Being

 

Being

 

Dobson slept the afternoon before flying

and you’d have found him lying

on crisp sheets - more lettuce than starch

after a week, but they lulled him anyway.

 

It’d been a tough day,

they all are at his age –

he’d fobbed off colleagues with a grin,

that’ll do, don’t beat yourself up about it,

that sort of thing, you know,

anything to clear the quarterdeck.

 

One was leaving for good - he’d forget

her by this time, next year,

he signed a paper, said see you later,

or some other offhand lyric by Squeeze,

watched her walk down the gangplank

a landlubber by any other name.

 

By the time the bus came

Dobson was over it,

out of there, slinging hooks,

packed his laptop, some books,

and glad to get home.

There’s an awkward nip in the air,

while he’s shuffling to and fro,

stripping the bed, taking a shower,

walking Al Sadd a couple of hours

before departure, a bite to eat, nothing heavy

and Dobson takes her hands,

squeeze shoulders,

licks desert lips –

 

and his chatter’s nonsense,

a void filler that hovers in the gap, pretense

this evening is the same as any other.

 

Later, sitting on the sofa,

she clips his nails,

puts eyedrops, smooths some sort of cream

on the elbow’s rough skin

where the ponderous weight of his fisted chin

has chaffed and bruised and rubbed.

 

There’s basketball before he leaves

and she watches him,

from under her fringe,

this small scrap of flesh, this being,

all knowing, all loving, all seeing.

Plum

 

Plum

 

And what right have you

to complain we’re all rotten now,

in your woodland clearing, 

by your pool?

 

Oh, I have it, I earned it,

or at least I should bloody think so -

but here’s one, out of her plum tree

and they’re falling, believe me,

soft fruit where a brain should be.

 

Let’s get it straight from the start, Kevin,

here’s no fucking come on Eileen,

this is Steed’s sidekick onscreen,

some peachy-keen blue-eyed sapphire

that once fended off a rampaging pillow,

with steel for eyes.

 

Oh, it was supposed to be a swan,

I’ll grant you that, but, come on,

how dare she? Don’t give me Gurkhas,

reminds me of some Princess in a burka

floundering around minefields -

a potential car crash as ever there was.

 

You’re annoyed? You should be,

these holier than thou, gone now

famous in the last century

hollow vessels of yesterday,

holed up in cash jungles,

prime time strictly frolicking,

projectile vomiting anodyne politicking

were the first to advocate the vape

having smoked a lungful up till then,

and cluck, cluck, cluck, mother hen.

 

Listen, fruitbat - 

because I'm telling you why -

we half recall a telethon,

where you stripped off clothes,

said something about a fucking red nose

and was more than glad

to parade about waving flags

in a bespoke black bin bag,

so think of how the cash was spent,

before you call us decadent –

you are the weakest link – goodbye.

Jane

 

Jane

 

Some student saw it first,

and, in gay abandon,

asked why - somewhat random

about nothing in something much,

just an old school tie, chucked

rumpled of the Old Bailey

in my desk drawer -

black with white footballs

stitched on the blade,

and I’m thinking old scores -

nothing Charlton, nothing Wolves,

nothing Rams, nothing Bulls,

just old friends, old schools.

It doesn’t take much, does it?

Setting off that chain reaction,

more of a Diana Ross,

than a meltdown at Chernobyl,

more of a Lulu hitched to

a Brothers Gibb with falsetto

than anything more substantial.

It was you, Jane, you - boxed it,

gave it, smiled, squeezed,

asked me if I was pleased,

if it was thoughtful or on the nose,

while how fast red roses

there did bloom, not fade

as Lysander would have had it.

Years ago, down past

and who was it who knew

this old thing would last,

would have so much blood in it

and make it halfway across

the world of love,

the world of loss?

And inside, I felt him smile – Chris –

long dead, who longed to kiss

you but never did

and called you his Billie Piper.

So, called to action,

I messaged, remembering,

well, how could I forget?

But all of you have slept

deep in my memory so long now

I felt reluctant, somehow.

I cut it off, that part of me,

deliberate and precise

and used old Seigfried’s hoofing knife,

bled and cauterized my life.

But here’s a lead, a binding tie

you’d noose around my neck

to make a mockery of regret.

Swallow

Swallow

 

She thinks in lioness, bares her teeth

not her breasts, and there’s no relief

from a badly pronounced tirade

of ticker tape parade in spittled diatribe -

calls it as she sees it and we squirm.

The paddles of the milk churn turn,

but no butter’s here to melt her mouth

or do anything with parsnips, no drought

to drain the drivel surging out,

no cool whirlpools, just waterspouts.

And if she you think she might relent,

the carcass killed, her venom spent,

here’s a hijabed cub with pints of tears

of how there’s scars from cruel years,

such tales of woe, such tales of harm,

to quicken the mother, raise alarms

and bring to bear all the big guns

that turn on turrets, bombard and shell,

and send adversaries to hell.

You? You’re idly wondering, sitting there,

why it is you should actually care

whilst dodging the gobbed projectiles,

an inner examination of fundamentals -

as jets are screaming overhead

strafing bombsites, craters, dry riverbeds -

illuminate a veritable doomscroll

of spreadsheets for whom the bells toll,

while thinking, performance management?

Been there, done that, paid the rent

and here’s another tossed off session

of training on how to teach a lesson,

you’re feeling it build inside, in solid hollows,

ah, fly away, and swallow, swallow,

dry your tears, my dear - smile and pray

and hie thee to the mosque and say

we’ll live to swallow up other days.

Bowing

Bowing

 

In the half-moon shadows

of a cool, blue swallowed afternoon

feeling strong, stronger than usual

I thought she could bow.

She’d already applied the rosin

tautened the screw,

rubbed the cake along the hairs

from frog to tip in smooth strokes,

until they’re friction sticky.

And she strokes so pretty,

using her French overhand, grips

the neck, the headstock, the scroll

and rocking her shoulders, glides

where organ notes rip and groan

deep within the belly’s f holes.

Her muscles rip, your mind slips,

other concertos, other players,

how Ms Rankine’s heavy breast

would rest upon your back and ribs,

as she pressed you

pressing hard on strings

wondered what suspensions bring

or how, only last night,

May-Fair’s quavers rimmed

above her brown-horned glasses,

in a speculative glance

at all those classes yet to come,

and meanwhile back

Daniella tosses off semibreves

clasps turning pins to her chest

in teases, winks, grins, breaths

while Mayumi slides in carousels

of sugar sugar honey cakes.

All these shadows beckoning

can only make my music grow,

she grasps the stick,

fingers vibratos, rubs pizzicatos

and in upsurging crescendo,

will draw her final bow.

 

 

 

Moon

 

Moon

(And It Went Like)

 

Is there a need 

in the world of men for you?

Nothing doing, but a few

scant interactions, idle breathed

gossips of fuss across your desk

and from hollow trivia - there's no rest,

no yellow half-moon, large and low,

no days of fast for their days are slow

that watched you grow

into more of a boy than a man.

You forgot to strut, balloon bellied,

in grey bearded thickets

with all the bilious zeal

of a performing circus seal

who clap for plankton.

You gained your cove with pushing prow

some years ago 

and they mostly flocked –

but some wintered here

after ice queens had combed your hair

while you were startled by flying fish

that dance and twist

their last moments upon desert decks

out of want for sex.

You let slushy sand through fingers drip

until she came at last to steady ship,

both wondering - and it went like

our moon will be forever this time -

but how to sup and where to dine,

in a voice less loud but subtly clever

and she sends messages:

It can be anywhere,

even in the Moon, 

as long as we’re together.

Master

 

Master

 

You know, I thought I’d put

rows of bus seats between us both,

yet somehow she found me,

stumbling down our narrow aisle

and all the while

her iPhone in her hand

as though it had been nailed there.

 

I’d trousered mine - I don't care

for hateful, vile oblongs of data, chips,

microcircuits, other random bits

of nasty, rammed in spyware –

where it remained, detestable,

while we tunneled through

Al Asiri underpass.

 

She’d turned hers into a looking glass,

meantime, but she’s no Alice,

fingering greasy tresses of hair,

pleased with what she sees there,

like two evil faces,

smothered with hypocrisy.

 

Somewhere deep in her psyche

there are specific powders, a phial

in a drawer marked ‘E’

begging the pharmacy

please to bring them to me:

keep sending, keep sending

but she will not change back,

there's something that the salts lack.

 

She must put it away from her,

hide this appalling evidence,

and I have nothing but sympathy,

but it just won’t extend

to final solutions, purges,

because it’s her urges, the urges

have her on the rack -

and it keeps coming out,

from her pocket

from her handbag

from beside her on the seat,

even when she speaks, maybe eats,

she cannot lift her eyes to greet.

 

And, I’m thinking -

here’s our Victor upping his mountains

from Chamonix to Montavert,

he’s watchful and on the alert

hobbling over the Mer de Glace

to lift some shadow from his dour face

and confront his demon.

 

And if she could put it down 

long enough to see him

it might say for afters, 

penetrate her greasepaint and plaster -

you were my creator

but I am your Master.

Tame

 

Tame

 

What you tame, makes you liable forever -

you read that somewhere

and it stuck, beat hard, hit home.

 

Devouring one sizeable rum and coke

prior to bed recalled

a sizeable slab of marble cake

Grandma once helped you to

that mother had baked –

her chill admonishment was the result:

iced eyes, glacial sneer, arctic tongue.

A shivering spine - and time

still has not shifted or eroded

your stubborn bedrock.

 

You were gifted a dream,

my Little Prince, not Baobab, not flower,

but of looking after a monkey.

 

You thought, at first, to eat her,

purchased for your larder,

freeze the choice cuts for later -

but your heart melts when you meet her,

she’s kind, a student to teach,

holds out arms that reach,

something in the eyes that beseech.

 

So you husband her instead,

quarter her in your keep

strew bales of straw for her feet,

only later to be filled with dread,

a jerking hangxiety, while you sleep,

thinking of the chaos

your untamed beast might wreak,

picturing it from an unsafe distance

and hoping she’s subjugate.

 

Grandson tangled in shag pile,

draws knees to chin

as robotic spiders sweep,

forage for predatory dust mites, eat

butcher’s select, plump fleas,

that have supped there, bitten deep,

entangled in some downy hair

that grows above the shin.

 

And later you pluck one with care,

encasing parasite in sellotape

watch it contract, explode

to foam a crimson bloodied rose.

 

That morning, when you awoke

it was as though you’d seen it all

through a foggy lens -

she who cannot walk, stumbles, falls

takes in payment what you resent

until you rescind what you had lent.

 

And as you kiss that other’s lips,

seize hair and breasts and grip,

a static spark between you slips,

earths in lightning through the floor

shocks both of you to the bloody core –

but even so, you shall remain

guardians of all those beasts you tamed.

Latte

 

Latte

 

A Spanish latte - buy one, get one,

brings a cloying smack of evaporation,

white clouds that make milky mayhem

with bitter espresso, a veneer -

sip slowly through a straw and cheers.

The first comes in thin, flimsy plastic

and Dobson’s has got a crushed base,

a lop-sided reflex 190 degree case.

Threatens a slopped coffee tabletop

which is wobbling all over the place -

could take the slightest push,

the merest touch, watch and wait.

Or just crush it, get it over with,

let it lose the will to live;

Dobson’s spiteful pen with mean intent

rolls slowly along the gradient

and plummets forceful to the floor.

Ah, where are you now, Tom Sawyer?

How easily you were tricked,

knocking knees while you sit

as some old lady bowls a yorker -

so go - whitewash fences that border

long forgotten daisy-chain gardens.

Meanwhile, in other news,

Dame Helen Mirren - don’t care,

new Matt Smith drama somewhere,

Strictly Come Dancing, man overboard,

Bridgerton just leaves Dobson bored,

and Call the Midwife, fuck knows:

she’s got a new rose, got a new rose.

Nowhere near enough hubristic,

23,000’s a glib statistic

in milky foams that sit on top

and does he repent? Not a lot,

knows they’ll sit in the grate with a gin,

nourished by waste they’re swallowing

eyes crossed and pondering

differences between lattes and frappes,

Monday, Tuesday, happy days.

Dobson would like to feel annoyed,

but wonders what’s delaying the asteroid -

it’s been held up 65 million years.

 

Grey

 

Grey

 

I once read something

about an old grey head

that wept his hour upon a desk –

called Desmond in a Tutu?

I know, I know,

it's serious -

but a bit florid I thought,

him decked out in his purple robes

you’d scan the lines, hold your nose,

but teach it to the sapient sutlers anyway,

because some wag prescribed it.

 

Anyway, here’s the thing - I saw more grey

as you might know,

peering into his office today

remembering it could’ve been mine, I’d applied,

was passed over,

shrugged, walked away.

 

Maybe, for the best.

She’s in a dress that shakes,

the words she’s saying,

I can’t quite make

out - lip-reading is not really my forte -

but I can predict

given scriptures before he

tells us what the hymns will be

and I’m holding out for ‘Abide With Me’

or ‘Ash Wednesday’.

 

Her deadline’s passed for sure -

and momentarily, I’m smug, I’m secure,

because you beat yourself up to meet them,

flog the sackcloth,

take communion wine,

but, you know, there’s her tears,

there’s supplication

and he’s trying not to cross his Rubicon.

 

Mouths: take time,

take all the time you need,

we’re not here to make you grieve,

he’s young, he’s strong –

we’ve gone to seed

and if we’re put out to pasture, then surely

we’re nought but cattle fodder.

 

Grey as Dandelion Clocks

that twist and fret their hour

upon the breeze

and then are seen no more.

 

Still, I’m waiting,

this wretched sermon well past its prime,

her grey head solemnly shaking in time

to his wagging finger,

his spittled lips,

 

and I think about why

they cling to us and grip,

try their damnedest

to never let us slip away

as Andrew Gold was heard to say.

 

Well. At last his vestibules

are opened wide,

he bids me forward, get inside

and I’ve already been

to buy my own hassock

while she pushes past,

her time renewed

and my time is come to take a pew.

Whelm

 

Whelm

 

On the bridge, taking middle watch,

a lifetime until 4 o clock,

or, more properly -

zero four hundred hours

and how you bought the girl some flowers

without really knowing her address,

just a Plymouth refuge someplace somewhere

for girls born into distress

you’d listened to her yarn,

witnessed the oxides of self-harm

in copper kettled rust.

The Canman had sneered, queried

but took the money nonetheless

and that’s all there is to say, nothing more here.

The ship’s wheel auto-locked

and the light on Eddystone’s rocks

is over the sea and far away;

the steel tracer of the echo sounder’s

stylus plummets depths, writes plays

of all the stories ever staged,

buried beneath the calm seas

on carbon paper, while the Captain nods off.

Then you’re awake, shocked,

in salt pools deep enough to sail

and every time you ever failed

builds waves enough to swamp the ship

you used to think was built so strong,

oh, he’s coming, he comes,

hands across oceans, speaking tongues,

the interred words forced into a keepsake locket

no bigger than a chained heart

that hangs upon St Christopher's neck,

the years of voyage, the ships wrecked,

and sailors who never will forget.

Tenderizer

 

Tenderizer

 

Today, The Master reads of an uptick

in red meat making people sick

and it seems now there’s alpha-gals

as well as pals, but he doesn’t know,

thinks someone, somewhere has to -

finds himself out of work again,

just an actor, entertaining the wife.

Meanwhile, in another life,

a Mistress accosts this Master

she’s carrying. Only an I-phone

frowning in preoccupation, alone,

delivers children from a bad, bad time

of husbands, extended family, crimes

and if she could travel backwards

she would, restore their laughter,

and stop their wailing on the moon.

Stop. Think. Cuff-link. Because later,

hatching an unincubated scheme

to disentangle herself from the past

and marry him in leisure at last,

there’s something tender in her eyes,

so he takes her; finds the going hard,

until the red meat’s tenderized,

and the Master’s sated enough.

When the Mistress smiles, lies back, says

it’s my pleasure to serve,

be girlfriend, and, with a little luck

all that’s glue will come unstuck,

he thinks I can’t put up with anymore

because out there, out there

people are falling over and dying for it,

gagging on steak, choking on chicken,

averting their gaze from red blood

tucking tails to flee from crimson floods

that will try their might to bring them down,

fall down upon their knees to pray

for the ticks in the fields and far away.

Peladon

 

Peladon

 

When you heard, or maybe read,

in the listings — a small, black inky square

of newsprint that left grubby marks

on wallpaper or skirting boards —

he was to return to Peladon,

and that Monsters would be there,

I saw you wince

as the future imprinted

itself upon your neck in clenched claws.

 

You hurried to the kitchen door

through dark, twisting Winter corridors

where she busied herself about the range,

no doubt — only Ice Warriors, you exclaimed,

but your voice was strange,

as though it spoke of ancient terrors.

 

She shrugged. Took a broom.

Brushed something off — sooty black stuff

that drifted down far enough

to blemish and boot-black her brass coal scuttle.

 

Then I saw you huddled,

peering through a slithering crack,

breathing relief as he takes Sarah-Jane’s hand,

grins, and gets the hell out.

I think you missed your Grandma,

wished she had appeared, settled,

to rub the dock leaves on the nettles.

 

Later — and you’re older now,

far from there — penning fountains

in naïve strokes, broadsides with a broad nib,

condescending, just a little glib,

with new concerns, new ideas,

some you almost understood,

growing forests from the chopped wood

in colour-separation overlay,

over-the-shoulder points of view

inside a three-camera studio —

and this is how we grew.

 

But small in gain and big in loss,

nobody warned you that Winter frosts

would rime your brow,

hoar your hair,

and I should have shouted — beware!

It brought the Dreams

that make you turn and toss,

hurl desolate pillows to the floor

that, in the morning, lie grounded there

as hobbled wings, as scrapbook clippings,

while you reach back to embrace

all that cannot be replaced —

and I remember how,

when we were young,

we were scared to return to Peladon.

Sarah-Jane

Sarah-Jane

 

Roger had Lily

and an understanding father

when he couldn’t sleep at night.

You had Sarah-Jane

and monsters – not all fully realized

by a BBC budget,

although, for all that,

concepts that convinced and stayed,

transformed bubblewrap and made

concrete cobwebs from dusk.

 

Later, came Leela,

but she was not right modest

or chaste, did not leave the aftertaste

of our captain’s captain

and she wasn’t - no dark passages

or chased through deep sleeps

of the interior -

and, therefore, inferior.

 

You treasured those books

when they came,

mail-ordered, paid for

by carefully harvested sums

of comfort’s crumbs,

before fiends stole and took

them, ripped up pages,

burnt blanket into scraps of cover

with fiery tongues of scorn -

the strongest gales before the storm.

 

Well, she quite liked her,

but she couldn’t stand him

so you stand there naked, grim,

saying I am David.

No, you’re not,

she might reply

and you feel you’ll cry

while she’s at blue doors, wavering,

waving, mouthing – hey, don’t forget me:

before she’s gone – history.

Imposters

 

Imposters

 

Look, look, and look again –

to find yourself here,

grasping an actual canker of the ear

and something rotten 

in the state –

sticky mattresses, up late

in gym kits, trainers, 

where work clothes could be

more appropriate –

readying that trip to the sea.

 

Chucked-on pairs of bathers,

a three-pack trousered

in varieties of flavour;

life preserver, inflatable ring, armbands –

rolled in mildewed towels,

then scratching sand

from between fusty toes,

flexing like the cat

upon a hot tin litter tray.

 

Here’s one refusing to play,

just the one, mind.

Caught reading a book

if you please,

The Two Towers –

not on Kindle, but your paperback;

to be or not to be, and all that

jazz, and whether it is noble to bear

and you stare, shocked –

it is in your memory, locked,

barred against a thief

that steals away the brain,

as if it's all just games.

 

Here’s that self-same,

going beyond their prescription, 

has ticked off more

than those three 

he was forced to pour

into his thwarted imagining.

By illiterate tutors

with work-shy brains –

drinkers, pukers, clubbers, grubbers –

think Patrick Star, 

bleached curls,

and Lazy Ways by The Marine Girls.

 

Just because you can

doesn’t mean you should,

he might reply –

antediluvian, before the flood –

if you asked him, 

which you won’t.

 

It might be a mirage,

a note never wrote,

a tempted fate –

one swallowed summer 

that nothing brings,

so hide behind curtains as she sings,

sings willow, willow,

my garlands shall bring

a blanched nation,

a sun-blocked generation

an absolute nothing

bedecked in g-strings.

Cock

Cock

 

A man for all spreadsheets

and we’re not talking Picnics, Hampton Wicks,

spread legs or the silken pricks

of very small wood splinters

heaven knows that I speak true,

or I’ll die as I stand here today.

A disappointing spin-off theme that plays

in pale imitation,

where The Virginian was bold,

your Man from Shiloh left us cold

and longing for Casey Jones

and his thunderous Cannonball Express.

You got yourself all rosined up

for a Devil Came Down to Georgia,

but there was no mighty hiss,

no fiddle of gold, no contest.

and here comes his19^th nervous breakdown -

at Portland there’s a shakedown,

trying out rigging for operational readiness,

hold hard, sir, hold steady,

because she used to love you,

but it’s all over now

and this could be the last time, but I don’t know.

Less Charlie Daniels, more Charlie Brown,

you Little Red Rooster

all high fives, fist bumps, my man, bud, dude, bro,

and half a crown full of Snow-White teeth,

that can’t get me no satisfaction or relief,

but you're a dab hand

with a spreadsheet,

just fill it in with ticks or crosses

on imposter syndromes and cut your losses.

Changes

 

Changes

 

If she had been moved to

check, titles are available on YouTube

but she’s content to trust her recall

of a train in a tunnel, stalled.

Frozen traffic on the Severn Bridge,

too, the teeth of cogs, ridged,

something that stamped and stamped

on cold cuts from a passing vagrant.

There’s something about what’s left

causing revulsion, quickening of breath

as she deletes today’s emails

bemoans a flurry of activity - she pales,

considering a ubiquity of social platforms,

feels moved to dash out scorn –

it’s the same voices, the same faces,

opinions from sedentary places,

sleeping minds - ah, what can it be now?

Reluctance, that crosses her brow

like the Zebra is testing the air

and satisfied that nothing’s there

is caught cold in a pincer movement,

food for worms, life spent.

So kill it, swipe it, sit back, consider

if ever there was a time she quivered

in anticipation of innovation,

sweeping changes to the nation

that will surely work, pay dividends,

reverse the trends and bookend

row on row of toppling dominos,

one finger flicked and off they go,

but this will halt fluid canker,

steady the ship, drop the anchor.

Skies turn cartwheels through seasons

made changes for expedient reasons,

she packed up fags, cut back on booze,

got a bit more picky over food

because that next hangover is the last.

Using Scotchbrite to score the past,

burnt fat remains, some black is gone

in forgiveness, yet the hurt and wrong

still rankles, chews up her insides

no matter how she smiles, denies

or feels embarrassed to be telling.

The woodsman hefts an axe for felling

forests now, puts aside his chainsaw;

Paddy Kingsland’s synthesized score

seems inappropriate for her theme,

but at least it wasn’t a wretched dream,

of the and then I awoke convention,

convenient to avoid contention.

Because we want no reset button here,

Nicky Gore, and, full of fear,

climb ev’ry mountain, ford ev’ry stream,

to a cave in heliothrixed rainbow beams

within which, standing quite alone,

the culprit is a bleeding stone.

Drama

 

Drama

 

Hospital drama beloved by wives, sisters,

septic warts, boiled spots, picked blisters

and scratching posts, will make no demands -

no chiseling concrete with plastic spoons,

or deciphering lyrics of Paddy McAloon,

because if you’re still looking for Atlantis

you’re never going to get there soon,

instead, find a cushion, own your room,

croon along to some banal opening ditty,

‘Casualty’, ‘Holby City’, ‘Angels’ and, isn’t a pity

they got rid of that torpid senior charge nurse

Charlie Fathead, in the second verse,

a fatal stabbing or something worse

they say he only just survived - retired hurt,

yet in the ambulance, he’s glad

for these little dramas will make us mad.

 

 

Prosaic

 

Not so, Mistress Mine, oh, say not so

you diamond, one of your actual few

that decades of toil and digging coal

might uncover, a nightingale among crows,

wide circumvention of Berkeley Square,

or any drama you might find screened there.

She’s back to normal hypertension

or, she says, at least it’s in remission,

frowns profound - it’s always like that dear,

bone marrow, platelets - and it’s not very clear

to actual ‘House’ refuseniks like yours truly,

these livers, cholesterol and Vitamin D

because, you do not go, so no red flags,

but most of all she rues the fat that sags

and later as it’s dancing in our laps

she shrugs as we scoff McDonald’s wraps.