Muscles

 

Muscles

 

In England, outlook’s bleak,

black rats thriving on streets

amongst black bags of claggy trash,

in a noble bid to extort more cash

from councils. Can’t pay going rates,

gathering taxes with the sort of rakes

you’ve seen croupiers use in casinos

in rose tinted 60s spy films.

 

Did he see it coming? Took flight?

Heathrow’s carpetbaggers out on strike:

where’s James when you need him,

scorpions on those aching limbs?

 

He wasn’t born with slippery feet,

a husband and wife who never speak,

except in terms of economics,

and words that butter no parsnips.

 

Her muscles debilitate, knees are weak,

so perhaps he’ll work forever,

purchase one of those neat wheelchairs

with a motor when the hills are steep.

 

In a country far from basking rats,

on every corner, your stray cats

who are more than friendly for all that;

the pay comes tax free.

 

She comes to him, in the gym,

wearing a miniskirt and a grin,

all tight ass and five foot two,

speaking these words: Yes, dear,

you should keep fit, keep coming here,

my advice, try weights, build muscles.

 

With a bum that bustles

she’s gone, makes porridge, slices mango

from lands where the heavy fruit grows,

branches groan, plentiful, free

and thinks he’ll have them both for tea.

Plunge

 

Plunge

 

Up before sunrise, bleary eyed,

watch them sweep poolside,

put cushions, wiping tables

clean of desert dust that settled

overnight, born on the backs

of dry, arid, stinging winds.

Bottled water boils in heat,

tabled by nimble feet; they greet,

in only degrees of separation:

different faces, different nations,

because passports carry power.

Today we are four driving south

to Sealine, leaving our houses

late afternoon, for sea, dunes

that become a desert gateway.

Free for all, this a rare holiday;

all are welcome, all will come,

bread and fishes served with sun,

watch her plunge into the sea.

Now I see – he’s looking at me

and my three Filipinas, taunting,

moisture tripping from tongue

after swimming, all have come.

We’re brothers, spirit levelled,

tatty clothes, shorts disheveled,

my one woman stands, strips,

flips in, the cool water grips

shirt tight to her chest – bound.

As she swims, it clings, he grins

he waves me, he’s beckoning,

insists I do likewise; follow in.

Response in kind, indicate shirt

that’s so far dry, free of sand, dirt,

of any menaces that lie lurking

beneath crumbling grainy sand.

But gestures with twisting hands

suggest that I could easily wring

out sopping cloth, take a plunge.

We shared something: I lunged,

tried to grasp what had passed

between us, and when, at last

I thought I had it in my hands,

it slips in drips on foreign lands.

Lennon

Lennon

Maybe he was always going to come,
shooting love bullets
from the love-gun,
imagined drama cameras focusing on
his detaching shadows
before CCTV was even a thing.

His face made stone,
a petrified mouth, hissing: phoney,
beaten-up Catcher in the Rye,
an autographed Double Fantasy
gripped tight to his lead-lined chest.

But the facts are these:
for some time,
all four of them had been in decline,
records in the bargain bins
of Woolworths, Boots, and Smiths.
Supplanted, some would say,
by Anarchy in the UK,
London Calling, The Police, and Sting—
which is not a bad thing.

Aged 18, shook awake
from a distant dream,
of muddy fields in Matlock, Derbyshire—
they’re well past flintlocks,
bespattered men from Sheffield,
his father smelling of cordite,
cartridges, and shot.

A thick ear if you forgot
to carry your shotgun uncocked,
or walked ahead of the beaters.
Baying dogs flushing pheasants to flight—
here’s a left, and a right, goodnight.

Sticky, syrupy beer
in plate-glass tankards for afters,
pipes, cigarettes, and laughter,
the thick smoke clinging to rafters.

Then, a rude awakening:
"He’s dead, he’s dead,
they shot the fucker,
in the chest, he won’t live."

The day drags in a daze,
while the DJ plays
what had, until today,
been some forgotten curiosities.

And in that moment, you know
you won’t forgive.

It flashes forever before your eyes—
the arguments growing up,
good from bad,
did drugs really open the mind?
If you experimented,
what would you find?
Surely love is really all you need.

Planting Johnny Appleseeds.

Maybe he was always going to come
and watch a father oiling his gun.

McCartney

 McCartney

 

Not a chance meeting –

they sat across a table

arranged by his son

who forgot his I D,

had to run, did one,

left his father and his boss

to their lager, reminiscing.

 

Two old dads,

bonding over this soft lad

in a shared love of McCartney.

And soon, the top song?

The best LP? Band on the Run,

or maybe Venus and Mars,

strange to think

how years had passed

since they first toured London Town,

flipped Wings at the Speed of Sound.

Spin it on. Don’t stop.

 

The boss, wistful, grins –

because, he’s seeing things,

a father who took his son

to watch the maestro play.

 

Knew one who mullocked heroes,

mocked Lineker, Robson,

scoffed and sneered

at Gazza’s tears.

No time for long haired queers.

 

So, is it wrong

to feel for someone, never met?

Or trust the words of one

you wish you could forget?

Pick

Pick

 

Grandma often told me, ‘Don’t pick.’

‘If you knit your brows and scowl,

those lines will mark you, not now

but later and forever.’ She was right.

But I’d still pick. Bites, lumps, ticks,

between toes, up the nose,

pulled strong hairs that flourish there

and uprooted with a sharp stab.

She’d always say, ‘Be a good lad,

don’t scratch because it’ll never heal,

I know those scars will mark you.’

For life it seems. Rash, you might say,

always picking the wrong things.

Of course, I miss her terribly - you do,

all her wisdom that turned out true.

78

 

78

 

It’s just one of those compilation videos,

you get them on YouTube, don’t you?

50 bestselling singles,1978. Not radio,

that’s gone, but remember tuning in

back then? To scratchy tunes of alien,

ethereal whining, haunting airwaves,

wondering how anyone might be saved.

Each tune carrying, clings to its back

something best forgotten - bootstraps,

kicked across concrete floors to strains

of Abba’s ‘The Name of the Game’,

‘Rat Trap’ or ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’,

a last year of ‘Saturday Night Fever,

‘Grease’, ‘Star Wars’ just been released,

owning ‘The Boy from New York City’,

wishing to be there, somewhere else,

or if time would learn to defend itself.

How some of that music overlapped,

became tunnels into future days

bearing song into the 80s and far away.

Watching from anywhere but here,

remembers a house, back in 1974,

behind a wood-stained wainscoted door,

unknown staircase to an upper floor,

for young minds, this secret passage

tumbled, from pages of any Enid Blyton.

Ascending through darkness saw there

a suite of decorated rooms, now bare

of any fancy flourishes, soft furnishings.

Just hard clapboard, but laid with care,

across most drafty rafters and cladding.

Rumours of servants, of days long gone;

remnants of a bell system to summon,

discovered in a kitchen, by the range.

Had it always been there; was it bought?

Time flares, it lingers in your thoughts,

this tall cabinet, doors opening outwards,

upon which sits a grubby felt turntable,

no amps, no speakers, no electric cables

spring driven, a fistful of brass needles

and within, a multitude of acetates at 78.

Being brittle, they would easily break,

slip from fingers, hard discs would chip

but each held a promise of something.

Can’t remember now how it was broken,

and four years on, 78 had spoken

in lyrics that muttered concepts of fear,

all that was bad living in a final year.

Cards

Cards

 

Dobson’s never one to speculate,

but always thinks he acts too late—

if he acts at all—at that which might appall.

 

He grows weary; it’s all too much,

seen it before too many times,

maybe doubts it’s even a crime.

 

Did you read about cankers, ears,

something rotting, lying in state,

or was it something lying in wait?

Too late.

 

Breathe and you’re dead.

Don’t say what you really think—

smile instead.

 

After all, they’ve sent many a soul packing.

They call themselves cards,

but something’s lacking—maybe hearts.

 

Enough spades to dig graves,

enough clubs to cudgel the brave,

foolhardy diamonds in the rough.

 

He knows how they dealt

the cards themselves,

built houses from stabbed backs,

marked the deck,

shuffled the pack.

 

Advancing one step up a pyramid,

built from cardboard edge to edge,

like ladders reaching

feathered crows’ nests—

trees swaying over toxic seas,

praying they don’t tumble.

 

Now Dobson knows

he shouldn’t grumble

at leaders who grope and blindly fumble,

 

hoping if they chuck enough mud,

some might stick before it crumbles.

Knows he must not tip his hand—

make a stand,

self-preservation.

 

So he shrugs.

In those poker faces,

he’s seen blood.