You’re beautiful because you don’t see love as a competition and you know how to lose.

I’m ugly because I kissed the FA Cup then held it up to the crowd.

You’re beautiful because of a single buttercup in the top buttonhole of your cardigan.

I’m ugly because I said the World’s Strongest Woman was a muscleman in a dress.

You’re beautiful because you couldn’t live in a lighthouse.

I’m ugly for making hand-shadows in front of the giant bulb, so when they look up,

the captains of vessels in distress see the ears of a rabbit, or the eye of a fox,

or the legs of a galloping black horse.

Ugly like he is,

Beautiful like hers,

​Beautiful like Venus,

​Ugly like his,

​Beautiful like she is,

​Ugly like Mars.

Ugly like he is,

Beautiful like hers,

Beautiful like Venus,

​Ugly like his,

​Beautiful like she is,

Ugly like Mars.

ALL FOR ONE

Why is it my mind won’t leave me alone?

All day it sits on the arm of the chair

plucking grey hairs like thoughts out of my skull,

flicking my ear with a Duralon comb.

Evenings when I need to work, get things done;

nine o’clock, my mind stands with its coat on

in the hall. Sod it. We drive to the pub,

it drinks, so yours truly has to drive home.

I leave at sunrise in the four-wheel-drive—

my mind rides shotgun on the running board,

taps on the window of my log-cabin,

wants to find people and go night-clubbing.

Social call—my mind has to tag along.

Hangs off at first, plays it cool, smiles its smile;

next minute—launches into song. Then what?

Only cops off with the belle of the belle

of the ball—that’s all. Main man. Life and soul.

Makes hand-shadows on the living-room wall.

Recites Albert and the Lion, in French,

stood on its head drinking a yard of ale.

Next morning over paracetamol and toast

my mind weeps crocodile tears of remorse

onto the tablecloth. Can’t we be close?

I look my mind square in the face and scream:

mind, find your own family and friends to love;

mind, open your own high-interest account;

offer yourself the exploding cigar;

put whoopee-cushions under your own arse.

It’s a joke. I flounce out through the front door;

my mind in its slippers and dressing gown

runs to the garden and catches my sleeve,

says what it’s said a hundred times before.

From a distance it must look a strange sight:

two men of identical shape, at odds

at first, then joined by an outstretched arm, one

leading the other back to his own home.

CHAINSAW VERSUS THE PAMPAS GRASS

It seemed an unlikely match. All winter unplugged,

grinding its teeth in a plastic sleeve, the chainsaw swung

nose-down from a hook in the darkroom

under the hatch in the floor. When offered the can

it knocked back a quarter-pint of engine oil

and juices ran from its joints and threads,

oozed across the guide-bar and the maker’s name,