Alan Dixon

Know them by their machines, Machines of visiting friends, As they want to be known. Not beautiful, I think, But elegant, I suppose, She speaks if what I wear Respects her neighbourhood.

My wellingtons and spade Make me invisible; Having no shiny shell I take to camouflage. Sometimes card-backs displayed Like polished teeth show me How popular they must be.

Outside her house I see A slouchy...

You didn’t expect Jackson Pollock flicked over the frame. (We imagine fun-crusted machines and their operatives’ Overalls standing as sturdy as pachyderms’ legs.) Take a dekko at this black bottle! A dynamo! That thing with a grid that looks a bit like a compound eye Isn’t a reflector. Yes, bikes always had an insect look. Picabia rode a wheel-winged insect, though I...

Scruffy cyclist in black track shorts with shammy-leather internal arse patch designed and executed by mother, I once saw Jean Cocteau.

Something was going on in a bank, or a place like that on the Riviera – I think it was Menton. We were inquisitive and looked through a narrow opening, and there he was, saying something to his muralist about shapes on the ceiling. Were they winged...

Think what a terrible waste nailed by the bed Of a spitting hag, bride long ago, once fat, Or pinned next to a feather on her greasy hat This flat, black, sun-dried, and, through lack of a drenching, dead Bridleway toad would be! But O so chic It would be sure to look hung round the neck On a silver chain easy enough to thread In that clean nail-hole knocked right through the head! Just...

It is sad in the grave my master, my chosen Who fed me and stroked me and clicked on the fire, And though you tried to make me comfortable And laid me down gently, wrapped in a towel, And dropped in forget-me-nots and daisies – Day’s eyes for mine, to die here with me – It is sad to think I must lie here forever.

So I beg you,...