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
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.
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