Dominic Burgess was born in Manchester 23 years ago. Having recently received a degree in English Literature and Slavonic Studies from the University of Glasgow, he has returned home and hopes to spend the rest of his life writing.

SOME OF DOMINIC'S INFLUENCES

Click image to listen to an interview with Smith on the BBC Four website; for a selection of Smith's poetry on the Art of Europe website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

Click image to visit the website of the Philip Larkin Society; for a selection of Larkin's poetry on the Art of Europe website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

Click image for a profile of Spark on the BBC Writing Scotland website; for the Muriel Spark Archive website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

Click image to visit the Martin Amis Web website; for a profile of Amis on the Guardian Unlimited website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

DOMINIC'S TOP 5 THINGS

Click image to read the script of the film online; to watch a clip from the film on the YouTube website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

Click image to visit the official Seinfeld website; to watch a clip from the 'Seinfeld' on the YouTube website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

Click image to visit the band's official website; to listen to the band on the YouTube website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

Click image to read about the book on the Wikipedia website; to read the book online on the Online Literature website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

TELEVISION: Nature Boy (BBC)

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SELECTED POETRY

by
Dominic Burgess

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday is neither here nor there:
A weekend guest who sticks, like gum
To your couch, breathing stale air:
Stoned, disowned, and twiddling his thumbs.

Wednesday is being in the thick of it.
A £1 pizza that tastes of its wrapper;
Sweaty shirts cloaked in deodorant;
Masses of screwed-up, discarded paper.

Too busy to sleep, too tired to not;
Tower blocks perch on each other’s shoulders, rude
As the buses you ride in and rot.
This world is an unwashed, flabby nude.

© Dominic Burgess

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EULOGY

They buried him in red,
Though he was a blue;
And they knew,
But didn’t care, ’cos his head
Was in a bad place, they said.

Then they chose a hymn,
A reading from the Bible,
A headstone,
Carved over submerged sin;
Keeping the heathen in.

Worst was the wake.
Local Tories
Drinking sherry
(Though he was a Socialist,
And rarely happy)
Gathered beneath a cloud of fake
Condolence; that’s enough to make

Any naked, frowning ghost,
Haunting streets
Never seen,
Suffer the sound of a selfish toast,
And turn a bright shade of red.

© Dominic Burgess

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BLACK SHOES WITH HEELS

‘Any takers for a pair of black shoes with heels,’
said my Uncle Michael,
slipping them on and teetering past their previous owner,
laid out in a casket.
‘Just, you know… trying to lighten the mood…’
Even dagger-like heels couldn’t cut through that.

Click click click,
Like the tick tick tick of a clock;
Two young, stilletoed ladies
Arm-locked together;

Said one to the other:
‘How do I look?’
‘I’ll snare me a man by hook or by crook,’
Dissolved into giggles that time mistook
For light-hearted banter, forever.

Later, outside the crumbling church,
my father would creep up to Michael,
place a hand on his shoulder
and whisper: ‘Now she’s gone,
we’re next in line.’

© Dominic Burgess

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ONCE A CATHOLIC

The family business was given to me
at the age of three months,
and again at eleven,
once more at fourteen;
conscience, fifteen,
education, twenty
(common sense… possibly never!)

Running the family business almost killed me,
aged three.
(Having said that, what’s the difference
between rehab and nursery?
You’re taught not to scream and shout,
not to lie, sometimes
not to crap your pants,
and given a push to the world
away from fawning sycophants.)

Now I’m a free agent, for all I know
sales are falling and investment’s low;
but the company is growing all the time,
and business is Good,
or so I’ve been told.

© Dominic Burgess

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USES FOR THE INTERNET NO. 1574

A decade ago, when the world was smaller,
someone from the office found a picture of her
shagging the delivery man:
white van,
secluded street,
security cam,
they each had to meet their superior.

She was confronted with a brown envelope,
inside – a grainy, copied photo.

His boss was even less forgiving,
said, ‘How could you do this
after ten years of marriage to me?’

They moved to opposite ends of the country,
where nobody knew their name.

The other day, a chance encounter
round the back of a shopping centre,
brought their guilty thrill flooding back.
But all it took
was a camera phone,
a mailing list,
a blurred recording shared and shown
to anyone, anywhere (everyone, everywhere)
with an interest;

and now they’re really fucked.

© Dominic Burgess

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NOW (the Poem’s Lament)

Now that I’m done,
throw me to the floor like the greasy paper
which held last night’s supper.

Now turn away from me like a lover
fully sated, who gathers the folds of his quilt
and sleeps sweaty back to back with another.

Or the bus-stop thug who gave a kicking
at midnight to the skinny, American backpacker;
walk away,

then begin to forget
the point, if there was one,
of how this even began.

© Dominic Burgess

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