Slow Boat to Flushing

 

Slow Boat to Flushing

 

‘You disappeared from view.’

And – on cue –

Mylor Harbour fading out like Layla,

and other assorted love songs

‘And we were worried about you –

but, moving on…’

 

Simon’s got the helm,

steady as she goes -

you could trail your hand

and stroke the mirrorlon below,

break blue borders,

to send ripples to shore’s far corners

imperceptible by the time

they make landfall

and comb the grains,

but they’d be there, just the same.

 

‘Those are oysters,’ he reports,

his voice cutting through their small talk

like a short bladed knife -

each hiding a pearl,

cufflinks for boys, strings for girls.

 

You wonder if he now wishes

he’d stayed below to steer

from within the cabin, not here

on the quarterdeck.

That’s me escaped up the fo'c's'l

by the bowsprit,

but I can still hear it:

their talk a sink full of greasy dishes.

 

I remember we had adjacent offices,

I hadn’t stayed in touch –

such things become too much

like most people are -

the latest flatscreen, the newest car:

 

‘And then we stayed at the Hilton,

Singapore, and at the bar, guess who?

Lionel Richie with the forward row

of England’s starting 15, true –

and that's Ben singing 'Nessun Dorma',

just over there, by the corner...

but, you know,

we were worried about you…’

None shall sleep.

They don't know; the idea creeps

that you could dip them both in Carrick Roads,

trail them behind the boat

to see if its glistering wake could soak

through; make them gleam.

But the only bubbles blown

are the ones they call their own

and trapped within

they push outwards at that thinning skin,

a long way from here to home.

 

Simon grunts while I make clear

there was one boat deploying forwards,

and another abandoned here;

tied to that pontoon;

sometimes you just get drafted

and there’s no raft back –

 

Or - if there is - it just exists

drifts and drifts,

screwing cork into itself

crewed by two by twos

dipping and pulling on opposing oars –

flotsam, lashed together

by creepers for the floor.

Coming Round Again

 

Coming Round Again

 

Belts and braces – literally –

let’s not try metaphor, hide meaning,

instead, let’s feed on feelings

either eat or be consumed

because sometimes they take teaspoons,

tap your head,

crack you open like an egg.

It’s coming round again,

tonguing your belly like fire,

moving up through guts to heart

and we all have guilt. For a start,

your sending him to school in trousers

tied around the waist with string

and I have pain about similar things:

Belts and braces – don’t fade.

Children can be cruel at that age,

I remember my own drubbing,

those second tier bullies rubbing

my youngish nose in it -

and a coat unpicked,

stich by stitch, at the seams,

every night trying to avoid another clubbing

by concealing more leaked stuffing.

But, you know, you slough

your chrysalis and make it to man.

These days, I’m old – I can

reach in my pocket, shell out a few shekels,

after all, it’s only what life has dealt,

so, let’s go to buy the boy a belt.

 

I Travel

 

I Travel

 

 

Chacewater garden centre,

plants its mark on visitors,

who are mostly old.

Sipping tea, chewing scones

of gritty currants, dollop of cream,

jam – cherry, maybe

more likely raspberry,

excavated from the wholesale tin.

Spit seeds from gapped teeth

where they lodge like squatters,

dab tissues on dribbles like blotters.

Some have a partner oppositting,

perhaps there’s a little talking –

sometimes silence because they say

when you know somebody so well,

conversation gets in the way.

My septuagenarian neighbour, Kevin,

clatters metal buckets of weeds,

uprooting daily those unpleasing

thickets of intruders seeding

on his four square bit of green.

From my window his constant noise

is sometimes ignored,

and sometimes annoys –

often inoffensive, but makes me think

of other plots, days gone down

where we’re younger - it stinks

to have me around, he thinks

and he longs for the days I travel.

But here’s where it ends,

bent backs, pots and pails.

Today, I’m on Artemis, out sailing,

tacking across Carrick Roads,

maybe St Mawes, who knows?

Depends on where the winds will blow,

I’m ten years behind him,

in no hurry to rattle my tin

but know, in my heart, it’s coming.

Maybe, nations are only people –

they want to travel too

with views that may be strange,

but they’re views all the same

and we’ll mistrust our sight

as they waive your right

to cultivate, border and contain.

Within our minds

travels each and every state

to be explored with furrowed thought,

and destination is only            

what a planted life has brought.

Butcher’s Choice

 

Butcher’s Choice

 

There’s only one apostrophe.

On the wrapping. Quite clear,

signifying singular:

‘Butcher’s Choice’ it assures us,

slapped on the thin plastic packet

which some sleeving machine

took no time at all to wrap it

in. Purporting to be sausages,

high quality product, these porkers -

a year before a walker

as Squeeze would have it

in reverse – appropriate, you’d think,

but fry them, they shrink

and water come a mi eye.

I wonder what they’re stuffed with?

Sage? Onions? Certainly not bone

sawdust or reclaimed gristle – no

that’d be bang out of whack,

this is top quality and that’s that –

but I microwaved one

for a shade too long

and it turned into brick.

That or a pale thin anaemic thing

you’d get arrested for quick

if you waved it at a trusting public.

They claim with maximum fuss:

‘Good food for all of us,’

in orange wobbly Mary Ann sans serif –

but quick! quick!

Send for the sheriff -

I’ve seen shopfronts

of affronted butchers

murder in mind, downing hooks,

wielding hand saws and cleavers,

taking to a nation’s streets

screaming: ‘Where’s the fucking butcher

who chose these?’

Teatime Tygers

 

Teatime Tygers

 

It’s written as a cautionary tale,

obviously, one you can’t fail

to spot. Even a retired mallet,

gone to seed and having cracked

his fair share of heads

would leap out of his deathbed

for this one. Devised by a hack

with a nought degree, ECE, probably –

into barrel-bottoming

with a major in crayoning,

fuzzy felt and tummy time.

Couldn’t cut it as a teacher,

throws on a dog collar to preach.

Presents two or three pages

using the deepest, biggest fonts,

with, ‘Illustrate this, please –

let’s have animals, with placid faces

drawn not quite right, off centre,

clothed, standing upright,

you know, anthropomorphic porkers.’

Chalk in a comedy hedgehog

with a bonnet, wooden clogs

and a penchant for mushroom houses –

it’s Beatrix Potter with an asinine plot

so far removed from ‘Animal Farm’

the only probable harm

could come from paper cuts.

This self- published slop

is flying off the shelves of no shops

whatsoever like an out of breath

iron propellered Caxton Press.

‘Piggly Porker Chokes On Sausage’:

there’s little industry and no cottage.

Sorcha

 

Sorcha

 

Why do two truths flower on one face?

Maybe you’ll see traces

at first – like how pinks streak a warning sky

before melting into blues – perhaps a cry –

Shock? Surprise? Something you’ll recognise.

Smoke signals that always have been there,

lofting skywards – calling both to dare

to read, pore over the hieroglyphs

once obscure but becoming obvious:

and now the flames are fanned,

she’ll coyly take you by the hand.

 

But how can you both play this harmony?

Maybe you’ll settle for one key,

G Major – you’re a tonic, she’s the dominant,

all hands to duet – each as complement,

soft strokes, neither of you more prominent.

You’ll find a corner – you’ll practise, amazed,

shutting the fallboard but still on display,

to touch in blunt wonder; trace

semi-breves and breves scoring your faces,

and when you’ve had time enough,

she’ll lead you to honesty from bluff.

 

And if you surrender, what will you lose?

It’s not something you can choose,

battlements will tumble like dominoes,

as rushing water into cracks must flow,

thrusting your coracle onwards and you row

against currents, strain at oars, bend backs

until you relinquish and the rudder snaps.

All you might have wished for – yours:

Shipwrecked; entwined with each other,

and as you cling with nails to her beach,

she’ll chide; she’ll tease; begin to teach.

 

Where does elation end and jubilation begin?

That is a difficult place to find,

but together you’ll uncover it; spend time

there shocked by its relief; how fine

it is, long languid hours tracing contours,

from rippled peaks to valley floors,

dazed by the accuracy of the charts you draw –

and once complete, you still sketch more.

No longer strangers on a strange shore,

and as surveyors becoming familiar,

she’ll fix positions and chart the laws.

 

When will you know there’s nothing more?

Here is the unkindest cut of all,

a scratch, but it will serve - then fall,

Caesar - but a little way above your heads

comes some sort of chopper; you’re led

by kindly lights, subtle phrases, shepherd’s crooks

impersonations of those doting looks,

something intangible was all it took –

a smoothing of corners, a grinding of blocks:

and when at last it’s time to go,

she’ll softly sigh and let you know.

Living Testament

 

Living Testament

 

 

And Will. There he is,

rubbing shoulders with Gareth Gates.

jewel case to jewel case

with nothing rare or precious

about it – except attitude.

Some remember the blubbering,

and all that stammers

becoming stripped of glamour

that no longer gleams,

but not many of you, it seems -

given the grime that collects

under my fingernails

should I handle these rejects.

Dido, thank you for another one;

there's ships that have gone down

to escape grinding boredom,

and you can get your fucking eye

off that telescope, Tunstall,

you’ve learnt nothing that bears

scrutiny – go and join Hucknall –

where something’s got him stopped.

Behold more Sandi Thom, confused

by all the smiling, pointing, laughing

at the heap of shite that’s lining

dusty boxes – another load dropped

off in the congested Charity Shop;

not much goodwill stored here,

just some struggling space

being pulled under by poor taste -

and let’s not even get started

on Bryn Teflon and the three tenners,

you parted with to purchase

his palm-stroked, pinched face

to signify depth but betray space.

Between the ears? Could be that,

if that’s all there is, if it’s enough -

but the real question sleeping rough

on the streets, begging for scraps

is who the fuck bought all this crap,

and what does it testify to a nation’s

brains, adjusted for inflation?

So, You’re a Carer Now

 

So, You’re a Carer Now

 

 

I heard it on the grapevine

(good opening line),

that you’re spending not a little time

being a carer, now.

Well, grapevines are pretty good –

for grapes, that is – and wine,

but have little to do with messages,

covert or otherwise –

truth is, you told me.

I suppose there’s a symmetry there,

you being a carer, now,

your mother, is it? You bear it,

she bore you, we’re both 60 plus,

more than a touch of rust

upon what’s left that’s vital:

the NHS whipped yours out.

We didn’t use them, though, did we?

Had the opportunity,

I could smell it, so could you –

but, khalas, you’re a carer, now.

Do you ever sometimes deliberate

if some are born to it? Caring?

Decades spent with that wanker

who worked the cemetery, chancer

who put detectives to work,

had you followed, a complete berk -

checking your mail, chasing your tale,

editing any story we could’ve wrote.

Still, as he went up in smoke –

literally - some said, ‘Solid Bloke,’

and now you’re a carer.

Or maybe, it’s Machiavellian,

that’s what your Marxist would say,

give the masses this day

something to mollycoddle, full bathtubs

of coal, pat their heads, good job,

or promise them, when they get old,

they can travel the world -

they’ve always wanted that, after all.

If you give a shit,

you could ask yourself if the world is split

into those who do and those who don’t.

Care, I mean. I won’t.

Still, I wonder,

now I’ve ricked my knees,

if you’d come over here

and care for me?

Zeta Minor

 

Zeta Minor

 

On the very edge of the known universe

where you must learn to thrive

after passing through boundaries

that separate old worlds from new.

 

It is beyond Cygnus A,

a one way trip, and they say

bringing any matter across

is forbidden, will bring down calamity -

you may not rely upon it, no source

of energy here,

you’re tampering with forces

beyond hideously dangerous.

 

As distant again from Ortoro galaxy;

any plausible strategy

becomes nothing but fallacy

propagated by bleeding hearts and artists -

you can no more bring me back there

than I can bring you here,

to even attempt to try is catastrophe.

 

That galaxy, far from the Anterades,

where scar tissues still breed

in our mind’s eye, will multiply –

if you want, go ahead, try:

but see what it did to my limbs,

the outlook’s stagnant to grim,

atrophied muscle from the attempt -

debt’s doubled, summer’s spent.

 

Any mined minerals, any dust churned

from that sullen world

is venom, toxaemia with properties

so mutagenic you lose identity

like I forgot myself, went beyond

and left just memory to hang a peg on.

 

How naïve - to think in ways back,

that formulae may calculate the abstract

into something concrete,

you can no more turn base metals gold,

spark warmth from cold

after planetfall, Zeta Minor broods –

the furthest border, adamantine barrier

between what we left there

and what we brought here.

When Do I Get to Sing My Way?

 

When Do I Get to Sing My Way?

(With thanks to ‘Sparks’ for the title)

 

 

I read ‘The Book of Dave’

and its messages stayed

with me a long time,

couldn’t put it down,

but ‘Great Apes’ left me cold

and I wondered if that was it –

do you only have one good idea

and the rest of them? Shit.

And Will Self was no Mark Lamarr

when Vic and Bob had him

fronting ‘Shooting Stars’,

that much is true. Emma Raducanu,

there’s another one –

stormed the US Open, as you do,

then managed Jack, after that.

You see, not everyone can be Beckham,

Andy Murray – Shakespeare, even –

most of us have to be content

with a life more ordinary.

Take today – having screwed up my

quadriceps well and truly

by missing the one stair; flat foot

landing – that’s all it took –

I was bombing round Sainsbury’s

on one of their electric invalid cars,

thinking, well, hey, I got this far

and look, it’s pretty neat.

Which, I think, proves my point

about onrushing age and buggered joints,

so, perhaps that’s all I’ve got to say

about when I get to sing

‘My Way’.

Ice Cold in Alex

 

Ice Cold in Alex

 

 

Not quite your rags to riches, shame -

it would’ve made a better story

if one were needed, all the gory

details that are fit to print –

like that Kate – whose husband’s late

and has to publicise her new beau,

some poor sod she’s got in tow,

you’ll read it on your bloody phones

while choking back your cornflakes –

say under your breath, FFS,

not her again – what did she ever do

except leave you?

But, look – here’s Alex, ice cold on court

and within her head, one thought -

to win – she’s playing through pain,

clipped ankles, chronic elbow strain,

serve volley, chip and charge,

tension surges on second serves,

hitting winners - cross court backhand

while fans in the Grandstand

raise the roof. In truth, you watch; feel

thrilled - like here’s the real deal

someone with a nation’s expectations

on young shoulders, an anticipation

that she’s flying their flag –

a little jealous you don’t belong,

you’re borrowing someone else’s song

having their time in the sun,

whilst your own proxies are limping along,

haunting locker rooms. Asking for time

to heal, entitled to sick notes

and understanding, your supplicants pray

for that long distant, far away day  -

they’ll generate column inches that say:

‘Legendary mirror of your community.’

Legless

 

Legless

 

Well, that’s torn it.

Both of them, actually –

and while instinct suggests healing,

what’s that pain you’re feeling?

 

There’s just a shadow,

an inkling, barely a pen stroke

that this is not a joke -

possibly indelible

 

like those tattoos you didn’t get -

you feel pity for those

who did – fading like the rose

they were never given:

pull down their cuffs,

keep them hidden

from scornful, unspoken stuff.

 

A summer spoilt by a misstep

and this, my dear, is unjust desserts;

keep telling yourself the hurt

was undeserved – both flat feet

hit the deck, bearing weight

you should’ve lost.

 

And the cost?

Humility and then the boy saw it all,

old enough to know

how these things sometimes go

why there’s a town full of crawlers.

 

Spoilers, darling, spoilers:

‘Were you drunk?’

Well, you had to hear that

at least once –

but, no - oh, how you rue

the impulse to undertake

that dangerous trek

down darkened stairs

to buy yourself some Chinese food.

 

Takeaway, why not?

Well, take this away, my lad,

remember in fondness              

those steps you take to make you learn,

and those you take that burn.

Pushed, Stamped, Debriefed

 

Pushed, Stamped, Debriefed

 

 

On route – the legs worked - the mind? Sharp.

Well, age makes some portions spongy-soft,

and sentiment can wrap its curds in cheese cloth,

expose to air what passes muster as heart.

The flight that took you above the clouds

still brought you down to earth somehow

until the mere act of brewing coffee is ground.

You’re resigned, feel you’ve left something behind,

but won’t be pushed, filed, stamped – it’s kind,

after all, but still glittering grey and who will pay?

You repeat yourself, unsure what lies behind –

were there spectacles? Ah, you cannot say,

cannot swear to it. There’s story here, fable,

but any allusions were but leavings on the table –

you read about that, how it descends from feast

to famine – a licking of bone, a handful of crumbs,

indexed, briefed, debriefed and numbered.

You confessed to nightmares that plague slumber,

shrugged them off – what is and ever was,

and during the unwinding of the river’s course

wondered how many million millions were lost –

you are not alone, your life is your own.

But somehow - and you know not how –

the mirror crack’d from side to side, the curse

is come upon you, the legs, once so true,

buckled beneath, failed, and found you impaled

on a clerk’s spike fashioned from rusty Victorian nails.

Than To Arrive

 

Than to Arrive

 

What mileage is there in well-worn words?

Hearing ‘ramp it up, turbo-charge it’

and the rest – verbs too tired even to type –

you can be sure nothing will happen ever.

They’ve said, ‘It’s better to travel’

but is it really? Well, perhaps. Hopefully.

Go there - face down and slay your past -

a grim mission indeed – you’ve gone to seed,

not up to the task, it’s still mountainous,

while the dragons - well they remain.

It will be bleak there on the High Peak -

you’ve seen a mossy grass that’s blown

constant contrary to whipping winds,

delighting in tinted metal blue displays,

bordering black reservoirs, lining the floor,

as raindrops fall on Saddleworth Moor –

brittle walkways so pin-striped thin,

you could easily imagine yourself tumbling in

and the water’s cold clutching hands

reaching out to drag you back and under.

How far away now, your Cornish summer?

Halted. On hiatus – warm scalloped pastures

shelter under unshedded leafy branches

while sleepy meandering rivers trip lightly

like a schoolboy reluctant to go home,

hesitant to ford her steppingstones,

or face battles lost these forty years since

when doing a man’s work in a boy’s skin,

ever guarding against thin beating reeds.

But as for here and as for now,

they’re playing ditties on Smooth Radio,

where they’ve ironed the bass sheet-flat

to lessen peaks, troughs – blow away impact,

soften and make bland any music from then -

for age makes mellow the listener’s ears

just as cliches thrive on passing years.

Rain Stopped Play

 

Rain Stopped Play

 

 

The tyranny of the empty document

waiting for words to conjure pictures

is not unlike the falling deluge – consigned,

it would seem, to frustrate –

there, in Washington, where his players wait.

 

Within locker rooms, ideas now have time

to swim, to compete, to picture

beyond a finish line to their final fixture,

and my Filipina has it all to do:

Set down, a second pending

on serve, and can only gesture at the ending.

 

But it is not two players

looking up; offering prayers,

but nimbostratus hanging like a grubby shroud

finger on the trigger,

who will determine any outcome here.

 

And you, my love, on hiatus,

taking a nap, trusting these hungover grey skies

will clear, all disguises disappear, suns will rise;

obstacles abound for his might to confound –

some deus ex machina hanging around

 

to absolve our chimerism someday, one day:

bring players back to court after rain stops play.

Dick and Dom on Henman's Hill

 

Dick and Dom on Henman’s Hill

 

 

‘Ooo, really, you know you shouldn’t do that,’

and was her stress on ‘that’ or ‘do’?

Curling my lip, I noted her crumpled brown

paper packaging masquerading as skin

unwrap a tad – once she’d tapped it out –

delivered her sentence in flat morse code,

oh - black cap be damned - save our souls,

why don’t you? I could barely be bothered

to tell her it was some 30 / 40 years ago.

But, I did, incredulous as the words let fly,

turned my back, shut the door - then drove.

Backing up: Next door’s got more cameras

installed, security, I expect - him on a desktop,

her knit one, purl one, here’s one, laptop –

ah, but the nature you see? Yesterday a fox.

Day before? A fox. Pigeons, crows, starlings,

my God, tell you what, you get the lot,

don’t you – she’s amazed to see a hedgehog –

not just one, a family. That’s where I come in,

‘Really? I remember feeding them milk.’

Know what? There’s a lot you shouldn’t do:

Second marriages and infidelity, there’s one,

him keying some neighbour’s car, spiking

its tyres for stealing his parking – complaining

about my music, my hair, my lifestyle,

both spying for the DHSS, scribbling files full

of nonchalant devilry – begging me to take

two daughters to school out of goodness’ sake

and convenience – ‘You work there, after all’,

despising football then hearing their footfall

on Wembley Way that time City lifted the cup.

Fine. Fine. I don’t censure, it’s all banal,

worse things are floating in Worksop canal

that drift into the Idle, the Trent, the Humber.

Don’t let any words disturb your slumber –

just keep on checking your CCTV monitors

for 30 or 40 years waving as they pass you by.

You want my opinion? Cut to Wimbledon

where Clare Balding’s choking on words,

wrestling them from her misinformed throat,

can’t keep up with play, so crossfades to herds

for the burning want of an emergency fill -

there’s millions of you waving on Henman’s Hill.

Counting Laps

 

Counting Laps

 

Someone who estimates their laps is lying –

not in a big way, but nonetheless

they smooth out a rough guess to impress.

As I’m rounding the far buoy for the fourth

or fifth time (it’s difficult to be sure,

see what I did there; so easy isn’t it?) -

maybe a third or sixth lap, I think about this

and pull a few languid breaststrokes, viz:

‘Oh, yeah, been to Corfu a couple of times,

can’t remember, how many now’ (she can),

or ‘Think I did maybe about 10,000 yesterday,’

(he checked his smartwatch straight away),

I can see them all sprawled on the beach.

Now, this water’s freezing, but I’m getting

my money’s worth, you can be sure of that,

sharing the Fal Estuary with jellyfish, mullet,

and any other deep sea horrors that kiss

my bootless feet – swim on and dismiss –

as 30 minutes previous, 3 heads motioned

at me – I spotted familiarity in the salted

disembodied faces, but quickly struck out

for that blue yacht, wilfully ignoring shouts,

crossing the line between what’s known

and what is not. They’ve reserved a rock

for me, no doubt, threadbare towel dropped

upon it, sand up cracks: ‘How many laps?’

‘What’s it like? In there?’ Nodding interest

but wiping the gravel from their phones.

Bollocks to it. But I can’t shiver here in foam

forever and, therefore, in a dissimilar way

to Ursula Andress, (Doctor No), emerge,

dripping iced waters from prick-pin flesh,

gathered roughly no costly conch shells;

therefore, I guess, have nothing left to sell.