Wrappers

 

Wrappers

Overlaid in maps on blue ice ozatex skies,

those Christmas branches are bare naked lady fingers,

with bordering latticed stubborn evergreens,

twisted from nodes into unfathomable knotted tracks,

where each road twists and tangles beyond the next,

promising with a wink you’ll get there yet.

And you? The routemaster with the whip hand,

you’ve forked out enough in presents, more than a grand,

while ivy clings, points heavenwards in signs,

but you’ll follow these quiet lanes into a monkey puzzle,

rather than anything approaching a grand design.

Beneath your feet glitters the strewn rubble,

and as you’re later bagging up discarded wrappers

look long within for a diamond in the crackers.

Persephone

 

Persephone

 

 

He leans forward, and we’re in a cabal,

pulls his mouth down with a ‘listen, pal’

and ‘I want to tell you a story’, I’m thinking

Max Bygraves has become a proper stinging.

I’m staring at his rubbery fingered flesh

as he pulls on a Stella, takes a breath

and we’re the only ones stooled at the bar.

He’s agitated. ‘Have you come far?’

I’m asking, but he blanks this gambit,

because it’s obvious - we’re both in transit,

sitting in the lounge, lost between places,

moving on, kicking over our traces,

or some such - he pulls at my sleeve

with words like - ‘you wouldn’t Adam and Eve,’

and ‘let me show how I met Persephone.’

I’m sceptical. We’re in that liminal space -

‘Watching the English’ by what’s her face,

much the same age, weather beaten,

any words that pass will be fleeting,

of little consequence, so where’s the harm?

He orders; the third pint’s the charm,

but he’s rabbiting; I only recall snatches:

a child of harvests, the moon watches

her struggling with that looking glass

of the phone, dialling up woeful diagnosis,

of the worst kind of self inflicted neurosis,

and how hard it is to get through a day.

Her indulgent parents scowl, hope, pray,

here’s Demeter, with some other bugger,

an aged, kaftan toting, Glastonbury tree-hugger,

who owns a CD of Thunberg’s greatest hits,

and has indulged his child quite a bit,

but, the time comes when time’s enough,

dropped hints that she packs her stuff

and heads off over fences to pastures new.

She reaches for that narcissus that grew

beneath her fleet of foot, the ground splits,

free, free, free at last – but just for a bit.

Now, we’re both teachers, did I mention it?

I push across our fourth, he takes a sip -

all contemplative like – considers his words,

says how long before she arrived he heard

her noise and clutter, a Lieutenant Cockatoo

outside his office, but what can you do?

Claims she’s come to teach – the very latest

in a long line of innovation, and very bravest

for coming all this way across the world.

He’s smiling, nodding, looking at the girl

thinking - what do they churn out of college

nowadays – is it what passes for knowledge?

Here’s a kid to front a class of goats,

and, sure enough, there’s her sick note,

the first of many to claim ill-defined disease

and I’ll take another sick day, please.

So, he passes her a pomegranate’s six seeds

along with a letter about failed probations,

hie thee home to your parent nation,

hail and farewell, don’t let my door smack

your face as you leave, baby, don’t look back.

And that’s that, it seems, well until today

when in Costa he saw his Persephone –

disembarked from his plane, grabbed his case,

and never thought he’d see that face

again in his wildest dreams. But there she was,

an aged Demeter in reluctant attendance,

fussing over bags and her young dependent.

So my mate bolted down his coffee, left quick,

with the viscous rippling of an oil slick.

Spectrum

 

Spectrum

 

In the land of the grey, your Spectrum is king.

And when impenetrable clouds are parting,

crowds grumbling about feathers of lead,

muttering misshapen chaos of well meaning forms

stuffing caps onto flat heads to keep warm,

take the plunge and don’t be afraid to dart

like an arrow right through them, boy.

Look up, look up, and look up again,

you’re bound to see a base hanging there

in the same way that bricks don’t

and avenging angels, kick-ass angels

deploying to bring down your Mysterons

with nothing more than a plucked harp, a hymn

chanted – boy - Melody, Harmony, Martha,

lamenting the loss of Lancelot, Arthur

and his Merry Men in Sherwood greens.

Well, that’ll do the trick, or so it seems,

yet onwards they grind in flood tides

of hydraulic action, all abrasion and attrition,

tectonic plates shifting conservative friction,

your earth’s quaking so give the word:

call Jeff Tracey and launch Thunderbirds.

 

F.A.B.

 

In the land of the grey, only you and I

are the complete palette, the diapason if you will,

the full Adam and the Ants with Marco on bass

gaudy buccaneers in real McCoy white stripe face,

a seven nation army with a way that’s a will,

sashaying past any looks that kill

and going to Wichita to work the straw,

past pushchairs, crutches, fistfuls of traveller’s dogs,

muddied up thoroughfares, vaped up fogs -

wielding Steed’s swordstick to sally forth,

see a red carnation and draw-cut it off

for Mrs Peel to buttonhole our bespoke cloth;

machete swathes through these brothel creepers,

repel all boarders, disengage all filters,

Scotty, maximum warp and where’s Captain Kirk?

Now, you should see Polythene Pam or Pat Mustard

staring at us both sardonic and unflustered,

looking through at us like they just heard

a cry of where’s the warrior without his pride -

and something’s gnawing us deep inside, boy.

Of course, even though it’s plain to see,

the only ones here are you and me,

I’m certain you’ll join me when I shake and say

in this land of grey, every sod has his day.

Drax

 Drax

In Dobson’s head, it’s stubborn flat -

inappropriately so, from Snaith

by Carlton, all the way to Drax -

although he didn’t get to know

it that well, being forever ringed

by ripped down shredded fences

of some sort of adolescence –

flat for miles: rivers, dykes, lakes,

arrow straight country lanes,

with the ripening strawberry fields

where he could make a bob

or two upon effecting escape -

and an apple tree shedding fruit

as if futures depended on it.

Roads that divided, stretched

fingers that might seize him yet,

he’d cycle without raising thirst

out to Selby, Goole, Temple Hirst.

But, most of all, those cooling towers -

pregnant concave structures

that bulged and billowed steam

rising into far flung dreams;

those schemes not tasted yet.

Oh, how he would like to forget,

but its power haunts him nights

and, just before that first flight,

early mornings spent impatient

upon his very last school buses.

Dobson would hear his curses

long before he appeared

flat capped, ancient, his bike tyres

swearing weird words in odd time

to his slow pedalled grind,

like a millstone to strop knives.

On his way to Drax, perhaps,

but no way to know what chance

rutted lanes his life had chosen -

as Winter approached, more frozen

by the day, but peddling still,

as water pushes onwards the wheel.

Drax’s lungs long exhaled its last,

and what remains of that past,

those concrete cornered prospects

built high to stand eternal

that now litter flat plains with stone

before Dobson shut gates to roam?

Amaranthine

Amaranthine

Never meet your heroes -

you say that, don't you - whoever you are

and I’ve a shrewd suspicion

you died years ago

but kept on living.

 

Once, I’d see you capped -

braced and booted,

with a hard slap for a smile,

and what do you know, child?

 

You had suspect opinions,

scars for eyes, iron rations, hard tack

and if this sack don’t break your back

then the next one will.

 

Everything was always grey -

grit in your potatoes, flies in your soup,

steak for kidney, liver for mince

and a permanent shampoo, set and rinse

with driers that singed

beneath a yellow matter custard fringe.

 

You've hung around to this day,

too, replacing drips and dregs

with those grim plastic pegs

to cop an earful of awful –

trilby hats became baseball caps,

arms outstretched you rise from drains,

chanting: brains, brains, brains.

 

Some of you were farmers, too,

harvesting glass onions

from cast iron shores

to peer into and sneer -

still, throw enough horse shit

at me and do I not bloom?

 

You'll carry that weight a long time,

so let me carry the tunes,

place a raisin in a glass of champagne,

it will rise and fall forever

and I will sing this song alone.

 

Even in a sour milk sea A minor,

you'll take the plastic over the china -

I swear upon nothing finer

than a band I’ve known for all these years

with no sign of love behind the tears;

because in your eyes I see nothing.

 

His guitar, still weeping,

about a world still sleeping, never wakes,

or coming to spoil a party, late

on arrival, filling plates with the synthetic, the fake,

curl a lip at the half-breed

but everyone of us is all we need.

 

Something aching beneath the breast plate

that lives on forever,

drifts its fingers through the heather

and dances softly in the breeze

colours all your grey in melodies.

 

Pricks my eyelids, smarts my lashes,

haunts evergreen groves of elms and ashes,

And – for all of you,

here’s yet another clue

something so much more than just a blend

in dark of red and blue.

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 dry 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, just 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.