A list of sex offenders in your area

Some poems by Alan Fielden this week and next

Alan Fielden is a Korean English poet and playwright and over the next two weeks we’ll be publishing some of his raucously well-observed stuff, starting with these two list themed ones ahead of a reading he’s doing at Mahler Witt Studios for his upcoming collaboration with Monitor Books. R

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Terry Gilliam, 1988.

List of Sex Offenders
 
‘List of Sex Offenders
in Your Area’
in my inbox
I pay up.
 
At night I hack
Their protuberances,
I have no family.
 
When the police come
I’m watching environmental documentaries,
it is too hot for coral
polar bears should be fat
It’s so sad.
 
In prison 
I am a hero
it never felt like this
when I was married
I don’t even smoke.
 
If I get out before I die
I will go on the show X Factor
and just talk for 2 minutes about
mass coral bleaching.

Les Carabiniers, Jean-Luc Godard, 1963.

A List
 
I made a list of my five hundred
and forty seven Facebook friends

and divided them by race   gender
sexual orientation   occupation and religion
 
some I married   some I misplaced
some changed their names  or were lynched

some had their passports stamped and some
took home parts of the wall as souvenirs
 
I divided them by whose birthdays I remembered
and those I didn’t   by whether I knew them from before
or after   by ex-lovers and current
crushes  by who I wish was family  who I
wish wasn’t   by the physically endearing
the belles of the ball   the ones who had ambitions
and those we no longer seem to mention
the ones we laugh with  and the ones we laugh at

the ones who are artists and the ones who
had been artists   the ones who

have paid a price   and those to
whom I owed much   the ones that would

make good fathers or you could
trust with your plants the ones

who can read palms   could teach you to
dance   to flirt   to roll a cigarette   the ones we all

know are sociopaths and are doing
really   really well   the ones

who were at my birthday
and the ones who sent cards

I split the list in half between those who are categorically better
nicer   kinder   sweeter   gentler   tenderer  

more kissable  superior representatives of
the human condition   and the rest   and all of you

were in the second group   I drew names
out of a hat   and made them promises   I put your

voodoo dolls to the firing squad
of my incomprehensible bedtime summary of

unbearable unbearable unbearable
self imposed circumstances I lost

twelve of you to the winter   a third
more were lost to rain   names

running like mascara from
lined paper to the drain  

I divided you into who
would cross the road   or walk by  

who would still say hi at a party  
donate blood   or spinal juices   I made a
 
pie chart of the frequency of
dreams I imagine you creatures have  

five hundred or zero a year and I counted
who I’ve seen naked   for real  

or dreaming   and who I’ve never seen
laugh   or how many times   and those graphs

vaguely correlate   I crossed
off names in the order   so far departed

and then estimated until no one was left
just black lines like a kid’s drawing

of a ladder   I called a name but she didn’t
answer so I thought about him

but that’s all done now
so I called you but no luck so

I called him and he told me the
whole sad story   the long version

over coffee   for six years  
then I thought about calling

her but we were never really friends and
that’s what gave it power so in the end
 
I called you   and it’s good
it’s good   yes to see you it’s warming  

some day   but so much
it’s good   it’s good

underneath   to see  
there’s a bruising in you 

that  knows the bruising
in me.
 
- Alan Fielden