Douglas W. Gray lives in Aberdeen and is a founder member of the Dead Good Poets,
a ‘reading for charity’ poetry group.
 
Published widely in the small press circuit and a former editor of Storm and Spume. 
Awards include: second prize in Northwords Poetry Competiton 1998, 
first prize in the Feile Filiochta and the Irish Times Perpetual Trophy 2001, 
second in the Scottish International Poetry Competition 2003, 
first prize in the Ayr800 Open Poetry Competition.
A forthcoming publication Flesh, Place and Other Colours is due in April 2006.



 

ASKING FOR IT

The type that’s ladies first, pull a chair
or move aside when standing in a queue. 
Lovely guy. But lovely ain’t enough. 

With a view to pump the volume up, 
my domicile reproof: ripping books 
and papers, cutting clothes or branding 

with the iron’s steaming hoof; I’ll bump the car 
through the lack of his ignition. To dig 
a metre in the ground will pierce the heart 

of the Earth— a little Taoist wisdom
on frustration’s seismograph. So how far
has it gone? Another rum affair.

And I don’t care for the goddamn house, 
just once in a while he’d beat me. 
Talking dirty? Don’t make me laugh.