A Good Kicking

 

A Good Kicking

Admit that part of you is exultant
when a good kicking is gifted to truculent
bastards with inflexible views.
The end-user has become the used –
bloody, pulped nose received,
swollen, purpled bruising neutralizes eyelids,
rendering opaque what once was clear,
thick lips stopper words from eager ears
like keeping oil in the bottle
or gas in the pipes.

Think boxing, think bare-knuckle fights—
like that time George Sweeney let fly
his fists in Funchal with silent cry
over your two competing ideologies,
the liberal versus the National Front,
and you thought the bastard worth a punt,
but all it took was one swift punch
and you were down in dust and gash.

Bested, a savage battering, thrashed—
your left eye never the same;
to this day it weeps in remembrance’s name,
recalling innocent friends caught in flak,
their horror at this surprise attack
that came out of thin air. 

When it was over, his arm round your shoulder,
he says—you fought like a tiger—softly,
but kept his views intact and attitude frosty,
until what it was was forgot.

After the fury and the shock
came stratagems and a simmering pot
that never quite over-boiled but brewed—
to stew an element of surprise,
for if opponents do survive,
what is knocked down will always rise.

Hecate

 Hecate

 

Looking back, I’m amazed I got away with it,

or even what I thought it meant -

that letter I sent.

 

They were called aerogrammes, scribed on ships

and you’d write dozens, little blue slips

folded and choppered away –

forgotten until some day

you’d put into some port and replies were strewn

across the mess deck, torn into, consumed.

 

Trivia herself helped me over thresholds,

and today she loans me her ghosts

as the morning’s plummeting projectiles and missiles

remind me of that one epistle

I’d sent my lover left behind,

who later would become my wife

for approximately 11% of my life.

 

Oh, how I’d moaned, how I’d whined

in self-pitying, excruciating prose

that commiserated mostly with myself, supposed

I’d been abandoned to my fate unloved:

because I’d had previous, wrote something grievous.

 

HMS Hecate had pulled into Las Palmas

when I received her reply, harmless

but just a little mocking –

like was it some sort of test, give it a rest,

laying off self-indulgence might be best.

 

And indeed, it was that evening and getting late

a picture of me snapped with two shipmates

shows nothing of any scribbled sad depression,

and is on my desktop to this day -

Hecate looking from that past into this future

every time I boot up the computer.

Spindrift

 

Spindrift

 

You went out? She cried,

careful that you don’t get fried!

Nah, nah, I’m still alive –

but messages from well-wishers dried

up – no attention span,

you see? The month drags on.

Feel something wrong

as the sun wends a weary way

across the sky, waiting for the day

to breed black night

covets every minute of its flight,

setting never too soon

and disgorging the moon

from its distended womb.

You wonder why. Why it thrives,

if shops are shut, outlets die,

in blessed sham, a joyous lie

conjured by a ten percent elemental

who put mental into fundamental

and had it off with fun.

Meanwhile, a world’s gaze slipping

showing something more gripping,

stuff like Patrick Viera, John Hartson,

and trails for what’s so great

about being a SKY reporter –

try being a second daughter

of a mogul or shipping magnate,

we gaze contemptuous at the screen

at Cordelia or Hakim –

come friendly bombs

the month drags on.

I Wonder (Departure)

 

I Wonder (Departure)

 

You won-der, it’s fright-ning,

leav-ing now, is that the right-thing?

Because there’s this bus to Saudi -

that’s just pulled up

and your twenty-somethings

are dragging trolleys, getting on,

too frail to huck heavy suitcases,

heft travel bags onto overhead racks,

with a coffee in the left hand

but there’s always someone else to do it,

indulged for all existence

and when showering shrapnel falls,

it’s an easier life that calls.

Never alone with bloody phones,

don’t think, don’t blink,

please, please don’t come home,

but they’ll click

those ruby heels three times,

chant minimal mantras,

a piece of piss to learn –

like eat, sleep, repeat.

I won-der, it’s con-cer-ning,

what you teach

and what they’re learn-ing?

Order food, use gyms, get pissed,

your curriculum vitae must be endless,

mirror in the bathroom, can’t you see,

a real treat, an easy read,

God only knows

what you passed for degrees.

When given time to succeed,

put some effort in and exceed,

we find you playing padel

in the basement,

picnics in the carpark,

sitting on the pavement:

this your contribution to our profession.

I have a confession –

leav-ing now, is that the-right-thing?

Fuck, yes. Who-in-the-hell are they?

They-don’t-even-try, let them fly,

go – kiss your Blarney Stone -

better – take a selfie with your phone,

Instagram it, Facebook it, WhatsApp it,

I couldn’t really really give a shit.

You’re noth-ing spec-ial,

in fact, you’re-a-bit-of-a-bore,

let me show you to the exit door,

and don’t forget to pack

your tacky bra tops and cheap basques.

Now, the only question left to ask

is who’s the bigger fool -

quitters skinny dipping

in their skin-deep gene pools

or those who thought

they’d ever work at schools?

Sad Spectacles

 

Sad Spectacles

 

Ideally we avoid melancholies in D Minor key,

but here's a couple anyway from overseas:

that ponder washing the state from estate.

The jury’s out - deliberating. At any rate,

my most recent spectacles were cracked,

I could not clearly see and that's a sad fact -

still, some history - bought on Al Difaaf Street,

Al Sadd, beat up stone on pounded concrete

translating to The Dam, and you know I will be,

because these glasses split from side to side

and your curse is come upon me, she cried.

Shelter from precipitations of shapeless form

arcing cross sky; iPhones hum droning songs,

about repellants; useless no-mark insecticides

that any Doha corner shop has on shelves

but won't dispatch metalled insects to hell.

So, wretched ankle biters have made meal,

and it is with a bloated weariness you feel

like you should fist-shake ineffectuals above,

despairing of the olive, despondent of dove,

shrug and say, well, at 64,  it could be worse.

So, cast a sly mind back to some other sad sods,

another song, you know, that dream you flogged

for many wasted years – then, there she was.

You'd double take, but it might draw attention

and make any lingering animosity strengthen.

I rubbed those glasses in shocked surprise

and risked shards of glass to the eyes

because, more accurately, both of them there,

but, there’s nothing in this game for a pair,

is there, Bruce? Two women; a married couple,

if that's not pejorative - you don't chuckle

and I could feel four burning eyes at my back

like cutters, like baseball bats; I’m under attack,

in need one of those jerkins for repulsing flack

instead of my blue school 2026 senior jacket.

Emblazoned with ‘Bassman’. I’m proud of that,

I earned it like gangbusters, worked hard at it,

it’s who I am now - so what, then, to make of you?

Turn around, bright eyes, you’re in a curry queue,

and you scutter past, eyes down, two on two

to some sad table; a dark corner. I heard news –

about alcohol, fisticuffs, driving bans, disputes

neighbour on neighbour, hotly debated truths  

and cold tempers. You can’t, won’t shake hands,

bear no malice, sing rapprochement across lands

and I’d expect any hatchet buried in my spine.

Oh, this is a fine time to change your mind,

but here’s two sad spectacles that make us blind.

As For Me

 

As For Me

 

And as for me,

as a war rains confetti

for street sweepers

to clear from paths,

for who knows

who will get the last laugh

or what this one

or that one feels?

The Church bells peal

beg Felix Mendelssohn

encore, encore, my son,

but I only can see,

phantoms of wedded pairs,

one of them me

and most of them who

are no longer there

hand in hand, vanishing,

heading off-screen

into might have been.

Very Good Day

 

Very Good Day

 

You’ll remember some spin doctor who said,

today is a very good day,

or was that the Klingons? Bring on your dead

and maybe you’re appalled.

Let’s get anything out we want to bury, quick,

listen up, I’ll tell you a story that’ll make you sick

to your stomach. What d’you say?

Yes, I guess, maybe that’s hyperbole,

still tell me what you think,

draw some water and fill the kitchen sink.

Like, we’re getting complaints, a Mother’s Mob,

rallying against recruitment rhetoric,

when really it’s get ‘em cheap, train ‘em up,

import them on minimum wage or some such,

drag them over here, flaunt the imperfection.

Soon, they mostly develop sickness, infections,

have numerous lead-swinging days,

pocketing what they get for pay

and when the compact’s complete, off and away.

So, we’re up and at it, let it come –

thumbs in dykes, plasters on oozing oil drums,

using foils to feint and parry the thrust,

of A I generated missives that can no longer tolerate

so off to the Ministry for the children’s sake,

but then it came, in liberty’s name.

If you push flabby skin behind your ears,

your double chin disappears,

while - stop the press - in other news received today

that brings the faithful out to pray,

his funeral has now been delayed

for an unspecified amount of time.