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For photos of Anna reading her poetry during the St Ives Literary Festival, Saturday 10th May 2008, click here"Daddy Freud", "Poe", "To Adonis At His Toilet".

More video and pix of Anna reading in St Ives - Arts Club Cafe Frug night. "Under Deep Cover of the PTA"

Anna Chen's poetry page

Video of Anna reading her poetry during the St Ives Literary Festival in Norway Square, Saturday 10th May 2008. "Daddy Freud", "Poe", "To Adonis At His Toilet".

FISH

Hemingway dreams of an old man mastering Mother Nature
Wrestling single-handed with a 200 pound marlin
Off the Gulf of Mexico
While I tussle with Ernest and the semi-unconscious of the U. S. of A

Ernest loves a drink - his blood - and a fight - his meat.
He's got grit 'n' spit 'n' spunk in his veins
He should've been a matador
Bulls are only one vowel away from 'balls'
And they are built with horns
No prize for guessing what the cat means there

Herman Melville got it on with a cat named Ahab
Fed his leg to a fish called Moby Dick.
What kind of a name is that to give a fish that will be studied in the schools?
Moby Dick was big and he was wild and he thrashed around a lot
Which is kinda funny when you think about it
You may as well give us a story about a killer whale and call it 'Free Willy' or somesuch
But now I am being ridiculous

Horatio Hornblower
What kind of a name is that?

All the American heroes
Why've these cats all got weird names?
John Wayne was called Marion
He would have preferred Marlin, I bet,
But Brando beat him to it
And became a four hundred pound Marlon

Marion and Marlin
So close and yet so far.

If the U.S. of A. was a land of milk and honey,
Did the early pilgrims in their coastal habitats have too much fish in their diet?
What is fish roe, anyway?
Whatever it is, I think the founding fathers O.D.'d on it

BAG FOR LIFE

'Bag for life,'
So Tescos tell me.
Maybe a bit ropey around the edges but not that bad, surely?
Bag for life.
Well, that is fine for you to say,
Dame Shirley Porter,
Tesco heiress,
Westminster City council supremo
And guilty as sin
Only not half as interesting.
Bag for life
Is not a sentence handed down to ladies who lunch
In between sticking the poor into asbestos-riddled tower blocks
Or who blow 27 million pounds of somebody else's money
And then abscond abroad with their loot intact.
Have you bagged your plot on the Mount of Olives,
Dame Shirley,
Next to Robert Maxwell,
Honoured among thieves?
Perhaps the headlines should have read,
'Life for bag'.

POE

I'd like to blow
Edgar Allan Poe
On bended knee
Like Annabel Lee

I'd like to snort snow
With Edgar A. Poe
Swing into the pit
Of his infernal wit

I'd like to sink low
As Eddy A. Poe
I'm desirous to share
His gloom and despair

Dear Ed can you please
Give me a disease
As cool as the red one
Transmitted by fleas?

DADDY FREUD

Daddy Freud was right
My pleasure principle has no scruples.
Elektra on a bar stool
Looking for
DADDY O DADDY O DADDY
Why did you leave me daddy?
Million dollar trust fund Gold card Sorbonne Sugar the pill
Can't you see you made me ill, daddy?
You You YOU
Daddy Freud speeds to the rescue
But he bites in to my Trust Fund
And my shrink rap won't take VISA
Why did you give me such pain?
Why did you rip my soul apart?
Daddy place baby on stone and rip little Elektra's heart out.
YOU BASTARD
You screwed mommy.
I was prettier than her.
And younger.

I CAN HEAR SOME WOMAN SCREAMING

It came to us in a blinding flash,
all heat and light,
the silence of space
in this smallest of spaces
ripping out a new universe.

I can hear some woman screaming.
It is irritating the fuck out of me.
We are all choking on dust
and breathing in smoke
not knowing if we
are burning in hell
and she will not stop.

The moment before this universe was born
I stared across a stranger's shoulder
into a black window
thinking about ... what?
It is so long ago, I can barely remember.
Evictions and shopping lists,
who said what
and who hurt whom.
Then the blinding flash
and the woman screaming.

Try to think about something else,
how my friends will gasp over drinks at my anecdote,
that I'd skived this day,
that I am somewhere blue,
that it's green and it's cool,
that birds are singing,
that I'm only imagining what it's like to be here
and not safe in my home
tn the garden,
in the sun.

In the garden, the woman screams.
Can't somebody shut her up?

If only I could get away from her
but I'm trapped
in the darkness made darker by sparking electrics
illuminating the world in sickly pulses.
And the woman screaming.

The dust has settled.
The smoke has cleared.
Time to take stock.
I should check for injuries
but my hands won't feel.
Nothing will

The woman's screams are louder now.

In the moment of convergence
two universes judder into alignment.
Let there be light

14th July 2005

THE DEMANDS OF LOVE

Apologising until the wind dies,
Whimpering til the sun goes out,
Dragging my belly like a lizard.
Are these the demands of Love?

Walking across glass,
Over white coals,
On my knees,
Will that make me good in your eyes?
Or is kneeling too full of myself
When crawling wormishly is available?

I have made animal sacrifices,
Placed the top two joints of my little finger
Neatly severed by secateur,
On a breakfast tray with tea and a long-stemmed rose
For your approval and delectation.
I never get it.
Only the delectation.

I have flagellated my flesh down to the bone,
Separated my hide and laid it like a rug
For the comfort of your dainty feet.

Here are my dissected innards,
Strewn viscera,
Can you read the auguries?

Those were eyes that are your pearls,
Strung with teeth and toenails
To adorn a goddess.
Such are the demands of Love

I sprung from your womb incomplete.
You never forgave me.

May 2008

Poetry © Anna Chen