My friend Red gave me a present this morning: 3 collections of hand-stapled poetry by a friend of Billy Childish by the name of Wolf Howard. Red had spoken very enthuiastically of his funny, moving but very reserved performance somewhere in Kent a few months ago – apparently he seemed very nervous and unsure of how good he was. He's good. Really good. Here's a taster (Apologies for any copyright broken, etc)

SWEARY NEIGHBOUR

A baby bird had fallen out of its
nest and my downstairs sweary neighbour
was trying to help it

I watched from my balcony as he hung
a bucket from a bearby fence and
placed the baby bird in it

he then turned to his wife and friend
who were both sat in deckchairs on the
concrete communal patio

“right now we just fucking sit back
and wait for the little cunts muvva
to fucking come along! Look 'ere it
fucking comes now. You can 'ear the
little shit calling for it!”

and I saw him in a different light
after that and his constant swearing
no longer depressed me

until the day I heard him call his
wife a deaf cunt and threaten to
kick her face in if she didn't start
listening properly