For a woman to notice me I have to
wear the right collar, flash some Yankee dollar,
roast an armadillo in some esoteric pasta,
memorise the plot of every movie ever shot
with well-informed opinions on each director and actor.
For a woman to notice me I have to
swim with baboons in a Bolivian lagoon,
stand in front of tanks outside a nuclear reactor,
rescue headscarfed milkmaids from a drunken corporal’s switchblade
and dance the lindy-hop beside the tomb of Zoroaster.
For a woman to notice me I have to
hypnotise a tiger with a twelve-string balalaika
played with one foot, and pull a handbraked orange tractor
from Southampton Dock to Scotland, with my cock,
while cradling a blind arthritic one-eared baby hamster.
For a woman to notice me I have to
dig Mohenjo-Daro, climb Kilimanjaro
with a tablespoon, raise the velociraptor,
carve haikus in French into a metal bench
and update Communism with a shoe-collecting chapter.
For a woman to notice me I have to
pretend I hardly drink, pretend that I don’t think
that French is the gayest tongue in which I could lambast her,
pretend I’ve never farted or been so broken-hearted
I could’ve cut my head off with a rusty blunt protractor,
pretend I’ve never hated or sadly masturbated
or failed to break the manacles of an emotional captor,
pretend I glide through life like a butter-knife
through milk, and every morning chant the bourgeois Feminist mantra
(while begging for forgiveness for possessing a penis)
that every pale-faced man on Earth’s a privileged sexist wanker.
For me to notice a woman she has to
be pretty and kind, with real thoughts in her mind
and passion in her heart that I can feel with every touch.
But clearly, as my life has shown, I ask for far too much.
