The Oslo Girls

The Oslo girls paint by numbers.
The Oslo girls supplement their income through bookkeeping and prostitution.
The Oslo girls weep for the dead of Juarez.

The Oslo girls invented baseball.
The Oslo girls called for you while you were out.
The Oslo girls like boys with toys.

The Oslo girls are inside the tent pissing out.
The Oslo girls have come for your children.
The Oslo girls favour the brave.

The Oslo girls are outside the tent pissing in.
The Oslo girls shot JFK.
The Oslo girls asked questions later.

The Oslo girls shall look on Helen's face in hell.
The Oslo girls have started so they'll finish.
The Oslo girls plagiarise, plagiarise, plagiarise.

The Oslo girls are training men. Hallelujah.
The Oslo girls will free your mind and your ass will follow.
The Oslo girls give as good as they get.

The Oslo girls are God's gift to women.
The Oslo girls are God's gift to women?
The Oslo girls are God's gift to women.

The Oslo girls know where you live.
The Oslo girls scream when they wanna go faster.
The Oslo girls are on the side of the angels. But the Devil is their best friend.

The Oslo girls do not break eggs to make an omelette.
The Oslo girls are slippery when wet.
The Oslo girls had a farm. Ee-i-ee-i-o.

The Oslo girls got married in a fever.
The Oslo girls would like to meet your mother.
The Oslo girls threw the baby out with the bath water.

The Oslo girls licked the platter clean.
The Oslo girls built Rome in a day.
The Oslo girls told God to do it.

The Oslo girls got drunk on dark wine.
The Oslo girls gather no moss.
The Oslo girls went down to the river to pray.

The Oslo girls like it hot.
The Oslo girls are only slightly bent.
The Oslo girls love you. Very, very much. They just don't have the words.

Russell J Turner - December 2010

My Cocaine Mistress

You were huddled round the fire on the beach,
Shepherding the flames for the evening breeze.
Swapping Special Brew and spliffs with your mates:
Laughing stories of boys and toys,
Cocks and dildos.
Wrapped in a duffle coat of former days,
You flicked a curl back from your ear:
Unselfconscious, sweet, distracted, mischief on your mind;
You smiled not at me, but for me.
And I fell in love with you that night,
That very moment, on that beach,
I fell in love with you;
My cocaine mistress.

You were curled up on the sofa like a panther,
A panther with a roll-up and a glass of cheap red wine.
Grinning at the old war stories:
Tall tales of men and motors,
Parties and regret.
Wrapped in a dream of former days,
You spoke as secret lovers do:
Unselfconscious, absent, perfect, music in your eyes;
You talked not to me, but for me.
And I fell in love with you that night,
That very moment, on that sofa,
I fell in love with you;
My cocaine mistress.

You were crying on a corner in the rain,
Crying for your dead youth and the years that had been lost
At the loving hands of families and friends:
Relations of the blood and the blade,
Instruments and cigarettes.
Wrapped in a dislocation of former days,
Your tears washing away the innocence:
Unselfconscious, squalid, human, sorrow on your breath;
You kissed me. You kissed me.
And I fell in love with you that night,
That very moment, in that rain,
I fell in love with you;
My cocaine mistress.

You are stretched out on the bedsheet like a doll,
Arms akimbo, damaged lady porcelain.
Tracing the journeys your body has taken:
Broken maps of pain and lust,
Addictions and despair.
Wrapped in a skin of former days,
White powder fills the furrows of your flesh.
Unselfconscious, ephemeral, eternal, a perfume on your sweat,
Purging me of all my guilt.
And I fall in love with you this night,
This very moment, every moment,
I fall in love with you again;
My cocaine mistress.

Russell J Turner – March 2009 & November 2010

crawl into my grave and turn the key

i have done all i can to forget you but the memory still creeps across my skin i have done all i can to hide from you but the light still burns my eyes i have done all i can to bury the past in a box carved out of feigned indifference but still you crawl into my grave and break the seal crawl into my grave and pick the lock crawl into my grave and turn the key

Russell J Turner - September 2010

seventeen years

there was a time when i would have given you anything given up anything surrendered my life to you surrendered my life for you but seventeen years is a long time long time stroking her neck running my fingers through her hair beyond comprehension willfully misunderstanding days i wished would last forever nights strung out with pills and whiskey and the laughter the laughter electric glances between us but now the looks are fading tracing lines down the small of her back razor blades cuts of love and pain oozing through dull consciousness some idiot osmosis these celebrations leave their marks on a man and a woman counts the days waiting for her bright lover to return and i dimly feel that desire building up now beneath my tongue she comes to me she comes to me and all is forgotten all buried like water beneath the rush of seventeen years

Russell J Turner - September 2010

Hell on Earth (A Recruitment Song)

If you dig unwanted pregnancies,
Join the Catholic Church;
And suffering from sexual disease,
Then join the Catholic Church.

If child-molesting makes you smile,
Join the Catholic Church;
And help protect a paedophile
When you join the Catholic Church.

Join the Catholic, join the Catholic,
Join the Catholic Church;
If you believe in Hell on Earth
Then join the Catholic Church.

If you believe in fear not love,
Join the Catholic Church;
Because you fear your Lord above,
Join the Catholic Church.

If you deny a woman's right to choose,
Join the Catholic Church;
If you helped the Nazis kill the Jews,
Then join the Catholic Church.

Join the Catholic, join the Catholic,
Join the Catholic Church;
If you believe in Hell on Earth
Then join the Catholic Church.

If you hate gays and all their kin,
Join the Catholic Church;
And think women are the cause of sin,
Then join the Catholic Church.

If you still believe in fairytales,
Join the Catholic Church;
And we'll pin you up with Christ's own nails
When you join the Catholic Church.

Join the Catholic, join the Catholic,
Join the Catholic Church;
If you desire a Hell on Earth
Then join the Catholic Church.

Russell J Turner – September 2010

Got Hitched

Got hitched,
Got stitched,
Bewitched and bitched and ditched.

Got tried,
Got fried,
A bride inside denied.

Got claimed,
Got tamed,
Defamed and blamed and shamed.

Got sought,
Got caught,
Then brought in sport and taught.

Got chained,
Got trained,
Disdained and caned and stained.

Got fussed,
Got sussed,
We must all trust in lust.

Russell J Turner - September 2010

Three Little Words

Listen very carefully:

You will stick needles in my soul,
Run your tongue across my ego,
And pump nitrous oxide through my blood
In a vain attempt to assuage my guilt.

You will paint perfume on my skin,
Interrogate my damaged faith,
And sing songs of synchronicity
In a doomed attempt to dispel my doubts.

You will throw caution to the wind,
Massage my broken bravado,
And write my words in six-feet scrawl
In a futile attempt to confound my critics.

Listen very carefully:

We two are one within the skin;
We two are one between the sheets;
We two are one beneath the knife.
Give me your love and I will give you my ring;
Give me your love and I will give you my heat;
Give me your love and I will give you my life.

Listen very carefully.

Russell J Turner - September 2010

The Mother of Mexican Poetry

I was born in a shack in Sonora.
I was born in a bungalow in Tel Aviv.
I was born in a country house in the Yorkshire Dales.
The details are not recorded,
Because the details are the Devil's secret.

My mother died screaming in child-birth.
My mother turned to prostitution and crack cocaine.
My mother rode with the hunt and the hound.
The details are ill-defined,
Because the details are the Devil's province.

My father raised a hard-eyed child.
My father disappeared in 1968.
My father blew his brains out one Christmas Eve.
The details are transitory,
Because the details are the Devil’s joke.

And three times I was martyred:
In the garden at Gethsemane,
On the streets of Alexandria,
In the cold of Salem meeting-house;
For I am the mother of Mexican poetry,
The daughter of an institutional revolution,
The sister of the unnamed dead.

Russell J Turner - September 2010

vacationing in purgatory

bloody great box of bones you stalk my life
walking on four legs in the mourning
gears clacking cough racking
with a twisted smile
i hide behind children throwing stones
and lick the platter in atonement
scheming my nemesis and fears whirring
a machine machine machine
so much for this brave new world i would pray to god but god has packed up his bags and gone vacationing in purgatory

Russell J Turner - July 2010

on cherche grothendieck

deep in the valleys of the pyrenees
he constructs his tesseract
inverted cubic cross
collapsed into the mundane
four arms to the four winds
driving back the devil
from some perfect world

this is the house that alexander built
this is the category of the incognito
this is the metamorphosis of the sane
this is the geometry of the vietcong
this is where travellers stare into the sun
and write their quest across the sky
and write
their quest
across the sky
Russell J Turner - July 2010

Books What I Have Read

January to June 2010

Byzantium - Giles Morgan (4)
The Cranes that Build the Cranes - Jeremy Dyson (3)
The Assault on Culture - Stewart Home (7)
Nadja - Andre Breton (8)
The Last Days of Hitler - Anton Joachimsthaler (6)
Distant Star - Roberto Bolano (9)
Last Evenings on Earth - Roberto Bolano (7)
Regeneration - Pat Barker (7)
Nazi Literature in the Americas - Roberto Bolano (8)
The People's Manifesto - Mark Thomas (6)
Iron Council - China Mieville (9)
The Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolano (10)
Against Nature (A Rebours) - Joris-Karl Huysmans (8)
By Night in Chile - Roberto Bolano (9)
Amulet - Roberto Bolano (10)
Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview - Monica Maristain et al (7)
Shadowland - William Arnold (5)
Pulp - Charles Bukowski (8)
Black Snow - Mikhail Bulgakov (8)
Headspace - Amber Marks (7)
The Fortunes of Grace Hammer - Sara Stockbridge (6)
The Artist and the Mathematician - Amir D Aczel (4)
The Coming Insurrection - The Invisible Committee (5)

Films What I Have Seen At The Cinema

January to June 2010

Nine (3)
Avatar (6)
Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll (8)
A Prophet (9)
The 39 Steps (5)
The Road (6)
Up in the Air (7)
A Single Man (7)
Shutter Island (8)
The Headless Woman (7)
The Killer Inside Me (8)
Greenberg (7)

we have eaten them all

circling they fly across september
blood red council of crows
hand in hand we lie stubble scraping
watching the portents
formation mirroring our own outstretched arms
touching the horizon gathering the harvest
annunciations of plenty
we declare the heavens open for business
we declare the heavens open for feasting
between the trees beneath the crows
we plight our troth we hold our tongues
there are no words left
we have eaten them all

Russell J Turner - June 2010

we closed the circle

so there i was with cass down the pub i'd always fancied her but never tried it on she was more like a mate and we'd had a few and got onto that six degrees of separation thing and cass was laughing like what's the figure for shagging you know i shagged him and he shagged her till everyone is linked by a chain of fucking like what do reckon for the number of people between us coz i screwed jack and he was going out with penny and i know she slept with jenny once though they both deny it what a laugh penny and jenny didn't you shag her yeah a couple of times so that's four degrees between us and it's even got a rhyming lesbian link in it that's one for the cv we were laughing like fuck and i was getting a hard on under the table just thinking about it wondering if cass was getting horny as well and i remembered my ex paula once told me she'd screwed steve when he was going out with cass and i didn't know if cass knew but i was so fucking turned on i told her anyway and she loved it laughing and laughing and laughing that makes three i said but don't you see she said it makes a circle me jack penny jenny you paula steve me again we're screwing each other we're screwing ourselves and we were so proud of it we went to the gents i didn't even try and hide my hard on we drew it on the blackboard a circle of life a fucking great circle and i fucked her against the toilet wall and we closed the circle

Russell J Turner - June 2010

Cocksucker

For Frances.

Somewhere...

Your script is written on sheets of stone;
Desperate to take the long way home:
Destined for somewhere,
Put on your black hair,
Get in your car and drive and thrive.
Get in your car and stay alive.

Kill me with your kindness, mother;
God died when I was just sixteen.
Show me the silver screen, sister;
This town leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Fetch me a forlorn fuck, lover:
There's an itch that only a man can scratch.

So he took her to his bed and kissed her,
Took her to his bed and wept because he loved her,
Took her to his bed and promised that he missed her,
Took her to his bed and whispered that he wanted her.
Held her till the dawn broke down the door
And slid its icepick through her eyes…

Anywhere...

'I do not know Tyrone Power.
I fucked him a lot, but I do not know him.'

I opened up like a flower,
Sucked his sweet cock, but I do not know him.

Those boys may deprave you,
But God will not save you.

'Gentlemen, this meeting is over...
I don't care to sell your goddamned orange juice.'

Nowhere...

Bring me a bourbon, brother;
Those hounds are howling in my skull.
Shower me with speed, mister;
The reds and the blues and the dancing shoes.
Though I have found hope with another:
There are hurts that only women heal.

So she crept into her head and kissed her,
Crept into her head and wept because she needed her,
Crept into her head and promised that she missed her,
Crept into her head and whispered 'I remember you'.
Held her till the dawn slipped through the door
And cast its roses on her eyes.

Your script is scraped in sheets of dust;
Beauty fades and memories rust:
Flirting with nowhere,
Stick with your fair hair,
Stay on your farm and strive and thrive.
Stay on you farm and just survive...

Everywhere...

The Sound of Seattle fills your sight,
A house on a hill turns your mind to mud.

Will you ever sleep tonight?
That house on a hill breaks your heart in three.

Those boys may deprave you,
But we can still save you.

Friends and lovers, the curtain falls:
Though sense dims yet, we do not forget.

Russell J Turner - June 2010

Sister Laudanum

For Lizzie.

Sister Laudanum takes my hand,
And bides her time, and bides her time.
Sister Laudanum gives me strength,
And bides her time, and bides her time.
Sister Laudanum names her price,
And bides her time, and bides her time.
Sister Laudanum claims her prize,
Yet bides her time, still bides her time.

The world may hold me responsible
For the failings of my lover.
But the world knows nothing.
Society may sneer at me
For the failings of another.
And society may go hang.

Sister Laudanum is my rock,
Yet takes her toll, still takes her toll;
Brings comfort to her faithful flock,
She plays her predetermined rôle:
Screaming, crying, possessed and wild,
Prostrate before the still-born child.
Sister Laudanum comes to me,
And Sister Laudanum sets us free.

Russell J Turner - May 2010

A Variegated Polar Bear

A further series of random musings.

Another Overpriced Abstraction
Three for the price of one.

Marx told me to do it,
Yeah, Marx told me to do it:
Carve a workers' paradise from the bones of bureaucrats,
Sculpt statues on every factory floor,
Scrawl platitudes across the mouths of the bourgeoisie,
And torch the bank, the mansion and the stock exchange.
Torch the bank, the mansion and the stock exchange.

Saatchi told me to do it,
Yeah, Saatchi told me to do it:
Build a bed and sleep in it,
Buy a book and spit on it,
Slice a calf and worship it,
And torch the portfolio, the museum and the gallery.
Torch the portfolio, the museum and the gallery.

God told me to do it,
Yeah, God told me to do it:
Fling whitewash on a bloodstained shawl,
Synthesise the concrete from the speculative,
Tattoo oracles on the skin of courtesans,
And torch the mosque, the chapel and the synagogue.
Torch the mosque, the chapel and the synagogue.
Torch the mosque, the chapel and the synagogue:
When God tells you to do it.

You're My Father and I Won't Renege It
For Kenneth.

You are my father and I don't deny it,
You are my father and I won't decry it,
You are my father and I don't denounce it,
You are my father and I won't renounce it.
In sickness as in health,
In poetry as in wealth:
You were my father, for better or worse,
For good or bad, for happy or sad,
In covert prose and overt verse.
You were my Father and now you're dead,
You're still my father in my head

Hark! The Chicken King Lives!
Almost a sonnet.

The Chicken King lives by the sea
In a castle made of sand.
The Chicken King has daughters three
For whom their father seeks the hand
Of a cockerel with a sense of fun,
A cockerel who will get things done,
And a cockerel who will never run
When wind and hail and lashing rain
And high tides threaten his domain.
For the Chicken King he is no fool,
And he has learned the golden rule:
That when your Kingdom's in the shit
Get your son-in-law to deal with it.

Russell J Turner - April 2010

'I Agree With NIck'

A series of random electoral missives.

A Love Letter to the Tories

Dead David.
You make me moist.
Not moist in a sexual way of course -
I'm not fucking mad
And besides, you're a married man.
No, I mean the 'I want to cry and wet myself at the same time'
Kind of moist.
You know what I mean.
The kind of moist which oozes out of your every orifice.
Ooh, now that really does make me moist.

A Message to Labour

Dear Gordon.
Oh dear Gordon.
Not looking too sharp, is it?
Best you hole yourself up in a cave in the Highlands
And twitter incoherently until it's all over.
And they give you a life peerage.
And all those lovely speaking engagements come rolling in.
Life's a bitch, eh?

An Ode to the Lib Dems

Dear Nick.
I don't really know much about you.
But that Vince Cable seems very nice -
Just the kind of mildly irreverent,
Slightly humorous chap we need running the economy.
Every body's favourite mad old uncle.
Shame you're the party leader and not him :(

Another Ode to the Lib Dems

Dear Nick.
I know a bit more about you now.
Apparently you're almost as popular as Churchill.
How the fuck did that happen?
But I still prefer Vince Cable.
Sorry :(

A Limerick for the Greens

Dear Caroline, you really are right-on,
As you scrap for their votes down in Bright-on,
For no-one should mess
With the Green high priestess,
The kind of girl I could excite-on.

A Note to UKIP

Dear whatever the fuck your name is.
I really want a suit just like yours.
So I too can look like an English gentleman.
Instead of a xenophobic twat.
Indistinguishable from all the other xenophobic twats.
Except for the colours of your rosette,
Which I will pin through your face if I get the chance.
Just to teach you a lesson.
So there.

A Haiku for the BNP

Dear Nick, I will vote
for your party when Hell free-
-zes over you cunt.

Russell J Turner - April 2010

White Chalk Scream

Slow and sensuous, here we go,
P J Harvey for the stereo;
And it's a white chalk scream:
Playing with Polly Jean.
A white chalk bitch:
Grow, grow, grow with the wicked witch.

Slow and sensuous, up we rise,
P J Harvey for tonight's star prize;
And it's a white chalk scream:
Screwing with Polly Jean.
A white chalk bitch:
When under ether with the wicked witch.

Slow and sensuous, there we fall,
P J Harvey for that last clear call;
And it's a white chalk scream:
Going down on Polly Jean.
A white chalk bitch:
A dose of magic from the wicked witch.

Russell J Turner – February 2010

Actions and Consequences

Nothing is forbidden.
Actions have consequences.
Convention may be overridden
But actions still have consequences.

I saw you crying in the summer rain
For the lies and the liquid that kept me sane,
And the pain and the pain and the pain and the pain:
Actions have consequences.

I saw you lying in a clean white bed
With those bloody memories in your head,
Screaming for our unborn dead:
Actions have consequences.

I saw you sighing in the cemetery,
Though you no longer speak to me,
But that’s OK coz our minds are free.
If not our hearts.

Russell J Turner – February 2010

The Fatuous Counsel Shines

A series of random musings.

Every Married Fuller Relays a Trace

I had to look the word 'fuller' up in the dictionary.
It means one who fulls cloth.
Now cloth I understand, but how does one full it?
I know how how to fill it, to twill it, to drill it.
To even Bang and Cillit.
But to full it is to scour and beat it.
And the vision of a married fuller bringing his work home,
Relaying a trace of unfulfilled satisfaction
On his scoured and beaten wife,
Was too much to contemplate.
So I turned it off
And powered it down.

A Victim Amazes a Finished Tourist

She was a finished tourist.
Not a Finnish tourist.
But a finished tourist,
Like Moe Tucker in those Velvet Underground photos,
A naughty schoolgirl amongst Nordic ice blondes
And impossible men with shades.
Perhaps a victim once, but now amazed
To find herself, at last, in the town of her dreams.

The Collective Challenges the Suffix

"We, the undersigned,
Wish to express our disagreement, our disappointment,
Nay, even our disgust,
At the unilateral decision
By the permanent steering committee
To label our endeavours, our struggles,
Nay, even our sacrifices,
With an 'ism'.
'Ism' is a bourgeois concept,
A weapon the petty minded use
To oppress their enemies with language.
For we are freeborn men and women,
Ready to fight, to bleed,
Nay, even to die,
For Universal Socialism."
"Bollocks."

Protein Opens the Sexist Grave

The screams of centuries beat their drum:
Protein opens the sexist grave!
The baby-killers have their fun:
Protein opens the sexist grave!
Mitochondrial DNA:
Protein opens the sexist grave!
The Mother Goddess shows the way:
Protein opens the sexist grave!
Protein opens the sexist grave,
Protein opens the sexist grave.
Like the Worm Ouroboros, I creep in the grass;
Protein opens the sexist grave!
Like the Worm Ouroboros, I'm up my own arse.

Why Does an Impaired Galaxy Sweep Across the Recipient?

"This examination lasts two hours.
You may use as much rough paper as you wish,
But all working must be handed in with the answer sheets.
Attempt no more than three of the five questions."

"Question One:
Why does an impaired galaxy sweep across the recipient?"

Fuck.
I knew I should have revised that.

Russell J Turner - February 2010

Rothko on Your Thighs

Dedicated to everyone in the audience who has ever performed cunnilingus on a menstruating woman.

Last night you were so graceful,
Last night I got a faceful;
Some might call it distasteful,
But certainly not wasteful.

And as the air grew thicker,
That sharp metallic liquor,
The light began to flicker,
My heart beat ever quicker.

Last night was a reunion,
Last night was a communion,
The bride invites her groom in,
The first time I felt human.

The first time I knew no fear,
The first time that I saw clear
The acts that bring us so near;
Last night I fell in love dear.

Some might call it insightful,
Or maybe just delightful,
Whilst others think it fateful,
Last night I was just grateful.

Russell J Turner - February 2010

I fell in love with a girl from Domrémy

For Jehanne – a work in progress

There was a maddening silence in the library
As I beat my head against the monitor,
Screaming 'Information overload! Information overload!'
Vlad looked up from his copy of the Financial Times
Smiling, sprightly for a man dead five hundred years,
He cleared the shelves in one bound
And plunged his kebab into the chest
Of a slightly startled Goth.

But Jehanne, dear Jehanne, stroked my fevered brow,
Whispering sweet revelatory mysticism, softly in my ear,
Whilst toying provocatively with her crucifix.
I shifted sweatily in my seat,
Anxious that such a blatant display of faith
Would bring the wrath of the liberal and the secular
Upon out unconventional heads,
For I feared the atheist police.

We left the building arm in arm,
She with me and me with she,
Picking flowers after dark,
Poisoning pigeons in the park;
Casting plagiarised clichés at the feet
Of uncomprehending passers-by,
While Friedrich, dancing with horses,
Played a penny whistle above an empty hat.

I sat by the side of the sodium wasteland
Weeping, silently, for what was, and could have been.
But Jehannne, dear Jehanne, stroked my fevered brow,
Whispering harsh quotidian mysticism, softly in my ear:
'I lose myself in you, and you in me,
Our suffering is our greatest loss;
But you may lose your certainty,
When you see your lover nailed to a cross.'

Russell J Turner – January 2010

Films What I Have Seen At The Cinema

July to December 2009

Patti Smith: Dream of Life
Moon
Paths of Glory
Antichrist
Mesrine: Killer Instinct
Inglourious Basterds
Broken Embraces
District 9
Fish Tank
Kisses
An Education
Stalker
The Men Who Stare At Goats
Bright Star
A Serious Man
The White Ribbon

Books What I Have Read

July to December 2009

The Gone-Away World - Nick Harkaway
Fascism: A Very Short Introduction - Kevin Passmore
The Vagina Monologues - Eve Ensler
Metrophobia - Stephanie Leal
Symmetry and the Monster - Mark Ronan
The Legend of Elizabeth Siddal - Jan Marsh
Lizzie Siddal - Lucinda Hawksley
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Dale Wasserman
The Kindly Ones - Jonathan Littell
The Night of the Long Knives - Paul R Maracin
Cash - Johnny Cash & Patrick Carr
Ilium - Dan Simmons
Transition - Iain Banks
The Infinities - John Banville
Lustrum - Robert Harris
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard
Olympos - Dan Simmons
Someone Who'll Watch Over Me - Frank McGuinness
Shake Hands With The Devil - Romeo Dallaire
Psychogeography - Merlin Coverley
Breaking The Code - Hugh Whitemore
The Elephant in the Corner - Aoife Mannix