Standoff

 Standoff

 

Anyone can be a teacher,

she loudly proclaimed, o'er land and sea.

That settled it with a jot of sneer,

dashed Tabasco smear for an upper lip, dear,

and he’s reflected in a shattered mirror

as fragments of Arabia.

 

Backing up a little here -

that morning he’s back

from running charitable chores,

behind the wheel, uninsured,

pulls up the handbrake, a pause,

scowls paper-darts running 100 metre sprints,

eyes narrow-gauged, blink –

this tradesman’s van, fronts him in bluff

and Mexican stand off.

 

I recognized it instantly.

putting weight on the adverb –

some bearded cretin

come to measure up your new kitchen.

 

Now, nether vehicle is into giving an inch,

the canary that cavorts with the finch

and the barkeep slides another drink

down the formica top,

that’s impersonating Cornish rock.

 

Mugs framed in thumb-smear windshields,

neither of these is going to yield,

that face opposing his, taut as wire

in burning bush of the most implacable fire,

raises his hands to signal exasperation,

whilst grim perspiration,

seeps and pours in icicle drops of fixation.

 

And then – Mr Van - tired of the rally,

longest of the match yet, sagged nonverbally

hit a forehand into the net,

swerved past, disappeared from view,

left the parking spaces, withdrew,

medical timeout, it seems - but he’ll best you yet,

this is only the second set.

 

They meet upon the stairs,

a man who sold the world, a man who taught -

syllables in both throats catch pharyngitis,

a dose of flu or coronavirus,

and if octobass could talk it would sound like this.

 

Still, he’s measured up, she’s made a choice,

gives years of hesitation a voice,

agrees to a consultation, his place

at three and will you come with me?

His negative response - predictable as ever,

Doctor - because he never

takes any interest in important decisions,

treats kitchen fitters with derision

and, after all, anybody can be a teacher.

 

He might have taught her

the history of Arabia,

epilogues of a mirror’s shattered shards

bringing it all back home

to deserts sands, where life inspired

men to master their own fate,

and the fault lies not in the stars.

 

Three hours later, that student returns,

red raw with burning

steaming through the portal like crushed glass

up the neck with appliances,

acute angles, obtuse domestic sciences

unpacking learning from her phone,

to sit in dream kitchens alone.

Birds

 Birds

 

Hey, Ma, do birds feel the rain?

Because here it comes again

like arrows right through me,

all these clothes I’m wearing,

cling in a soupy second skin,

hassling my wandering -

I’ve taken to wearing bustles.

No, I think they float above it

undiluted - it drips in quills

that write illegible things

on these cobble manuscripts.

Here’s one now, flicking fish,

up to its webbed feet in river,

intent on lunch, doesn’t quiver,

look Ma, the neck is full of fins,

gills, scales and other things.

 

No, wretched, obdurate child,

it’s the sky is full of stars,

you saw in that overlong flick,

auteured by Stanley Kubrick,

an ice-cream scoop starship,

why, Johann Strauss scored it,

plucked his fiddle, sawed hard,

and we shoved you in our car,

along with your two mutts,

ostentatious four wheeled truck

a cool-box full of cold cuts,

stopped for a quick one at Spar,

cotton buds and a pack of four.

We’re migrating like swallows,

easy riders, duelling banjos,

to trudge towns under cloud.

Why we bother, I cannot grasp,

your father swearing in my ear,

went to soak himself in beer,

pissing rain that’s going to last

all day - and your mutt has shit

the pavement - don’t step in it,

ignore them and just walk away -

pray tomorrow is on holiday.

Scoop

 Scoop

 

The woods. A turd dumped, by signage
announcing ‘dog owners
please remove your waste’ –
an artistic statement
not to everybody’s taste
this much is sure.

A spinster blocking the pharmacy door
with a scoop.
You? Waiting in line, shuffling feet –
she’s spinning mystique
not in, but on a loop.

Tinnitus is a sound of roaring mumbo
bouncing between drums
like thumbs pressing fast-forward on cassette
decks out of sync – a man crossing deserts
without a drop to drink
no time to process
or think.

Your actual labrador
drops too much furniture hair
yes yes don’t it get everywhere
don’t have to tell me well don’t
better your labradoodle’s coat
fixed there like my imbecilic grin
he’s a fresh brown paint drying
and always there when you get in.

Now - flashback to the woods
a dog worrying a river stone
some small version, a man alone
watches his mutt hunch hindquarters -
something’s dumped in water

and you’re spotted
so he's asking where your dog is
did you leave him home?
No, no you’re out for exercise
walking paths - clearing lungs
keeps you fit - keeps you young.

He replies something about going under
being swamped – he doesn’t wonder
there’s too many,
too many

and with irony - not a hint -
people wandering streets skint
gasping for air amongst doghair
that plugs the very fabric.

In town they’re toting two or three
twisted leads under feet -
you’re playing dodge dog
keeping mincers peeled for logs
or those little green bags –
a public looking furtive on urban streets
stumbling past
something claggy in their cleats,

it’s a real drag
and they’re pulling here
there and everywhere
but mostly wrapped around your fingers,
under your heels,
tangled in her pushchair’s wheels.

Obstinate yapping cretin,
the owner forgot to let it in
or there’s something disturbing
on the far side of the garden gate
letting it rip
as you’re aiming for sleep

and some say these are they
who clasp bosoms and pray
for peace to fall in the east
an end to famine, bring the feast,
vote Brexit, cut all ties
reading scoops, believing lies,
declare an end of days is imminent
while waving signs at immigrants.

Critic

 Critic

 

Dylan, he is not -

better suited to sorting

dead man’s socks

in the window

of the charity shop,

where no-one

in their right mind

would ever look,

seek to find or know no more.

 

Perpetually

in the buyer’s way,

winsome, willowy and fey,

or so he would like to think,

always teetering

on the brink,

of some huge discovery

like the correct way

to solder

porcelain to cutlery,

he jumps out

from behind the racks

of used pants, velvet hats

and gentlemen’s braces,

pulling faces

tripping the light fantastic,

with all the grace

of snapped elastic.

 

You’re wavering -

In amongst

the stacks of unsavoury

grubby fingered

cracked plastic casing

bigging up Young and Gates,

that nasty compilation

of S Club 8 –

a diamond in rough,

a sandwich filling,

 

Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan.

 

It’s in your hand,

at £2.99 today,

but £1 more

than usually

you’re prepared to pay.

 

He leaps out; chewing your ear

like a leopard wouldn’t

while chasing a Serengeti deer,

in a Dickie Atenboro’

flick screaming – Blonde on Blonde,

great album, great tracks –

he’s at your back,

and claws.

 

You want to attack,

punch his lights out,

a doughboy on his snout,

grind his goggles

beneath your feet,

let the bastard count sheep,

string an ivory necklace

with his tarnished teeth.

 

One for the masses,

us collecting classes,

whose opinions count,

who know our stuff –

 

he’s never had intellect enough

to even play this LP

repeats and bleats

what he’s heard others say,

but how many women

on how many rainy days

or sad eyed ladies

of the lowlands

could he even count?

 

Not stuck inside of mobile,

you content yourself

with a contemptuous stare

replacing the CD back where

it was like do I give a toss?

Piss off, your loss.

Gull

 

Gull

 

With a fire in its eye about to expire,

a broken wing, a bicycle tyre,

you wonder if it knew the sky was lost.

There will come a gnawing frost,

clenched hunger, gut crush, faded gloss,

while the waste skip waits open jawed

for a casual toss.

The cyclist doesn’t look back,

disappears around the corner, rucksacked,

hearing those brittle bones crack,

a caped crusader with no crusade,

no cape, another’s trauma to be replayed,

burned forever onto the mind's DVD.

Now, haunted by fate like Spallner,

and too late, it watches Bradbury’s Crowd

gather, some hushed, others loud,

who gawp and point out its distress,

taking bets, jaw,  jabber, second guessing

how long it will be, then, finally move on

given that they were not the ones.

Ask

 Ask

 

Since you ask, I didn’t.

 

Ask.

 

To fill out your screed,

about a nosebag full of prefab feed

and what satisfaction canst thou have tonight

just because I was seized

by a compulsion for Italian. 

Well, I can't get me none.

 

Oh, you'll kick down curtains

with both feet,

wrench open the windows

grin and greet

a brand new morning

until, with no warning,

she shoves an odyssey of chores

into the back flap of your drawers,

cumulonimbus rising

like knitted sacks,

yakkety yak – don’t talk back.

 

Or in your case, do.

What did I think? Here’s a clue.

 

A bussed in ambience

from Whipsnade Zoo,

with primitives on table two,

released from primordial warrens,

trying to unravel the knife and fork,

and all you do to me is talk, talk -

talk, talk, talk, talk.

 

A tooth mug your waiter’s brought

of cheap lemon squash,

a pipette drop

was not enough to wash

them down - stuck in my craw,

boot them in the out doors,

nobble them in the knackers

while I knock back the teaspoonful

which won’t show on the bill –

his looks say it all:

I should be grateful for the gratis.

 

Know now, thou villain,

and despair thy charm -

those breadsticks were untimely ripped

from their plastic packet,

thrust untidy in a vase

like sunflower stalks post menopause,

wilted and dry in salad beds.

 

Even Doctor Munigant would think twice,

balk at the price,

shake his bony flute in dread

and go for the warmed up crisps

with cheese on top instead.

 

Why not try our Olive Spread?

Freshly bought from Tesco,

chucked into a curated bowl,

with all the panache of scuttled coal.

 

That Dover sole

hauled itself onto dry land to get here,

limped up the M2, gimped down the A30,

bedraggled and dirty,

it rusts in peace, scarcely a feast,

tossed on top of linguine,

but it would be unseemly

to send it back, given the effort it took

to get itself off the hook

and make its way to my table.

 

Putting his phone down,

if he’s able,

your pustuled waiter

is less than glad,

to wipe down the table with his rag,

passes a serrated paper ripped off

his pad –

 

I can count,

it’s a whopping amount,

a Fort Knox of an invoice -

it demands, in childish hand,

something equivalent to the national debt,

but wait, wait, there’s more yet;

can I give him a tip?

 

Yes.

 

Since you ask.

 

That deep freeze home-thawed tart citron

was the final straw,

I’ll pay your bill, you’ll get no more,

and if you wish to gaze upon another day

don’t send me a bloody survey.

Bruce

Bruce

It is not nice to see you,
and I don’t think it ever was,
looking back.

You’re heavy,
like those coal sacks
that fell from favour—
they’re put out on strike
under Labour.

You’re not my sister,
not my brother.
I’d be as blind as Blofeld
to take you as a lover—
and boy, I’ve carried that weight
a long time.

You never give me your money.
You’d rather spend your time
making hovercraft out of waiters,
patting fat pockets,
farting about when the bill’s due—
you’ve not got your wallet with you—
so get the next one.

May many suns
set before the next one comes.
It all adds up, doesn’t it?

And somehow, you’re successful.
There’s this air that everything you earned
was earned fair—
and blonde heads were turned.
All who came your way
were lost, had strayed,
lured by a piper’s piped music
on wind-up clockwork radios you’d play.

They whisper, don’t they?
He’s the one who landscaped his own
back garden—couple of acres—
hefted a spade,
nicked through loam and clay,
installed his own fountain,
if you please.

But no amount
of hollow water features moves me,
or reconstituted trees—
and that includes your wife:
her pretentious literature group,
how she keeps in the loop
by offering home-grown counselling
from wisdom culled
off Swedish matchbox lids.

And your god-awful kids,
grown up now, entitled.
But I had to be there,
pulling out teeth, pulling my hair.
Isn’t one of them in advertising?

Your wife unearthed red onions,
discovered couscous,
used Original Source body wash—
always first amongst us,
quick to accuse, cause a fuss.
Weeks on weeks of passive-aggressive,
and I’m sitting here, stabbing warts.

Look, I don’t want to talk.
I’d let it all fade away.
But you insist on driving here,
coming to stay,
using up time I’d coveted,
husbanded, cupboarded.
I don’t want to drive you to the beach,
drink tea, talk about what used to be,
anything to do with me,
or what you got up to in ’73.
I’ve heard it all.
It was boring then,
it’s boring now.

Let me drum on your face bongos,
offer you my hand—
lend me your eyes and I’ll kick some sand,
wipe away that look of surprise:

To see you is not nice.

Cerulean

Cerulean

So, you’ve decided
to be a writer now.
I can’t really say I blame you.
All it takes
is a pinch of bluff,
ChatGPT, narcissism enough.

Any clichés will do—here’s a few
I recommend an acquaintance with;
from what I’ve seen,
they’re always used:

Take courage
in thawed thickets of dew,
soak crystal mosaics
in torrents of fire,
meld moist music,
caress with sapphire,
remember our lips
that kissed and touched,
wander forever
through sorrowful shadows,
where your intoxicated
sighs lead you,
and remember - always substitute
cerulean for blue.

As earlier observed, stack words high,
like children’s ABC blocks—
a teetering tower
balanced by your best word
jammed on top in caps lock,
call it a title.

You’re up and running.
An average punter calls it stunning,
re-tweets your name,
and wonders why
they don’t dive in
to give this piece of piss a try.

And if you run out
of all that nature stuff above,
or some dumb fuck
you once put your trust in
won’t spark your stone heart—
and who said all you ever did
was sit on your ass,
bottom of the class,
thumbing through pages
without a clue
from a manual titled
How Don’t You Do—
well, remember this:

There’s shit ones out there,
but if you call them out
you’re a hater.
They’ll bless themselves
in bottled water
labelled absolution
or vindicator.

So rebrand yourself
as book promoter,
aspire to be an influencer.
Tweet quotes you barely know,
watch piles of likes grow.
Post content, moan,
send messages, sit alone.
And, more than this, do it all
from the comfort of home.

Frames

 Frames

 

Some haphazard conversation in the car,

passes time like gum between him and her,

wheel spinning, unthinking, chewing tar.

 

Carpark barriers are permanently frozen

upright in automatic plate recognition,

she twists the keys from the ignition.

 

Grabbing a chair from the stacked rack,

two out-patients, puffing cigarettes,

gaze impassive at his pushing, then forget.

 

Infrared sensors detecting some motion

authorize sterilised doors to slide open,

he shoves her through with care and caution.

 

Slips shut to seal air inside plate glass,

they proceed forwards, neither slow or fast,

past the walking frames and plaster casts.

 

Through sterile corridors that fork left,

snake right, past hot coffee brewed swift;

a shop hawking sentimental tat by the lift.

 

Wilting flowers wrapped in cellophane,

coloured bits have fallen but some remain,

and a stony stare while a nurse explains.

 

Echoes of how many times Lucozade had lied,

a gauzy bottle that rotted from the inside,

and perhaps that drumming child had died.

 

The X Ray room’s doors are bolted shut,

he spins on one foot and trusts to luck;

you can draw what you may from his look.

Skimming

Skimming

 

She’s skimming messages that hop lagoons

from Palawan, cast off lines from far pontoons,

bangka’s outrigging, bound for beaches strewn

with ancient shipwrecks and driftwoods hewn

from barks by long fatigued swollen seas.

Today she's distant; he watches tossed leaves

of the sycamores and oaks’ silent symphonies,

conducted by the clement English breeze.

And maybe muttering we want different things,

wearing life's jacket now, and a security it brings,

peering into an ocean’s mirror while engines sing

fearless - and memories behind eyelids sting.

Warts

Warts

 

I've read the more you pick a wart,

the more stubborn it will grow

and the further the buggers spread.

The tighter the weave of a fishing net

the more let slip the minnows -

add spammers to your blocked list,

you risk growing bastard cysts,

a monstrous carbuncle of ineloquent fiends,

grifting purveyors of half-assed schemes:

 

I mean, seriously -

Who in shit are Cheech and Chong,

and why should we care?

What is it they dare do there

with cruise chews, hemp,

and who this side of sane, would send

off their intimate particulars?

 

I looked into it, you know -

warts, I mean, and how they grow.

You get your filiforms, plantars, 

some are fat with virus,  flat

and they named a brand of peanuts for that,

dry roast, if you’re asking –

then, here’s the kicker:

those black spots are blood vessels

make them grow quicker.

 

So, if you’re a habitual picker - stop.

 

Let warts have a pyrrhic victory,

or they’ll only evolve into something slicker.

Next time you’re messaged, my advice,

play along with them, put something nice,

non-committal, threaded string-alongs:

 

‘no, no, nothing wrong,

dear, I’m totes made up with your random

message, and how may I assist?

Why, you unsolicitous dog, if you insist,

well, naturally, I can’t resist.'

 

They won’t tell you, of course -

working from some lame-arsed script

a stickleback trying to reel you in

like a scab you’re half picked -

but, you're on to the trick,

the senders are pricks,

painting growths with acid 

they hope will burn,

have some fun with illiterate scum

and when you’re done, my son,

remind them it’s time they grew some,              

tell them go screw themselves

and fuck right off.

Xanadu

 Xanadu

 

And now, Dobson opens his eyes to see,

somebody speaking, somebody reaching,

but lost in a language that used to serve them,

and they call it Xanadu.

 

Roll over Beethoven – tell Tchaikovsky the news.

 

You and I, says she, share no friends.

and sits back, arms crossed, as if his life depends

on the next secret sign he sends.

 

And he needs a shot of rhythm and blues.

 

Right there, in the arm, swab the skin,

stick that needle right in,

like The Doctor did when she opened her arms

and let him sin.

 

Sees Aunt Sally coming, so he ducks back in the alley.

 

Distracted for a second, puts his paper down,

rubs at stubble on his cheek with a scowl,

picks up his lemon and lime; swallows it down.

 

The love, the echoes of long ago.

 

Friends? Well, now. Dobson considers this gravely,

feeling the pull of a gravity of sorts, shivers bravely

and concludes, with a certainty that’s deft,

Well, that’s because I haven’t any left.

 

She rolled over Beethoven and gave Tchaikovsky back.

 

Well, that says it all, says she, in triumph.

You could carve that look in alabaster, put it on a plinth,

if you were into that sort of thing.

 

But he’s got to make that southbound train tonight.

 

Later, he’s in the passenger seat,

the car idles, the gear’s in neutral and so is he,

looks up, spots a lurching ass by the trees,

pushing hard on a trolley.

 

Shake, shake, shake; shake your booty.

 

Look at the size of that, he grins,

but she’s already aiming her frowning fingers at him,

Mine’s twice that size, she stings

like a nest of wasps, lost, searching for something.

 

And all they have made is how time flew.

They call it Xanadu. Xanadu. Xanadu.

Flicka

Flicka

Once upon a different time,

a story wrote in grit and grime,

this coffee pot Wyoming father percolated

expecting future days of pride.

Watches his marinating girl

for any flame or flicker,

but in the end, grabbed and burnt

his hard boiled Stetson in despair.

Katy - or was it Ken?

I can't be sure, it was way back when -

chipped away at the old block,

dashed his lifeboat on the rocks -

because that daughter’s pleased

to flop in her room at home and read.

 

Diverted, introvert, self-doubting,

set firm against his shouting,

averse to imprudent bossy encounters,

sure that any game-plan she devised

is bound to fail and flounder.

Until Flicka’s untamed spirit moved her

to cast cobbled fishing tackle out to sea,

net schools of life that set her free.

 

So, celebrate, good times, come on!

 

Here’s a showboat full of ponies

hoofing around a field in ceremony.

Unstable them, give them a bit and bridle,

let them loose against local rivals

or make it something international, why not?

 

Let them prance about the paddock

flicka, flicka, beaded, braided, bobcat bobtails,

tikka-takka, tappa-tappa, pale maned

in bushy, bushy, blondie painted nails.

Cheer on the whinnying and snickering,

shriek at the biting-back and bickering,

and whoa to any pony who sulks, complains,

or cramps on the field, clutching sprains.

 

Are the dreams of Katies being fueled,

by the tumbling and the hair-pulls,

or is The Emperor walking streets unclothed?

You've a sneaking suspicion that he's nude,

but risk cancellation for being rude,

and before you rush out to buy any stickers,

choose life, breathe in, relax, recline,

you might find there's a better time,

within the dusty pages of ‘My Friend Flicka’.

Guttural

 

Guttural

 

With sound like gulls eviscerated to shreds,

shrieking over a single cast-off slice of bread,

the Walrus lumbers his hangdog head,

opens the back of his throat and screams

choked off strings of senseless phonemes,

stitched together with shards of barbed wire,

and in piss-hole eyes, rot extinguished fires.

It goes on all day, from the morning grey

of his first wet whistle to the end of play -

as if they’ve lashed up whips to flay

at sluggish, slack and stagnant rubber,

pierce thick hide; mine for congealed blubber,

impound metal sticks where legs should be.

While somewhere in scud, his flea-bitten fleas

suck deep at pallor to feast, rut and multiply -

tattooist that punched at back of his neck,

severed the spine from the cerebral cortex.

Hocked up from black cast oil-slick lungs,

his dissonant cacophony of malcontent is flung

like flame grilled whoppers, hooded like claws,

twisted by spanners, slung through doors,

flapping on floors like a harpooned pollock,

a stuck hog floundering with a twisted bollock,

open mouthed in instinct, swearing hunger,

squatting in piss on his concrete tundra

and the acolyte that orbits him like flies,

whose doped eyes widen in draggled surprise

as he screams - fuck off, fuck off, fuck off,

with crotch blight patchwork on damp cloth.

They carved pie into the thinnest of slices

and in a flick of blade, a twist of knife,

environments have evolved to suit this life –

Poundstretcher, Newpoundland - offering clutter,

spewing putrid gash into high-street gutters,

and the sky is full of wheeling gulls who never tire

of circling this guttural with feral eyes afire.

Stamped

 Stamped

 

There’s something in here about collecting stamps,

you took up hinges, tweezers, magnifying glass, lamps

and saucers of dishwater to pan through grit for gold.

Big Chief I Spy squats, smoking weed by his totem pole;

dreams about spies who never came in from the cold

perhaps saw how they both took it up, but, in the end,

neither could be bothered – let’s return to sender -

albums, lovingly given, a quick pick n mix Christmas gift

from Woolworths, dusted off in the bargain bin by the lift,

a spinster’s impulse buy because the fancy took her

amongst racks of cheap unsold singles like Sugar, Sugar

or Bridget the Midget going Chirpy Chirpy, Cheap Cheap.

As I passed you, yesterday, in the sunshine of the street,

did I fancy you flushed a whiter shade of pale, lover?

But that was just my cock talking, you never bothered

to stop, kept walking, despite our flash of recognition,

our album is remaindered in an unworried condition.

We’re but relics from years back - you hoped for better:

I never did send my stamped Penny Black by letter.