Caustic Chasm

The Microplasm

The Slipperysore Slot.

A Fling-a-ling.

"A FLINGALING?!"

Poet barman

you tried everything you got

but my bar slut's gonna get loaded & hit on you

no matter what

Legs are open.

Lenchen Elf: The Last Bawdy Suet

2010-09-30T03:54:00.000-07:00

The distance between here and there

runs length of bar, optics at half measure.

Squint, accordingly, sharp cut of your hair

asymmetric to hide the eye. Fag pinchclenched

behind your back, hot gaze toasts rare steaks,

blueblooded skirt and flank, sparsely seasoned,

seared by your stare as they flex over tables,

make the break. You steer your interest to rump.

Meanwhile, scrape up carbonised leavings

griddled and scorched, burger bun shaped,

all hands to the beer pump,

dreaming of droit de seigneur.

Salena Godden: Cockcockcockcocktail

2010-09-30T03:41:00.000-07:00

i am the world’s last barman poets cock

i am the cock that hangs flaccid and limp

between the legs of the world’s last barman poet

what an appalling cock

more a winkle or a pee-pee

than a cock

if you know the difference

and believe me

i know the difference

i don’t know what i did to deserve this fate

its embarrassing

i’d self harm if i could

i’d pierce my own ballbags with knitting needles

i tried to drown in my own urine

twice

more to the point

i would like to have sex

with a girl if possible

this would be a good thing

then i could grow big and hard and be

a dick or even

a shlong or a whopper

he tells chicks he is the world’s last barman poet

the world’s last barman poet?

what does that even mean in real terms?

world’s? last? barman? poet?

at least i know i am a cock

because

i am a cock

but, this?

this is a turn off even for me

i physically contract

when he gets up on the bar

and starts with the: I am the worlds last barman poet schtick

he is under some illusion

this will seduce babes to drink cock

cock cocktails and lose their inhibitions and

remove their clothes and their skanty

panties to permit me to

twitch away inside them

these hot dark holes

he whispers and whimpers about

in his wet dreams

i see americas finest cocks

pissing away great opportunities

to get some juice and some heat and some love the cock time

the cock

cock cock

cocktails

he makes

are  so strong and potent

they are killing the cock

do you know

i’ve seen the greatest cocks of our generation

shrink under the influence of cockcockcocktails

shrink? and i mean recoil and disappear

i see americans getting stinking

on everything stirred or shaken

these cockcockcocktail drinkers prop up this bar

talking big talk

about cock tail this

and cock tail that

and cock tail

cock

sex on the beach  and schnapps made from peach 

velvet hammers and alabama slammers

slippery nipples? what slippery nipples? 

show me the pink squirrel or a brazillian

what i wouldn’t do for a sucks fizz

a screaming orgasm and a death spasm

right on the end of my singapore sling

your ding a ling? my ding a ling

dontcha wanna play with my ding a ling?

mister

worlds last barman poet?

- my bell end

what I wouldn’t do for some face to face fandango

a joystick joyride or a dirty dongle

the standing tiger crouching dragon

even some tea bagging

but instead we just go home alone

and its you

mister worlds last barman poet

you, with me in your left hand

watching ‘top gun’ or ‘rain man’

kelly mcgillis works us up

dustin hoffman finishes us off

until i juice and froth

into your crusty sock

americas cocks

we unite and we are revolted

at every flavour of rejection we got 

this cocks a gun and its hot

but if you want to get loaded 

just order another shot.

performance notes:

this is to be read aloud to people familiar with the tom crusie movie ‘cocktail’ and the orginal performance poem ‘i am the worlds last barman poet’.

ideally this should be perfomed to an audience likely to be happy to be seen in tom cruise face masks, not essentially, but probably.

please perform this poem in a wig that resembles katie holmes – dark chocolate, glossy, shoulder length very straight hair. think tom cruise but with auburn girls hair. please note this piece works well when delivered in a french or latino accent if possible. if this is not possible - dead pan english – as though delivering a letter of condolance or you are stephen frye.

dress code: think rebellious and revoltionary. you are the cock, sound like you love cock, have time for cock and understand the cock and its frustrations. please remember all cocks are french or latino sounding, throw in the word beouf! go crazy! combine french resistance (a black beret) with a frida kahlo (mono brow) and a fat cigar!

and finally when intoducing the poem you are permitted to say the author of this poem is ‘freeda koch’ but this is your choice, i found it doable to be ‘freeda koch’ without ever revealing the real name of the narrator that poccessed me to write it - freeda koch – i was ‘freeda koch’ for a day and now its your turn! for warm up excercises before your show say this 7 times: “free the cock ! viva cock !”

Media plugs

2010-09-27T01:53:00.000-07:00

Last Barman Poet project is mentioned on the Mercy Podcast today, broadcasting from the Liverpool Biennial. Its a really good show and you should listen to it: http://bit.ly/dkFFET

Last Barman Poet also appeared in a few broadsheets over the last week: The Independent and The Guardian. Thanks! If you've stumbled across this page though one of those newspapers, perhaps you'd like to write us a version yourself? My email address is RossGSutherland@Yahoo.com

We've decided to keep the project rolling after the live event this Wednesday. We'll just keep accumulating poems and see where it leads us. Maybe it'll end up being a christmas book?* Something you can give to barmen / poets / friends / barman friends / poet friends / barmen poets / friends you don't like / people you don't know who aren't barmen or poets.

*In the extremely unlikely circumstance of this happening, we'd get back in touch with all our contributors.

The videos

2010-09-27T01:26:00.000-07:00

Zoe Langdell: I am the world's last barista poet

2010-09-27T01:19:00.000-07:00

I am the world's last barista poet.

Can I get three lattes, a double mac

two flat whites and a long black?

A queue at the door at five minutes to eight,

we don't do skinny and it won't help your weight.

You pour in the shop, two, three times a day

still after two years, we have nothing to say.

We don't do soya or chocolate or teas,

yes you're the customer, but we're not out to please.

Steaming milk and pulling shots

my honest objective is scoping who's hot.

Intense concentration on making your drinks,

just that bit braver and I'd give you a wink.

Maybe even write my number on a cup,

is it that easy to get a caffeine fuck?

Rubbish I know, you're not here to see me

I'm over the counter, but you're here for coffee.

-Zoe Langdell

John William Brown: I'm Your Last Crude-Crap Barman Poet

2010-09-27T01:07:00.000-07:00

I'm your last Crude-Crap Barman Poet,
I will make you my Rum-A-Dum-Dum,
I will serve you my Snaked-Rectal-Blue:
You won't know your throat from your bum,
I say this with pride for it's true:
You will die when I serve your sweet cocktail,
You will sing out my praises
While pushing up daises'
With a song and a scream and a wail.

I'm your last Crude-Crap Barman Poet,
I can shake any thing when I'm pissed,
I'm known for my smooth Slam-A-Wanger,
And can stow it where it won't be missed:
I can give you my raging Head-Banger.
I can serve you my famed Ding-A-Linger
And this I insist,
With a flick of my wrist,
You will sing like an opera singer.

I'm your last Crude-Crap Barman Poet,
Few are crapper than I who persist
But I stay here creating new verses
And new cocktails that just don't exist.
Meanwhile, as Tom Cruise rehearses,
Let me serve you my best Shangri-La.
Give it a spin.
(If you want me come in -
Leave your backdoor open to the bar).

-John William Brown

Andrew Marshall: I am the last will and testament of Katie Holmes

2010-09-27T01:03:00.000-07:00

Why didn't you help me?

-Andrew Marshall

Crispin Read: The Antepenultimate Barman Poet

2010-09-27T00:43:00.000-07:00

I am the antepenultimate barman poet
I had a scene in the bit before the fat yuppie on the stairs
Bryan also read a poem
but both ended up on the cutting room floor
which was a shame in a way because Bryan’s one was quite moving
if a little naive
and mine was the only screen time I ever had, apart from showing my penis to Cagney out of Cagney and Lacey in the opening credits for season 2
and Tom stole my snazzy / Kamikaze rhyme

the cunt

-Crispin Read

Alan Parker: The Final Barman

2010-09-27T00:37:00.000-07:00

We're drinking together
Premium Lager and Ale
We have sex on the sofa
No beach in Stockwell
Stella and pork scratchings are to blame
for me being stuck to the ground
Will I ever be able to see my penis again?

It's the final barman
the final barman

Ohh
We're dying of cirosis and still we want more
'Cause baby deaths near us, last orders at the bar
With So many free barrels of beer it's hard to drink coke
(to drink coke)
I'm sure liver tastes better anyway

The final barman, oh ho
It's the final barman
The final barman
The final barman
(The final barman)

Ohh
It's the final barman
We're drinking together
The final barman
We'll drink some more
It's the final barman
(The final barman)
Ohh, it's the final barman
Yea

-Alan Parker

The World’s Last Barman Poet

2010-09-27T00:33:00.000-07:00

I am The World’s Last Barman Poet,
apprenticed to Jean-Thomas Cruz,
half-French, half-Spanish wizard
with vodka, lime juice and thesaurus
via a backpacking trip that didn’t
work out, small misunderstanding –
Not drugs, talcum powder, see?
The times I hated Jean-Thomas,
all his prattle about the holy spirit
of cocktails, the preparation
a kind of sacrament, and of course
the importance of abstinence,
when he was tapping my girl
in his hotel suite every chance
he got. I lay in the room below,
wall fan beating its sultry drum,
alert to the trochee of bedsprings,
him, between thrusts, shouting: Twist
of dark rum! Whiskey! Orange juice!
Until one night I added a good slug
of hydrocyanic acid, thus became
The World’s Last ... you get the idea.

-Ian McLachlan

We've peaked

2010-09-24T14:08:00.003-07:00

Last Barman Poet: Live!

2010-09-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

29th September 2010, 7:45 doors: Bethnal Green Workingmen's Club, Pollard Row, London, E2 6NB. £5.

Homework: An Evening of Literary Miscellany presents

The Last Barman Poet

Homework's residents will be curating this live event, presenting their favourite versions of Tom Cruise's poetic opus. Many many special guests. There's a few versions we've been holding back on for the live event, too, including a copy of a rare bluegrass record, a Bourne supremacy remix, and a glittery cover by Bridgett Aphrodite.

Support from Forward-prize nominee and massive ledge, Luke Kennard.

We're also going to put ourselves into the Guinness Book of Records for the most people to simultaneously recite a poem. Pity its such a shit one.

We're still collecting new versions though! Send through your responses / covers / youtube links to RossGSutherland@Yahoo.com

Venue website: http://www.workersplaytime.net/
Homework myspace: http://www.myspace.com/homeworkldn

Rebecca Ward: The Basque Llama Poet

2010-09-24T07:42:00.001-07:00

I am the world’s Basque Llama poet.

I see Spain drinking the life from our region,

The Spanish getting high off the back of our pack animal legion.

I am Pushmi-pullyu

Wearing separatist wool,

Como te llamas?

ETA bomb alpacas.

I make explosives from spit and ‘rabia’,

An Andes trekker

Cum vehicle wrecker.

I make Spain loco and scared,

The rogue camelid

With the tiny head,

The Basque Dalai

Con ándale,,

The castanet-or

With a detonator

I am devoted to Sabino Arana, even though he wasn’t no llama

But if you want less subversion and drama,

Why not give a badger a hammer?

-Rebecca Ward

Lizzy Dening: The Last Barman Ferret

2010-09-24T07:41:00.001-07:00

I am the last barman ferret.
I squeeze fabulous cocktails from my furry teats.
Old men get stinky on the fluids I secrete.
The sawdust from my cage, the schnapps made from mange,
The crepuscular grooving,
The cardboard tubing!
I made things with spit and fuzz, I eat red squirrel, even though they’re my cous-
ins.
I make drinks that pack a bite
Fellas- do you know who’s nibbling your ladies tonight?
The sable-tipped dick
in that Dawson’s Creek chick.
The pine martin fling, the ring-worm-aling.
Britain, you wana see the neat little harness I’ve got,
But if you want a hob-goblin thrill in your jill,
I’ll be up your trouser leg like a shot.

-Lizzy Dening

Andrea Porter: The World's Last Drink in HD

2010-09-24T03:15:00.000-07:00

I am the barman pouring the world’s last drink.

Here the desiccated focus on realities.
Hollow-eyed tune into the final empty.
Adjust high definition on the full glass.
Catch the close up on the dead glass.
Two shots of hydrogen to one of oxygen.
The magic of reaction, the sole interaction
that moistens the lips, squeezes the pips
out of air and nothing, something to bring
to the bar of the departed but the party starts
before the ghosts arrive. Nothing to survive
this last open throat, the last pour live.
Turn the tap, watch the phantom gush,
Zoom in on sand, listen to the hush.

-Andrea Porter

Tom Taylor: This is what I think of you, "last barman poet",

2010-09-23T00:54:00.000-07:00

This is what I think of you, "last barman poet",
You never actually rhymed anything with 'poet'.
Being able to do so is the test of a true poet,
Because it hard to do so, even for a poet.
I can only conclude that, actually, you are not a poet.
Certainly I am not one myself, but at least I am aware of this.

- Tom Taylor

Daniel Derrett: I am the world's briefest barman poet

2010-09-23T00:43:00.001-07:00

That's it.

-Daniel Derrett

Scroobius Pip: The Last Binman Poet

2010-09-22T08:32:00.001-07:00

Ross Sutherland: The Last Batman Poet

2010-09-22T08:31:00.000-07:00

I am the last Batman poet

I see Gotham through a black rubber cowl.

In my fists, I hold the last chance of salvation.

And so I uncap the pen,
let it all out.

I am the last Batman poet.

I am reciting a satirical poem about corporate greed,

my colossal shadow slapped against the coffeehouse wall.

“Big bankers,” I say. “Big balls, but big wankers.”

I punctuate the end of the piece with a smoke bomb.

“Hey,” says a young man in a bookshop,

“I saw you read last week. You were good.”

“Thanks,” I say, and detonate another smoke bomb.

I am the last Batman poet.

I destroy my enemies from the inside-out.

I am influenced by Justice, Physical Prowess and Gadgets.

I also like
George Oppen.

I am the last Batman poet.

The Joker is on the news again.

Five train guards have been slit ear-to-ear.

I make a note in my moleskin:

“Five train guards slit ear-to-ear,”

A week later, I add beneath,

“like macabre, blood-filled Zippys.”

Another poem is beginning to take its shape.

A crime is an image. I arrange them on the page:

The Blood On The Streets,

the Shrapnel, the Creep.

The Shattered Skylight, the Arkham High-Five.

I write poems with such intense political urgency:

Gotham Stop Filling Those Coffins,

10 Reasons Why Commissioner Gordon is Stupid.

I am self-publishing my next pamphlet in September,

The launch is going to be on the roof of the Von Gruenwald Tower.

There’s a free glass of wine if you get there early.

Gotham, I promise

to sign every copy that I’ve got.

And if you live in fear

of the ruthless

and the bullet:

You’re gonna like this book a lot.

Zoë Fiander: The Lover of the Last Barman Poet

2010-09-22T08:28:00.001-07:00

The world's last barman poet

who mixes like Mephisto
has corrupted me with pisco.

He has stuck me in his slammer
and with his velvet hammer
he has nailed me to his heart.

God, if you've seen the sliver
still remaining of my liver
then could you let me know?

-Zoë Fiander

PRESS RELEASE

2010-09-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

PRESS RELEASE: ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNCOVER SCRIPT SO SHIT THEY TRY TO REBURY IT

Today, August 14th 2473*, a paper relic was found at the site of what used to be Hollywood. Underneath a fine earth-layer of pornography and sperm, my team and I discovered a fragment of a script. In the past, scripts were written on paper.** This script section for a Touchstone movie 'Cocktail' hasn't aged a day, largely due to all its corrosive attributes being redirected to the minds of people whoviewed the movie. Former President Tom Cruise is rumoured to have starred in it, giving an Oscar-winning turn (or so his diaries claim) as "the last barman poet". According to our expert, the term "barman" was slang for 'upbeat dwarf'.

This script can tell us a lot about 1980's America. Quite what a "cocktail" is has been opened to debate. Some historians believe that the word is a substitute for "movies", as "Dingaling", "Attack of the massive (?) cunts" and "The Pink Squirrel" were known to be hits for Cruise in his mid '60s.

"Loaded" then could mean an appreciation of Cruises movies. Hence: "But if you want to got loaded / Why don't you just order a shot?" (If you want to watch a Tom Cruise movie/you should shoot yourself). Quite how the final line "Bar is open" should be read may forever remain a mystery. One theory is that he means there's a queue to shoot yourself for watching Cruise movies.***

A few hours after its discovery, our resident art historian attempted to digitally recreate what the scene may have looked like but was tragically had a heart attack whilst working on a section of crowd hairstyles.**** What we can gather from the recreation, however, is that shit and shoes were definitely flung down from the 3rd tier balcony,narrowly avoiding the diminutive actor/dictator.

Prof. Dan Tastic PGCE BE P.E. BYOB, head of archaeology at whatever university will take me, really. There is so little knowledge left.

*approximated date. All clocks stopped during the great explosioning.

** or so Lionel Ritchie told us after he was defrosted and before he was killed again.

***as did tragically happen at the premier of MI7 in Denver, April 2nd 2016.

****God, Cruise did that. What a total wanker.

-Ju shardlow

Tim Turnbull: The Last of the Carmen Poets

2010-09-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

(to the tune of the Toreador Song by Bizet)

I am the last of the barman poets

and very fond of playing furry quoits,

I shake my shaker

while trying to make her

insensible so I can have my wicked way.

A splash of bourbon or a dash of gin

with chloral hydrate makes a Mickey Finn -

Ha ha, how devious

she remains oblivious

thinking she is safe because she's sure I'm gay

or just a harmless little circus dwarf,

a sort of cocktail making smurf

but I'm a man with man-sized appetites

look in my trunks and you'll get such a fright

just look

and see,

oo-er missus

it even frightens me

I am Tom Cruise and not a little troll

I have a tool like a flag pole

I can even wrap it round my neck

in winter if I feel the cold.

but I'm very glum you see

the girls don't fancy me

because I look like Shrek.

- Tim Turnbull

Claire Sheridan: Clerihew

2010-09-22T08:23:00.001-07:00

Tom Cruise
Mixes booze
And says a thing
About a Ding-a-ling.

- Claire Sheridan

Writing lesson

2010-09-22T08:22:00.001-07:00

Tom Cruise tallies a few
more neurons among
the morning's toll,
his forehead lolling
on the bar. Thunk.
In a word,
he is drunk.

Roger Donaldson's beside himself,
could shit bricks bigger than
the latest '88 cell in his hand,
hopes the producers understand:
"Tom's too shitfaced to stand.
There's just no fucking way
this poet scene
is getting shot today."

But booze-soaked Cruise
knows what to do:
a quick strategic upchuck
projected on the floor,
from deep up his sleeve
he retrieves a miracle
feat of sobriety, lugs himself
aboard the bar,
hauling ass, haphazard
as a forced rhyme.
He slurs the lines:

You want poets?
You want poets??

- Colin McSwiggen

Last Barman Poet: Live!

2010-09-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

29th September 2010, 7:45 doors: Bethnal Green Workingmen's Club, Pollard Row, London, E2 6NB. £5.

Homework: An Evening of Literary Miscellany presents

The Last Barman Poet

The Last Last Last Barman Poet

2010-09-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

- Joel Stickley

http://writebadlywell.blogspot.com/

Tutor's notes

2010-09-18T07:46:00.000-07:00

click to see original size

I am the first barman and also the first poet

2010-09-17T04:39:00.000-07:00

It is hard. There aren’t many rhymes for the word ‘wine’. If there

are, I don’t know them. I am stupid, although I don’t know that either.

Also, writing hasn’t been invented yet. Also, somebody like me wouldn’t

know it even if it had. Also, what is rhyme?

It’s the 6^th millennium B.C., but I don’t know that because numbers

are still being invented, I am innumerate, and nobody has heard of

Jesus, so we don’t keep time like that and actually I don’t know what

time is too. I think I am young though and I know I am good looking,

even though there are no mirrors yet. Also, I don’t understand.

Also, what is a bar? At this point, the best I can tell you is that

I really would like to swap some of my wine for something else.

I don’t know what because it’s too early in human development

for money. Also, what is human development? I live in Persia,

or somewhere else near where the film 300 was set. I love the

film 300. Everybody does. that is not gay because gay hasn’t

been invented yet. Or maybe it has. Anyway, 300 is really good

So, I would like it if I could gain somehow from this primitive

wine that I have, although I do not know that it is primitive, nor

do I really understand that it is wine. Further, I would like it if

people would like things that I say. Like I would like it if I could

maybe say a list of things, and people would think that the list

I said was really good. Like they would like me. Like I might go

‘the wine!’ and they would all go ‘woo!’, and I would go ‘the wine’

and they would all go ‘wooo –ooo’, or ‘the wine?!’ or something.

Like then I would have the wine, and say things, and that would

Be what I do, although I don’t understand that phrase because I

Live before the de-coupling of business and leisure which I also

Have no understanding of at all. But I would like to say things

And have the wine. At the same time, I think. I don’t know why.

I still think so though. Like, I have the wine, which is right over there,

and also I can shout. That is good. Yes! good. I think that, in the future

people will agree that those things are pretty good. What is the future?

-Chris Hicks

Last Brahmin Poet

2010-09-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

I am the subcontinent’s last Brahmin poet.
I see young technicians from Bangalore
wearing bodywarmers as they take the long,
slow walk beyond their physical selves.
I see Bihari gangsters learning to love.
I see Tam-Bram socialites driving horribly
through Colaba, bellies full of colourful drinks,
knowing that if death should visit them,
it’ll be Ganesha’s trunk on the gear stick
Lord Vishnu’s four hands at the wheel.

They approach me for wisdom,
then try and second guess what I’ll say:
“...Something about lacto-vegetarianism,
patience, maybe virtue, a rhyming aphorism
like ‘knowledge is earned, not learned’,
a cryptic factoid about the largest animal
that ever lived, some unreferenced lines
from the Vedas to make me feel dumb.
Bully for you, Saint Haircut. I choose my caste
to match my mood. Today I feel untouchable.”

Then they hand me ten rupees
and slip away to take a video call.
India, I’m devoted to all your children.
My patience remains unworn.
But should the population need thinning,
let me offer myself to your sword.

-Joe Dunthorne

Drafted on a lime green napkin

2010-09-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr Cocktail,

As a subscriber to Mr Cocktail Magazine for over two years, I must say I have become increasingly disillusioned by your publication’s editorial staff. As far as I can see, these people are incapable of pulling their head out the sand and providing their readership with challenging, contemporary cocktail recipes.

Month after month, Mr Cocktail offers up a series of leaden and fundamentally utilitarian drinks: cocktails designed to be drunk without thought, and then forgotten just as quickly.

No column inches are ever dedicated to the wider practice of modern cocktailing: no mention of the improvisatory Crushed Neon Group, no mention of Lev Harrington’s Slow Cocktail movement. Some extremely interesting work has been coming out of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Literary Mixology, as you may or may not be aware. And yet, these unstable poetic shards go undocumented. Instead, the cover of your magazine this month bears a photograph of the duty manager of the Bristol branch of TGI Fridays. It’s like looking into an open casket.

Last month I sent your offices the recipe for three new, modern rum-based drinks. Naturally, I did not expect Mr Cocktail to publish the entire triptych, although I find it hard to believe that not one of the Analogue Twilight Cycle was considered worthy of your pages.

I have reattached the best of those recipes for a second perusal. The cocktail is entitled: “The Door Is Open And The House Is Dark”, and is dedicated to the writer and essayist Vance Bourjaily.

The cocktail contains:

5cl bourbon

½ shot crème de framboise

Wineglass of raspberries

Winter

Dead leaves, possibly Russian

A clown dying in the corner of some Ivy Legue university

The way that first it rains, and then 20 minutes later, it rains under trees,

A freehand drawing of an electrician, tacked to a dusty corkboard

Blake’s hand, reaching into a silk puppet

Your fucking Dad.

Instructions: Crush the dying clown into psychedelic light. Drown the leaves in bourbon and cover. Blake retrieves a signet ring from the head of a Chinese shadow puppet. Winter freezes all liquids, and your Dad is reminiscent of everything. Unpin the drawing of the electrician from the wall of your unfurnished flat, and stand there until rain comes down outside like a stampede of tiny unicorns.

You might want extra sugar or crème. Also, change the flavour by using different crèmes and berries.

Just because a cocktail is difficult, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to drink it. Some truths cannot be easily swallowed. And perhaps this is the point: Cocktails require us to claim imaginative space; they require us to live with uncertainties. I believe that a good cocktail is resistant to interpretation, and in doing so, is never entirely swallowed. You should be able to return to a cocktail again and again, over the years, each time learning something new about it, and yourself. Discomfort is a valid emotion. As is regret.

For me, what makes something a cocktail lies precisely in the fact that it escapes categories and regards itself as a process, taking an opposing stance towards the prevailing practice of drink assembly. Modern cocktails are not bound exclusively to the contents of a glass, but can appear anywhere: upon the wall of a grocers, within the conflicts a football team, the scrapbook of an old school friend who walks long distances for charity…all of these things are cocktails if they are presented as such.

And yet anyone who picked up your magazine would be forgiven for thinking that all cocktails still used rhyme, and were essentially nothing more than vehicles for crude puns about our genitalia.

Walk into any modern cocktail bar in this country and you’ll see rhyme has been almost completely jettisoned from the drinks menu. Wake up, Mr Cocktail. We’ve come a long way since the Dingaling.

It’s not 1850, for fucks sake.

With regards,

‘Handsome’ Dan Dunlock

-Ross Sutherland

Limerick

2010-09-14T12:41:00.001-07:00

I am the world's last barman poet
If a drink can be drunk then I know it
I can make a Buck's Fizz
That will make you all jizz -
It's grenadine, OJ, and Moët

- Joe Slater

I Am The World's Greatest Actor

2010-09-14T02:46:00.000-07:00

I am the world's greatest actor.

I will punch a hole in space
And you'll believe me
My spaceship is powered by wet knickers and weird mail
Believe me
I have gotten quadrillion score and ten men laid on first dates

I shamed the emperor with honourable action
You want me to kill jap-o's? I'll kill jap-o's.
I'd just as soon
Kill you first.
I've beaten away the off-world mongrel hordes
I wore a tailored suit and cried in the rain

If you tried to fight me, I'd win because
I can do a fight scene
With over thirty-five points of contact
You mock me but I have slept with women who smell of things
You can only begin to imagine
With your febrile minds
And your little lives.

I settled in the end for one with a GREAT personality
That makes me happy.

Ha!

I am the world's most beautiful woman
Ha! Not really! Had you going there.
But you thought I was!
Because

I am the world's greatest actor.
I live in a castle where I worship aliens
I see Americans failing to purchase tickets for the fabulous films I make
But my celestial companions adore me
And they tell me secret things
They whisper in the dark

'Ignore them, Zarboz
They are not your friends
Come with us to the Sun
We are your family, Zarboz'

And I am gone.

- John Smith

The Last Naked Poet

2010-09-14T02:38:00.000-07:00

I am the world's last naked poet.

I see London staring at this fabulous cock that I shake.

Londoners getting excited by something that will awake...

The Sex on the Beach?

Could it get more kitsch?

Imperfect grammar,

Total lack of glamour!

I flash things out of the cloth.

My pink squirrel

Will please us both.

I make you feel perv and trashy.

Yet... no tease.

You can stare and see

My orgasms.

No ectoplasm

Wraps me as I swing.

Look at my thing.

You Londoners are just devoted to every spot of my bod.

But if you want to get closer,

Why don't you just utter I’m hot?

Arse is OPEN!!!

-Ernesto Sarezale

Epitaph

2010-09-13T00:52:00.000-07:00

A boattle hit um on the heid
as the cocktail he wiz makin'
bein' short, he hadnae far tae fall
but didnae stir when he wiz shaken.

- Malky McCringe

I AM THE SCREENWRITER WHO WROTE THE LAST BARMAN POET SCENE. ACTUALLY WROTE IT, WITH MY HANDS AND BRAIN, UN-IRONICALLY, AND THOUGHT THAT WAS OKAY.

2010-09-10T05:32:00.000-07:00

Click here to read the PDF of Molly Naylor's script.

WINE

2010-09-10T05:29:00.000-07:00

Wine?
Wine...ot?
Why not?

-Tom Rowson

The Last Poets' Barman

2010-09-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

I am the Last Poets' barman,

They're in here all the time,

Dreaming of revolution,

With a mix of jazz and rhyme.

Progenitors of hip-hop,

Embarrassed at their luck,

To be considered father

To a bunch of rappers who suck.

Who rap about the rocks they got,

And their new clothing range,

Hardly weighty verse designed

To engender social change.

I'm the Last Poets' barman,

I help them drown their sorrow.

I pour a round and call a toast:

"The Revolution Starts Tomorrow!"

- Andy Bennett

Last orders at the Apocalypse: Joe Hakim

2010-09-09T08:41:00.001-07:00

Always been a bit rough round here,

but since the bomb went off

it’s just got crazy.

How do you take it? Safe or risky?

Want some irradiated water in your whiskey?

Something to eat?

Some crunchy cockroach treats?

At least nuclear fallout

makes the sky pretty.

Pull up a pew, let’s talk.

Been a shit week –

I’m losing my teeth and

those fucking mutants keep giving us grief.

Don’t want them in here, making trouble,

dreadful manners, especially after a skinfull,

and they stink like burnt bacon.

Encountered any bandits on yer travels?

I just can’t stand it…

Why does disaster result in terrible fashion sense?

Mohawks, tattoos, leather and spiked apparel…

might as well be in a fetish club,

fucking idiots.

I like what you’re wearing;

sunglasses, trenchcoat, shotgun and

a three-week beard. Understated.

I expect you’re on some sort of quest.

Looking for a long lost family member,

daughter or brother?

Someone’s death to avenge?

Revenge maybe? Message to deliver?

Am I getting warmer?

Sorry, don’t mean to pry, it’s just that

we get a lot of guys like you in here.

Seen it all, mate, trust me.

Only a matter of time before you

find a side-kick, someone improbably young

good-looking, and then you’ll come across

someone or something that

needs saving. It’s always the same.

You’re the mysterious stranger,

and me, I’m just the tavern owner,

because there’s always a place to drink at

the end of the world.

It’s in the rules.

I’ll stand here, cleaning glasses and

dishing out advice until

the barrels run dry or the town explodes

or the credits roll.

Now,

how about that whiskey?

- Joe Hakim

The Last Barbarian Poet

2010-09-09T03:53:00.000-07:00

What is best in life?

I am the Last Barbarian poet,

Conan, Child of Crom, former Austrian bodybuilder,

Fated to walk the land with a sword and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

To crush your enemies

I am become death,

The riddle of steel, steroids building muscle

For us there is no spring, just the wind that smells fresh before the storm.

See them driven before you

Grant me one request--

Grant me the head of James Earl Jones

And if you do not listen, to hell with YOU!

And to hear the lamentations of their women

What is best in life?

The steel. The sword

Marrying well. Running California.

That is good. That is good.

- Will Averill

On first looking into The Last Barman Poet

2010-09-09T00:52:00.001-07:00

(With apologies to John Keats)

Much have I guzzl'd of Mezcal Gold,

And many goodly beers and spirits seen;

Round many spit-and-sawdust dives have I been

Which barflys in fealty to Jack Daniel hold.

Oft of one cocktail bar had I been told

That short-statur'd Cruise ruled as his demesne;

Yet did I never drink its Bailey's Cream

Till I heard the Last Barman Poet speak out slurred and bold:

Then I felt like some eater of the pies

When he's had a pint or ten;

Or like Charles Bukowski when with blood-shot eyes

He star'd at the paper - and took up his pen

And look'd at his life through a glass of Rye -

Silent, at a table in some drinking den.

- Russell J Turner

I am the last taxidermist poet in Wakefield

2010-09-09T00:49:00.000-07:00

I am the last taxidermist poet in Wakefield

I ache for the feel of

Skin and fur

And the smell of viscera.

I have known

Cats and dogs and

Rats and frogs.

My sighs tell touching tales of rabbits, shout of the matted hair of hares,

And whisper softly of the lonely death of deer.

I am the last taxidermist poet in Wakefield.

Alone.

My gruff Yorkishire vowels howl of the bowels of owls.

Alone.

I walk the moorland hill and revel in the thrill of roadkill.

I am the last taxidermist poet in Wakefield.

And this is my song.

- Russell J Turner

The last Cocktail Haiku

2010-09-09T00:48:00.001-07:00

I serve a cliché
Your half-wit liver explodes
This is my sex face

- Byron Vincent

American Sour

2010-09-08T13:36:00.001-07:00

American Sour

I am the world’s last barman poet. Once we were many.

We toured the world describing drinks in such woozy detail

you could almost taste their tang. I was both bourbon and sonnet.

When America turned against actual drinking, we weren't just

The next best thing, we were the real thing. We mixed with the famous

and fabulous. When three or four of us gathered at a reading,

we'd intersect our verse to mix beat cocktails the crowd could get drunk on.

I used to make a damn good living at it, we all did. Just keep distilling and delivering.

Our cash, our status as freeborn Americans kept us from getting in trouble,

till the stinking Puritans turned on literature too. Couldn't stop though,

I was addicted to the words' mellow vintage. I used to make the joke,

in underground clubs – 'was it something I said?' But by then, all laughter

and applause had ceased. As I recited from memory, no-one would stir

though they'd cough nervously, or shake visibly, the poet's D.T.s.

When they hit they hit hard. The Sex smears, our best minds' so-called suicides.

Members of the poetry girl band 'Sex on the Beach' washed up on the Beach,

The plants at every search. Actual Schnapps, made from meths and peach,

The Velvet glove torn off. My last gig I was grabbed by a gang,

left knee cracked by a Hammer, and when they found me,

The Alabama cops stuck me in the Slammer on a vagrancy charge.

The critics turned on us too. Said I make light of things with juice and froth,

no substance. The papers coloured us as Pinkoes and reds.

All the cash I'd Squirreled away went fast, most on the lawyer

I later learned all L.A. called The 3-Toed Sloth.

I went underground. It proved safer to make bootleg drinks

in bathtubs than concoct them on a noiseless Corona.

That last summer of freedom, last summer even the West Coast girls,

so sweet and snazzy, dared to show their legs.

September, The feds did to Johnny Walker what you should never do

to a whisky; Iced him in broad daylight.

Winter, they even got to the poets who declaimed Tea, Coffee.

Billy Horlicks had The best exit. Went Kamikaze,

held up WRR in Dallas, broadcast a drinks cabinet

of poems 'cross half the south for two hours;

when I heard that recording man, I almost had an Orgasm,

frankly. He never shot anybody. That was the G-men.

He heard them coming, you can hear them coming

on the tape, so he switches drinks - they get him

half-way through The Death Spasm, line where he compares

that drink's few drips of squid ink to that of the last hard cock

as it flips out and up.

Ha. I'm not unscathed. Got a tip-off I'd been sold out,

jumped in the Cad in a blackout in a panic, slurred across the highway

into a pillar. Sailed to Singapore in a Sling. Safe for now,

still wake in a sweat having dreamt the door-knock, The Ding-a-ling.

But damn, when I think of the untapped market on that dry continent,

my mouth waters. America, you’re not just devoted to one God;

you have mouths enough to worship every flavor I got.

But if you ever want to get loaded onto a cattle truck,

Why don’t you just give in, indulge, order

a sloe gin ghazal for which its worth getting garroted,

a White Russian villanelle as you await the Black Maria,

the blank verse vodka that gets you shot?

Raise a glass. A glass to those who raised the bar. Raise the bar, my bardic friends.

Why is this window open?

-Richard Tyrone Jones

I am the world’s worst barfly poet

2010-09-08T10:24:00.001-07:00

I am the world’s worst barfly poet.
A woman walks into a bar and asks for a double entendre;
the bar man gives her one.
Alcohol plus girls, always adds up to fun.
The Espresso Martini,
the taking a liberty,
gaining my manly confidence,
sadly a regular occ occ occurrence.
Oh the joys of every lager top I’ve drunk,
my fine thoughts all turned into thunk.
Wallies, rollmops and pickled eggs,
‘aving a knees up on wobbely legs.
One cube of ice and a single malt,
hoping for lock-in, don’t call a halt.
Tonight you look so lush my dear,
or is it just the beer talking I fear?
Kir Royale served up with plenty of fizz,
being too merry to complete the bizz.
I don’t like double entendre;
but I try to slip one in whenever I can.
Bar is OPEN!!!

- Tim Wells