This section of the website contains some poetry, or 'pomes', written by Miles between 2000 and 2002 and originally published on the official Miles Hunt Club website in 2002.

The text is repeated here with Miles' prior permission and remains the copyright and property of Miles Hunt.

"I began writing my Pomes (so misspelled by way of reducing the embarrassment of actually admitting to writing p**try in the first place - I'm from Birmingham) in the early 90's. I had started to realise that I was enjoying writing the little asides that accompanied the lyrics on the Wonder Stuff record sleeves more than actually writing the lyrics. There was more freedom, not having to adhere to the rhythm or rhyme of the song, offered me more freedom to expand on the ideas within. I had also, at that time, began to read an awful lot of Bukowski, firstly his novels & only much later graduating onto his pomes. Writing for The Wonder Stuff during the "Construction For The Modern Idiot" period had become an awful chore. Not only was I starting to worry that my best work was behind me, but I was becoming increasingly happier with life in general. Money was no longer the issue it had been in previous years & my home life was just about as content as I coulda wished for. And I wasn't about to start writing from a 'cheery' stand point, that was never gonna happen. So as I struggled with my lyrics I also found solace in this new (to me) creative form.

In 1995 I purchased my first laptop computer. I'm male, and as with many others of that disposition, I enjoy big boys' toys. For some it's cars, but for me it was definitely this new machine. I could lose hours in front of it & not all seemingly wasted, like the hours lost in front of my PlayStation - a short lived fascination. In short, were it not for my relationship with this Apple Mac, I doubt very much whether I would have pursued the Pome to the point I have now. I won't claim to be particularly prolific with the word, but when they come, in the right order, it's an astonishing feeling. Much like the first time I hear a mix of a new song for the first time, only more personally gratifying and... I may as well cop to it.... easier.

Make of them what you will, the pleasure is all mine, I assure you."

Miles Hunt. February 2002

Including Me

On a drive back from Brighton, through Lewes,
I saw a girl & a man on a bicycle arguing in the street.

The man was untidy.
The girl was naked.
He looked embarrassed,
she, possessed.

For 3 hundred yards or so I could see her.
The man had cycled away in the opposite direction
to the one that I was headed.
The girl was walking on the white lines
in the centre of the road - in exactly my direction.
Although she was obviously upset,
she wasn't crying.

She would run a while & then slow to a walk.
I would gain distance from her & then as the traffic
slowed she would be level with me again.
As she ran she held her breasts.
At one point, as she passed me another time,
I saw that she had her hand between her legs.
It didn't seem that she wanted to cover herself,
more that her hand was there for comfort.

I looked at all the other people on the street.
The pensioners, a guy on his lunch break
from his job at the bank (he still wore his I.D. tag),
some teenagers, couples, mothers with children.
A daytime street scene, that included a naked girl.

Most people looked shocked, as I probably did
when she first came into my sight.
But most other people did something
that didn't cross my mind.

They laughed.

The teenagers would have probably been laughing anyway -
they were teenagers.
The guy that was in the car behind me was roaring,
the mothers, once over their confusion,
made jokes for their children.

There was nothing funny.

I hope those mothers never hear of their children
in such a distressed & confused state.
I hope the fool in the car behind me doesn't
have a sister that will hit the ground so hard.

Although I didn't join them in their cruelty,
I was the same as the lot of them -
I didn't help her.

I thought of stopping the car, giving her my coat,
asking her to get into the car, to calm down,
to tell me where she needed to go
- I could have taken her there.
But I didn't stop, I didn't offer my help.
I was just like all the other selfish bastards
on the street - I didn't care enough.

None of us do.

My Name Is Stephen

Stopped into a boozer off of a busy West End street,
it was Saturday afternoon & we were thirsty.

Jane & I had a coupla pints & were soon joined
by her brother, Tony.

A coupla more pints & the police were
cordoning off the street opposite.

We were joined by two guys, late fifties,
if I had to make a guess.
They just finished cleaning windows
& it didn't strike me that this was the first pub they'd
been in that day.

It wasn't long before we found out
what was happening with the street
across the way.
Something had fallen off the roof of a department store
and landed on some poor fucker out for a day's shopping.
Killed him.

Meanwhile, one of the window cleaners - and I do have to say,
they were very clean & well presented window cleaners at that -
had left and the other was getting chatty.

He told Jane that his wife & kid had been wiped out in a car crash.
And now that The Gods had done this to him
there wasn't a thing left in the world that he gave a fuck about.
Least of all, himself.

So he drinks.

'I'm an alcoholic'
'My name is Stephen'

We talked about books.
We discussed 'giving a fuck'.
We talked about a long-dead England.

It was somewhere around that point that it happened.
Just as unexpected as the falling debris across the street.

'My name is Stephen, have you got a fuckin' problem with that?!'

We didn't have a problem.

One minute we were discussing how his Dad made a coin after the war,
the next he wanted to kick everyone's ass.
Like a switch had been flicked.

'My name is Stephen, have you got a fuckin' problem with that?!'

I was drunk & ordinarily wouldn't have bothered,
but I tried to find the friendly side again....

'My name is Stephen, have you got a fuckin' problem with that?!'

Hopeless.

Poor fucker.

It must be rough being afraid of yerself.

 

I Don't Know How She Finds Them

One of them introduced himself by leaving her a Valentines card
with the shop keeper 'round the corner from where she lived
and he worked.
Once he actually made her acquaintance
he invited her to his flat & showed her his porno mags.
On her birthday there was Bucks Fizz, corny motherfucker.
When he returned from a trip to Prague, there was a bottle of Becherovka.
It's a favourite of mine & I helped her drink it.

Another one cries every time they get together.
He gave her some juvenile painting he made to hang in her kitchen.
That was only surpassed in weakness by the demo of his band.
His ex-girlfriend came 'round one night & smashed her windows.
Maybe it's a Shoreditch thing.

Then there's the one that struggles with his sexuality.
An enormous crucifix in his lounge really impressed her.
She was saddened by his need for Prozac.
I guess flirting with the Catholics will do that to a guy.

The one I like best is the guy she spoke to 'cos he looked like me.
He rode a scooter, but really,
that was the extent of anything to remark upon.
We both agreed on that.

Then she revisits an old admirer.
The one that used to write her love poems
while working for a men's magazine.
Now, he's a real piece of work....

The stupidest has to be the carpenter's assistant
that will only wear red shoes.
What kind of mind makes a decision like that for themselves?

Anyway....
Who are all these people,
And why are they constantly trying to fuck my girlfriend?

 

Meet The Neighbours

They are strange and drunk and seem to have taken a liking to me.

Could be worse......
We could be continuing the three and a half year rumpus that I have become so fond of.

What a game it's been,
and what a disappointment to have no clear winner.

I shall pick a fight with another neighbour -
first thing in the morning.

This new battle - I shall take more care not to resolve in such conservative
circumstances.

 

This New Flat

It could be worse.
It could be in Wolverhampton, for example.
But it's not, it's in London.
Not a fantastic place you'd be happy
to show out with,
but adequate.

The area is vile.
Spitalfields / Bishopsgate.
Well, London, as I said.

There are gangs of Indian teenagers,
who seem only able to communicate
with one another by howling,
that roam the streets each night.
They get their kicks by bumming cigarettes
from anyone passing by
& intimidating women & girls walking alone,
who are not howling for attention,
funnily enough.
That's unless you count the whores
on Commercial Street.
They don't howl but are equally offensive,
trying to sell their miserable lives
to anyone out walking.
I don't know what the whores are up to tonight
but the Indian contingent are exploding
Molotov cocktails under my window.
Hey it's Saturday, why the fuck not?
I did enjoy watching them
attempting to douse the fires
by stamping on them
with their shiny sports shoes -
setting fire to their trouser cuffs.
Dumb cunts.

 

Seizure

What's worse than the creative seizure
is the complete lack of motivation that
I am currently experiencing.

 

Psychosomatic

I'm doing it again.
I hope.

My left nut has ached for two weeks now.
I've been too chickenshit to go see my doctor thus far.
I have an appointment in two days time.
I have done this before,
and it seems that still, I really don't know myself.

I am aware of a couple of frustrations that I am currently dealing with
and there may well be an item or two
that remain unresolved in my life.
But nothing that keeps me awake nights.

I have sat typing away at the laptop
for the last couple of hours
and the pain has noticeably subsided.
But as soon as I have thought about it,
once more it has returned.

The nuts, eh?

 

Gas Station

So we were driving across the American continent, again.
I remember a sign for Des Moines, but mostly we were nowhere.

The night. Michael & Me. And it was good.

Michael had finished his jerky supply
and I was ready for more coffee.
Pulled into one of those modern gas stations,
well lit & disappointing.
When that far into nowhere
I want something old.
An old building
An old man
Something undefinable, beyond decay,
to entertain the nostrils.
Fuel & then air conditioning, too bland,
the sensory equivalent of an episode of Friends, I would imagine.

We were stocked up for the next few hundred miles,
standing and wondering why so many tooth picks
were being made available to us when
a young man came running through the automatic glass doors.

He was out of breath, too white in complexion to be
considered healthy, teared at the eye and calling for a phone.

The middle aged guy behind the cash register
asked him what he needed and the kid blurted
out that he needed to call an ambulance for his Dad.

Dad was out in the car,
apparently having something too close to a heart attack for comfort.

Then the girl came through those glass doors, the younger sister,
with less composure than you'd wanna be seen in public with.
She was almost 20, at a guess, and trying her level best
to accelerate the proceedings.

There was another onlooker, besides Michael & me, trying to pay for his gas.
I imagine the two of us looked as gormless as he, staring at these poor kids.
All wishing this wasn't happening at all.
But secretly relieved that if these things have to happen,
then better it happen to them than us.

The phone was in the boy's hand
when Dad came in, one arm around Mom's neck,
the other tucked into his arm pit.

He was enormous.
Maybe 50 years on his card.
Tall and full in the frame.
With a voice that matched.

He called at his offspring with heroics worthy of John Wayne,
'I ain't riding in no ambulance!
Put that phone down!
We can drive to the hospital!'

Mom made an attempt to the contrary,
but only once.
She looked used to doing just what her husband told her.
The kid did as he ordered,
he looked used to doing just what his Dad told him too.

He did as best as he could to compose himself
and write down directions to the nearest emergency room,
while taking constant glances over his shoulder
to make sure that tree didn't fall.

The girl was holding onto her Father's side
as they, all four, exited through those automatic glass doors
and toward the car.

Michael & me threw each other a glance
that said 'Ouch' and waited for the family's car to leave
the forecourt before getting back into our van.

I thought about them all for the next cup of coffee or so
and hoped the guy didn't die.

I liked his kids & thought to myself that I wouldn't mind
a couple young 'uns like that looking out for me
when my body gets tired of what I do to it.

 

Letter To Michael

Michael -
I rode the trains from
Aberdeen to London today.

I listened to the Cocteau Twins
singing 'Road, River & Rail'
and thought about lying on the floor
of your Chevy van, horribly constipated.

I am currently enduring my sixth day
of another bout of the dreaded ailment.

I can't help but think of the day,
that is bound to come,
on which I am drifting upon some vessel
backed up to the nines yet again.

I must either address the diet
or stop listening to the Cocteaus.

'Cos this really has to stop.

Oh my ever suffering arse....

 

Pizza By Phone

I called a new pizza delivery joint last night.
The last one I had from my regular place gave me the shits,
for two days.

This new place, their pies were a good deal cheaper
than my regular place
and I think I did try one of their pies in a pub recently.
It was good too.
Thin crust & fresh vegetables, plenty of garlic
that you could actually see.
Not like those chain pizza joints
where the garlic is usually a sauce
and the base is thick & rubbery.
And if you can get a vegetable on there
it ain't what you'd describe as
'market fresh'.
Given, these things arrive on mopeds
driven by dark youths or drunken old white guys
that couldn't secure any kind of position at the local minicab firm,
so I don't expect gourmet products.
But I've never understood people that make bad food.
It makes no sense.
Everybody likes good food in their mouths
and it's not always a question of economics.
Just a little care is all it needs.
It's like any other creative process....
At least try and do it well, y'know?

So I give these new guys a call.
I'd made my choice from a menu they put
through our downstairs door, weeks ago.
A pizza & some garlic bread.
Came to around seven fifty.

I gave the guy on the other end of the phone
my order and he tells me
that they don't deliver orders under a tenner.
So I tell him to forget it & hang up.

I started looking at a menu from a nearby
Indian restaurant that delivers - no matter how much the order.
Which, in fairness, is always over a tenner,
but they throw in a free side dish,
so who's counting?
I'd've preferred the pizza, not always, just this time,
but the Indian food is good & the little guy that delivers has
a friendly face, so I always tip him a couple of quid.
He smiles good & wide at that,
which of course makes me feel good
and I find that food tastes a little better
when I'm feeling that way.

While I'm making my choice
from the Indian menu,
the phone rings.
I answer & it's the guy from the pizza place
'why you do that, hang up?'
What?
'you don't have to do that...'
Do what?
'hang up, y'know'
Who the fuck are you!? 'you call my place for pizza an' hang up'
You said you won't deliver for less than a tenner so I cancelled the fucking order.
'I can't take order for under....'
So you said.
And what the fuck do you think you're doing calling me you fuck!?
You don't want my order & I'm sitting here in my home taking shit from you, you bitch!?
I ought to come over there & kick your fuckin' lights out, you motherfucker.
Silence....
'oh fuck off'
Dead line.

Get that. Amazing.
Is it only me that finds that extraordinary?
Do I now have to make all my calls with a 141 prefix
in order to avoid being abused in my own home
by minions in the service industries?

Put your fuckin' pizzas up in price
by a coupla quid you fuckin' idiot.
That way, you get to run a profitable business
and more importantly, I get fed.

Good grief....

I said to my friend Sid in the pub only a couple of weeks ago,
'I'd love to be hard, to really be able to mince the meat'
I'm not and the pizza joint is of course safe from harm.

Mores the fuckin' pity.

 

Some Things I Can't Talk About

Football, or any kind of sport.
Cars, James Bond movies,
Big Brother or Pop stars.

Should we ever meet,
avoid all of the above
and I'm sure we''ll get along
just fine.

 

The Bad News

My ex-girlfriend just got laid,
Johnny-Come-Lately came & pissed on my parade.
So full of tears, I'm fit to burst,
'Cos I really thought I'd get there first.

 

The Sasquahana River Was Frozen Solid

I've been in the States for less than a week,
so the usual cultural differences are gonna apply.

The two venues I've played so far are no more than restaurants
with live music provided as an afterthought.

This is why London's punk rock scene could never have happened in the U.S.
You had to be a skinny little fuck to be a part of that.

I just can't imagine Sid Vicious sitting down to a plate of Buffalo Wings and a shake before taking the stage to grind broken glass into his chest.

Harrisburg. PA. 12.02.2000

 

This Train Ride

I'd love to be in Las Vegas,
right fuckin' now.
Instead I'm in Doncaster.

I'd challenge any fucker to disagree.

I'd also dearly like to be smoking
and free of the nuisance that children present.

In fact I'd even forgo the trip to Las Vegas
just to clear up those last two issues.

 

Trading Insults

I sit, not too near
to an Indian looking boheeeem'
in a North London Jazz Cafe
and wonder to myself 'what have I turned into?'.

Well, I'm 30 something and reason that it's better
to be surrounded by similar, and older, than by the younger.

For me anyhow.

He's writing something, as am I,
and occasionally taking glances around the room, as am I.
I consider him pretentious and ridiculous, as am I.

Between us is a beautiful woman - 30 odd - maybe of Spanish or Italian extraction.
Her nose is wonderful, but she should consider wearing a bra.
Her mobile phone rings constantly
and she is overwhelmed by whoever it is that calls.
Maybe the same person each time, maybe not.
A lover, unable to leave her alone.
Sometimes, as corny as that behaviour is,
it's pretty damn exhilarating.

I remember.

There was a couple here, when I arrived,
that seemed to be enduring the last few moments
of their dying relationship.
She looked very upset -
he, of course, looked bored.
It saddened me to think that my life is closer to theirs
than it is to the girl with the nose/breasts/phone.

Anyway, that Indian looking dude is still
sneaking looks at me -
I wonder if he's got me right?

That I am soon to be the absent father of a baby girl.

Do I really look so rotten?

 

True Happiness

A guy I once knew, a good few years ago now,
loaded up on on Ecstasy,
threw away all his shoes and moved to San Francisco.
And for all I know, he's still there.
Reaching it.

There was another fella who spoke to me
his pure vision in a pub recently,
'I'm not a Chelsea fan, I'm not a hooligan.
I'm a West Ham fan and very fuckin' violent.'
And along his journey, to such clarity,
some other enlightened soul had bitten off his left ear.
It's moments like this I realise that
I truly do not know the human condition at all.

Like the guy in some go-go bar I was at once told me
'I only come here to remember what my wife used to look like.
I could only force a smile for him.

Sometimes I think about an old roadie I met.
He'd spent months hacking down the centre of his cock.
He split the fuckin' thing in two
and put a bolt through it to keep it together.
I guess you could call that a real dedication to the cause.

Me?

My version of true happiness?

I won't get there until I'm secure in the knowledge
that Madonna has contracted something terminal.