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.