A Third Class of Robber

 

A Third Class of Robber

 

Amongst other things,

such as monogrammed serviette rings

that might’ve been silver

and all that’s better to wipe you with, dear,

although he more properly might have used napkin

because such things

can say a lot about a fellow, you know –

there was a pottery mug for drinking.

 

Coffee, probably.

 

I know what you’re thinking,

but this was a fascinating piece,

worth a bob or two at least

if it could even be retrieved from the 70s

where, no doubt, it lies in smithereens.

 

Bits of glazed white tessellated stuff that gleams

cracked up and hidden

at the bottom of your undisturbed midden.

 

Depicting, as it once did, a scene

that remains seared onto the anterior neocortex

these many long years and I expect

you’re familiar with it, have seen the design,

of a train in four units, three classes,

a robber, a businessman, some rich ass

being locomoted by an avuncular Casey Jones –

mustachioed in brown derby up there, alone,

and there’s chains - chains binding coaches

and each passenger oblivious

if any other makes moves or encroaches

and that robber, well he’s looking unconcerned,

taking no prisoners, slash and burn,

armed with a vicious looking jemmy,

he’s heading home with a pretty penny,

you’d think - gruesome 

sheltered under his umbrella.

 

Now, that mug was the subject of much debate

around the breakfast table

which never much hinged on the fate

of our first-class passenger,

but, instead, focused on the idea

of why a third class at all.

 

Now, this might be just a fancy

but part of me remembers a trip to Hornsea Pottery,

to purchase the very same.

 

Somewhere way up, beyond a sooty Humber,

from Bawtry, tracking North

to a part finished M18

which ends about the same place that it begins,

therefore, his right hand down and left wheel,

navigating with hands of steel

across the pince-nez, ashen East Riding fields

and here’s the North Sea -

that very place where Vikings sacked and pillaged,

running amok through this English village.

 

Now probably to do us all a favour

we were sent forth from the shop, the factory floor -

we might have rubbed noses on the glass door,

but, you know – kids, crockery

mix and light the blue touch paper and shoot

and they’re inside,

raiding shelves for porcelain loot,

though, in truth, nothing was lifted but a mug.

 

Maybe, I stared out to sea –

I certainly would now – seen many waves grind shores,

many a bandit, many a robber,

and even though I mug my class – vote Labour.

Black Angel Down

 

Black Angel Down

 

Now does she hang, twist, pirouette deep in space,

ripped-fishnet topsails, like ballet dancer violate -

she is all but abandoned to her fate.

And like lettuce shredded that once did decorate

many an honest Captain’s peak

who harked many an honest politician speak

of all those hoary old promises she did repeat

and meant them when she summoned them

to her lips, did vow such spells would not be broke,

did vow until on her own tongue she choked

and here is the time for all good men -

but these now are few, have lately fled

while she who was once proud now does beg

for courtly favours,  now does curtsy, now does stoop;

all her once firm flesh does sag, does droop

and her sacked decking performs mobius loops.

Yet, here’s some will launch the away boat, me bullies,

we who will not abandon, who will hang off the pullies,

shank blocks, run tackles, lower and set course

for the far Earth’s pale Moon, to shun this divorce,

casting for more than darning cloth, pitchers of black tar

and hundred weights of hard teak lumber.

Now shall we land our great Captain bold,

who has gazed into that which might freeze the devil’s soul,

journeyed this much, this far, crossed black vacuums cold -

thus undertakes barren Mare Imbrium to traverse

driven by sole purpose – 

that he with his creator himself converse

extort from him safe passage to Earth

and snatch back all that malignant and jealous cutpurse

with force of arms did seize from all of us.

Bass Line Criminal

 

Bass Line Criminal

 

The stage was set - we’d raised sweat

moving instruments – third time in three weeks

consecutive and you like the sound of that –

it slots home, sticks it to her, rocks, you know?

By now, one or two of them are filing in,

my lady’s wearing more a grimace than grin,

heeling the neck, heeling the neck and berating.

We’d just about knocked out Midnight Cowboy

a little dissonant direction from his keys

that’s true – I’m winking at him, he at her,

she’s counting on me to make my Yamaha purr

but as I’m counting out some bass crime occurs

and it’s felonious rather than harmonious.

Should we slink off, like a thief with a cutpurse?

I think not, dear – it’s all Ocean’s 11, in it together,

no hearts of lead but hearts like feathers

and glorious, glorious raising rafters

because after all of that there’s happy ever after

and knocking it out of your park.

I dreamt of you, you know? It’s less now

but I think I saw you, looking cold, looking long

and you didn’t know you were in this song –

I think I saw you see me and I moved along.

Guitar

 

Guitar

 

If there’s an F Hole, then a foreign object lay concealed –

well, there wasn’t and there was – a little victory

in an arousing sweet and sour musk,

something to keep, breathe in deep, to make you feel

good on those bitter Scottish Winter nights.

There’s a cheap blue transistor radio; a record player, too –

a hand me down after they’d bought something new.

You’d lift the teak veneer plywood lid

and stack your old MFP and Contour knock offs,

bought cheap from Woolworths

and she’d say the mono needle would wreck the grooves,

skip tracks, repeat and stick, locked in by use,

but she was wrong – and one by one, they’d clatter,

clack-drop needled as they toppled onto the spinning platter.

He was no conjurer, was he? Put a plug, you’d entreat,

and dodge the flying fish or feet that would greet

such an impertinent request. Still, Uncle Fred

accepted the challenge and gladly hooked you up.

But the best and worst of times by far, an ancient guitar

she’d donated; its repaired neck, steel strings, over-raised nut

that caused many a bruise and threatened deep cuts

as you tried in vain to shape a chord.

That time she’d caught you miming one day,

shook scoffing head, said why you don’t learn to play

is beyond her. But, then again, many things were.

Eventually it stood it in a corner waiting better times,

and concealed there in nylon, buried deep inside a soundhole –

something for the weekend, you know?

Today I Have No Timetable

 

Today I Have No Timetable

 

Today, I have no timetable.

 

Late to bed, having booked Uber

to send her; watched that black track line

until she arrives on time

then eight rounds with three pillows

until on the deck, out for the count.

 

That plane’s skimming Indian Oceans

as the duvet undulates in motion

ripples, swells, disgorges -

 

and I here plead guilty to the skipping gym,

accepted her sentence, no mitigation

that's why you’ll always find me in the kitchen

at parties, squeezing lemons,

stirring up your actual apple cider vinegar

and swallow, swallow – filling hollows

but who knows what the result might be?

 

And the Bragg’s bottle reads With The Mother,

why not Mistress, why not Lover?

 

For it’s surely little things I find you miss –

I’d tell you now,  but you cannot see

through sets of lenses smeared in gritty mist

because she did not apply her daily wipe

or apply the cleansing lotion

to my thinking elbow’s thickening skin.

 

So, let’s go through the motions,

shall we? it’s quiet, too quiet…

and cold those Doha winds

that breeze through these britches blue,

but, blow me if I was wearing any.

 

I’m no Timothy Winters, just going commando

without rifle, ammunition, bullets, bombs

or even a sense of the bars of which song

I should summon up or even hum along to

as my feet drift the scattered trash.

 

Infirm of purpose -

These feet don’t know which way they go

but ended here anyway, somehow.

All of Me

 

All of Me

 

Part of me demands to know

which way it is the winds will blow

and how you did bring snow.

 

Part of me is callous, pressed string

and thickened against all those things

your milk of human kindness bring.

 

Part of me is exultant and glows

when fingers shift and fingers know

how A major to D minor flow.

 

Part of me is fluent in spilling rages

like black bottled ink upon pages

that question all your seven ages.

 

Part of me is adept in skimming oil

off calmed waters and toils

to look into all that waste and spoil.

 

Part of me longs to be there

and wills me to close my eyes and stare

at they who walk on waters fair.

 

Part of me wants to ask

if there’s anything left that lasts

in songs we play that live in the past.

 

Part of me smiles at we who are five,

is grateful for how we bring it to life

and how it is we did survive.

 

All of me is lips and arms and heart

that once were torn apart

but finds reconstruction of the face is art.

Ah, Daniel

 

Ah, Daniel

 

 

Don’t they chuck you into a lion’s pit

and - come dawn - you weathered it?

As you were, boys, she’s on the keys

hitting Es, gives you the finger, up, up –

spinning her ghost pegs to coax strings

and she’s cranking it or backing it off,

twisting space like a gripped nipple

and you’ll face the music of her violin

gladly. Give it a go? Course you’ll try

but at 64, your tuning fork’s a bitch,

while under her hair sings perfect pitch

and Isn’t that a husband passing by?

Just checking chests and heave-ho,

his policeman’s helmet is on patrol,

noting busty flushed swollen mounds,

licks his pencil and scrawls a treble clef

on the lookout for a pilfering theft.

She takes her bow, strokes out a frown

in the general direction of two clowns -

that’s you and him, bass and rhythm,

but hark - when she flashes her salty grin

it sends you soaring high, above the pit,

gut-punched drunk, solar plexus hit

gasping, grasping frets for bum notes.

On the manuscript of her face is wrote

Devils to Georgia and Galway Girls,

and milkmaids with their butter churns,

fisherman’s blues in chests that burn

foiled packets took diamond shaped.

She’s necking the heel so why not take

all of me? Take my arms, take my lips,

raise up those sleepy lions, crack whips

and pour her harmony onto lusty louts;

for God sent angels to shut their mouth.

Apollo 13

 

Apollo 13

 

Once in Worksop there was a library someplace,

where on a far shelf, lay a dust-jacketed book

in hardback that he’s only took home to look

at a small black and white photo of Saturn

that beguiled - grainy rings of moving things

sitting on a black-drop, so bleak and freezing.

 

Abbey Junior Mixed, age sixes and sevens

with you, Miss Blades, you – in broody, young

hawks hair back-tugged into a tight black bun

and clipped there like your clipped tongue -

if you had a cane, it wasn’t made of candy twists,

or barley sugars – but scored with chalked up lists.

 

Habitual leg shaker; he’s kicked them into fifth gear,

as some minds would rattle for release

and those cramps crawl anywhere but here.

There was that Kevin Bragg, remember? His dad

owned the best BBQ chippy in town but his lad

was first to put the black on you. Only deaf ears

 

listened to any protests – except once.

Grim news – Apollo 13, circling those heavens

high and rumours that they all might die,

something about pills, how brave men don’t cry,

that’s him talking, he’s holding the floor

while you, Miss Blades are considering a response

 

and Bully Bragg stands hesitant by the door.

Later, a class writes to astronaut Jim, in command,

crayoning wax-scrawl in small and tall hand

which maybe they’ll mail to Cape Kennedy.

Years from now, there’ll be a film - Tom Hanks -

and some kid looking back on a book with thanks.

Linseed on Willow

 

Linseed on Willow

 

Somewhere near Sherwood in a garage or shed,

a boy can only remember looking up –

and decades later how there was a book, given,

something like We Need to Talk about Kevin

or KP, his biography, some scandal or other

but like Squeeze, he couldn’t be bothered

with arrangements, a left note, a door closed,

or another nail for the heart.

And in this garage or shed were tools and such,

linseed oil, a sweet smelling lint-free cloth,

circular motions and a cricket bat set forth

on his bench. Instructions – how it was imperative

for, if not, that soft willow will crack.

In truth the boy was not much interested in that

but probably wondered if it was the wood that wept

because I know him. And as for the book,

well, the flies buzzed around lamps when he slept.

Her First Spoon and Pusher

 

Her First Spoon and Pusher

 

They puke up recommendations

you know – from algorithms,

other selections you might enjoy

along those lines, I don’t care enough

to fact check that stuff,

I’m sure you’re quick enough cotton on,

an idiom and archaic phrase

that comes from the adhesive state

of fibres, since I asked; you didn’t.

I see these videos all the time

and is it on the nose to point it out

along the lines of - well, why?

There’s another one you may’ve missed,

harks back to railways, theodolites and such;

gangs of navvies glyphing millstone grit

to carve their initials there.

But look, try not to snigger as he stares

pretty vacant - clickbait, you’d call it, not me:

it’s My Daughter’s 1st Listen

to ‘Home by the Sea’. That’s all?

Genesis, 43 years old, not great,

off an album thought third rate,

not a patch on Foxtrot, Nursery Cryme

which are definitely beyond this pair,

but could I give a monkey’s? Not me.

Here’s a few I’ve tossed off, feel free:

My daughter’s first bib, first beaker, first fart,

her very first piece of very shitty art,

look - her very first Barcelona baby-gro,

and maybe someday he’ll actually go

to Spain, Portugal or Mother Russia.

Fuck him; his adoption of half assed tunes -

and if you’re watching her very first spoon

then check out her very first pusher.

Right Here Right Now

 

Right Here Right Now

 

This morning:

 

Saturday early doors, in the gym,

nothing labyrinthine,

nothing fatboy, nothing slim,

nothing much of anything.

 

He thinks:

 

The 90’s are far, far away,

and, on losing their way

in 75, Slade refrained from that.

Dylan long raised his pillbox hat

to Ray Davies’ phenomenal cat

one lazy sunny afternoon,

he’s gonna be there, very soon.

 

She cocks an eyebrow:

 

Silky mistress, keeping score

says how they should do more

it being the weekend -

and looks right fetching

in that tight bustle

licking lips, something supple.

 

They’re eating breakfast:

 

After a half hour’s preparation

sets out a cold collation,

sofa’d up, catching news,

and if she’s confused,

he’ll translate –

fruits upon a wooden plate

careful cuts fondly shaped.

 

She considers:

 

The dentist for treatment

of a couple of gaps, replacements:

has sourced the best value

suggest he checks and he allows

they’re not getting any younger.

 

And they both wonder:

 

About lay, lady, lay

and it can be that way -

but often at this age

it’s something of a slog,

getting the sleeping dog

to wake up and bark,

how it’s only a part

of it all, anyway,

and why it happened 

right here, right now,

why not yesterday, somehow,

or way back when

it was told you’re never too old

to begin again.

Bus Shelters and Tunnels

 

Bus Shelters and Tunnels

 

Manchester refuses to swim into being

and cannot yet coalesce

but Sheffield is there – bits of it –

 

Bramall Lane, a child asking Wednesday,

some block-built offices where he worked,

cars cross-stitching a double deck viaduct

and rumpled paths in steep-vallied woods.

 

A rail divides this concrete bus shelter

in brutalist hollow paneled kicked out glass,

framed Winter winds are blistering skin,

his small hands need a good mittening.

 

Maybe two others there, too,

it’s of no consequence – what’s piquing

and forming in his mind are hollows.

One, either end. Why? How can

passengers find shelter there, when air

must funnel in at that end, then this?

Where is the warmth, middling bliss,

of the balming womby fleece?

 

They may or may not

have got on a bus,

but, in any case, with nothing like the fuss

of a jump cut, he’s taken,

across a road near Bocking Lane

looking down to stare at trains.

 

Leans over that drystone wall

built of rocks, raises a call

that echoes through thickets,

over trails and rooty rough mud track,

he’d picked his way through that,

holding Aunty Jean’s rough hands.

 

Tunneling far below in miniature

like a thin metal needle through unsewn sampler,

thunders the 1155 to Manchester.

We Didn’t Mean to Put a Lid

 

We Didn’t Mean to Put a Lid

 

Does she wonder if she gets what she pays for?

You’d doubt it.

Flying ultra budget,

because hey we’re going to Majorca

on Coconut Airways

and now she’ll take them on,

best the corporate beast,

trouser some pocket change at the very least.

The lawyer’s on it -

it’s lucky how she’s a nurse

or else it might've been that much worse -

could’ve been a child, after all.

Well – if any right thinker

would trust their offspring

to gadgets made from sealing wax and string,

with leg room fit to swing

a noosed gnat.

Daddy, daddy, we didn’t mean to go to sea,

so let’s make grown-up noise

like how, years ago, I read we’d take

a cheap 18th Century packet,

from Dover to Calais, toss and turn -

or walk beside a mired mail coach

up Shooters Hill, puffing away,

beside grime spattered draft horses,

a 6-up hitch stuck in courses

over-topped with mud;

how we’d push the hind boot

to help breast the peak.

Ah, look, she’s gone and got burnt.

That hot coffee with malice aforethought

has slopped; viciously plopped

onto her lap – how it dropped

its load, she cannot in all conscience say.

We didn’t mean to put a lid

or we did if we had, but the budgets don’t run,

still, not much worse than the sun

might ask of your skin.

Lucky, she’s a medic though,

because flight attendants haven’t a clue

these days and she’s lost her words

for surface wipes or dry paper towels.

At the time, she howled,

but later, kipping on a sunbed, poolside,

not prepared to put a lid on it

and all of a loose lipped

cat, rat, bag - thinks how they could sink ships

and, having nursed her thoughts

took the whole kit and kaboodle to court.

Potions

 

Potions

 

Dear…I am Filipina,

there must be potions.

Yesterday, you tease her,

saying you are like witch

chiefly thinking of those

three you never met,

delighting in equivocation

and I’ll get you yet,

Penelope Pitstop.

No Hooded Claw, for sure,

more Sylvester Sneekly,

pretending to meekly

accept potions for warts,

apple acid on feet,

lotion for elbows

rubbed raw from rested chins,

in what passes for thinking.

Medicines for depression,

that which lessen

gnawing fear, panic, dread,

a drug for a weary head

that built the toppled towers.

Crème with power

to soothe rashed up lips,

potent lavender to slip

onto coarse throat and ease,

and something blue

for the weekend, please.

All this after half an hour

screaming, making hot motion

at her cool iPhone,

because a naughty sister

left an octogenarian mother alone,

threatened to scoop her

from home. Even at 53

that one seeks work in Davo City,

something to bespell,

putting potions there as well.

Yesterday, you heckle her with:

you’re like my mother

she shrugs back,

grins and gives

good you have mother like me:

in truth she’s so unlike

and so far,

we’d cross seven seas.

In potions she conjures

all the pushing oceans -

we float in her dreams

and my visions

of all drowned lovers.

A Penny for Them

 

A Penny For Them

 

Usually, there's twelve to a shilling.

Fat, warm, copper browns

but not in that three up, two down -

if you look close, they’re a penny short.

Wondering if it’ll be caught

escaping by way of tainted summer canals,

secreted in the sister’s pocket

after everyday lifting from a Mother’s purse,

bit naughty, but could be worse,

and on the towpath home from school

she’d pull it out, like a hot plum

from Jack Horner’s pie.

Swift into the sweet shop, buy

a fistful of fruit salads, blackjacks

chocolate coin, kayli, something like that,

fill their gobs, scoff them quick,

like a David Nixon conjuring trick

and then, in a fit of righteous panic

rub teeth with toothbrush fingers.

Would candied breath lift the latch,

speak the crime, blow the gaff?

Marching that winding path

that weaved its way through gated gardens

above Slack Walk is its own class

taught - if you’re up for it and willing.

Park Drive and Snuff Tins

 

Park Drive and Snuff Tins

 

Back then, there was Woodbines and Park Drive,

cupped hands, charcoal blacked matches, bitter winds,

catherine wheels of collieries’ lifting gears

spinning cog-webs beyond the gasometers’ rear

and the Chesterfield Canal to walk beside

on the way to school, aged five.

No hotels on Park Lane, Mayfair -

that came a couple of years later,

a warm back room, Sheffield, 34 Bocking Lane.

For now just collect working men’s crushed packets,

chucked from pit overalls, free of fags,

but if you found one, you’d have a drag

or be tempted to. We’d squeeze them from sleeves

into squares, back-pocketed for playground gaming,

flicking them onto unsteady piles, and aiming

with budding care. A winner, topping all who fight,

grins - later sorts treasure with gloating delight.

Better yet, those rare, discarded snuff tins in rectangle blue

with atomic text that offered no clue –

just the promise of filthy keen tin shearing skin,

the welling of dark gobbets of blood on grubby cuffs

and enough ring marked collars in goose-grease grey

for smoothing irons to tuck tail and dash away.

And after school, heading homewards on the towpath

past the BBQ chippy and working men’s caffs,

you’d keep your eyes peeled for everything you’d lost,

sifting daily through dog-shit in the wiry grass,

nettles, ragwort and tall towers of cow parsley,

or maybe return triumphant grasping pockets of card,

secret them carefully under stones in his yard.

Punchline

 

Punchline

 

Laying on a conspiratorial finger flex

to the audience, like a promise of sex,

perhaps - well you might think that,

not me, closer a punch to the throat

might be a nearer mark or on the nose -

wait, wait, there’s more, he’d suggest

with a wink, but, in truth, there was less.

Don’t know what I mean? Here’s one.

Same old song with a different meaning

since you’ve been gone, I’m grieving

or dreaming, when I saw you, in line.

He’s spotted the flag on my left sleeve,

did you see? Of course, I felt your eyes,

removing the jacket, unbuttoning flies

and your mouth was there, has been,

but he runneth over in his need to spill,

Is that Qatar? he gushes, all thrilled

and pointing at my emblazoned arm,

done up in maroon and white flash,

his words a cascade of hot splash

as we’re waiting in the New Year’s Eve

line for festive madras, masala, sag aloo,

well, what can you do? I spotted you,

spotting me, spotting you, spotting me,

thinking what about Breakfast at Tiffanies?

Well, that’s something we got. And curry -

goes without saying. Meanwhile, he’s below,

head down under, says he built the Metro.

I use it all the time, wherever I go, you know,

it’s great! I admit, but I'm nothing jealous.

How long? Ten years, I reply, words die.

Neither of us brave enough to call out,

neither of us bold enough to shout,

just one of those grim, tense moments -

how strange it is, that which you once loved,

slipped from your hand, a lost glove

leaving you with something no longer there.

Of course, she glares, your better half,

like Jimmy Cricket. Well, I didn’t laugh

at those dead eyes, that Winter grip,

or a scornful setting of her cemented lip.

The queue moves on and you both slip

past - they sit you at a dark deep table,

bring menus and I’m surreptitious, looking,

waiting for my take-away still cooking:

Nobody puts Angel in a corner!

I might've cried, had imagination not fled

these long years gone and left instead

items ground pepper grey, worn down, drab,

faded flowers in cracked vases breaking bad.

Spreader of stale jokes, late bottom drawer,

so badly telegraphed, reception’s a chore

and I’d show those old punchlines the door:

here, come here, quick, enough, no more.