Bracken

  

Bracken

 

From the mountain’s treelined slopes,

to an unmetalled road below,

his fence-line hung in bracken robes

and he said to me, take this scythe,

hack it all back, cut a buffer zone

until the choked barbed wire is revealed,

prepare it from the ground up for repair.

I felt it was a baleful punishment

for sexual encounters, drunken roaming

tripping light fantastics late home

from the village pub, four miles or more

and in the morning my head, sore,

a dehydrated throat begging water, water.

I looked at his offered sickle

in disdain – he had other slaughter

at his disposal, chainsaws, poisons, killers

that could bust bunkers, let alone weeds

and could be put to lively use.

I shrugged in spite, let loose

with that little something, spilling juice,

determined to prove the bastard wrong

and even while my head ached

put my back into it, for venom’s sake,

carving his bidden, bloody path.

Soon, in victory, all was revealed,

barbed wire, tempered steel

but I noted, as I beat down hot strokes,

the damage to his undergrowth,

holding in my sweaty palm

those flowers that did little harm.

Later, noting his fence never was fixed,

I saw new bracken reconquer it.

My Credit With You

 

My Credit With You

 

We've had lovers who defended slippery ground,

planted flags; built their motte and bailey there -

constructed from a slightest touch without sound,

lash-lowered looks, all flicks of unkempt hair -

we let down the drawbridge to broach the moat.

while they sang Take me as I am, forget about her,

in hints of Dionne Warwick’s ‘Wives and Lovers’

but later we both came to regret our affairs.

We thought we'd definitely secured the boat,

backchecked clues, talked not quite lies, alibis,

yet it seems once our Rubicon’s crossed,

all we thought was ours was lost,

and looking forwards, how can each of us trust

in slick sidepieces that have already cheated?

Now let’s candidly demand further escorts,

once more unto the breach, summoning force -

but our credit now stands on such slippery ground

that in these wretched ways we're perceived:

either cowards or flatterers that always deceive.

The Plate of Hummus

 

The Plate of Hummus

 

Behold a postured plate of chickpea hummus,

swimming lucent thick in olive oil

no dregs here, not your common pomace,

no skins, seeds, pulp, stems

but this is built from high grade virgin

and ground sesame tahini in light beige,

khaki or charcoal black, in gluts

that threaten to overspill this chinaware.

You could send some through there,

but where the kuboos, where the breadsticks,

what mode of transport - chopsticks?

On dishes at 270 degrees to port,

doughballs congregate, flatbreads caught

sitting in breadcrumb flotillas for crows to peck,

squabble over, guard it jealous or court,

but at obverse angle, you’ve come up short,

bare ramekins, hollow vessels for toothless gums:

a drum, a drum - The Trencherman comes.

Net Zero

 

Net Zero

 

Net Zero, Cancel Culture, Operation Greenfly,

no petrol engined cars in 2035 -

Bernard Manning’s toast and marmalade

is in those little racked triangle displays -

if you’re a Bay City Roller, be very afraid

and surely Reggie Perrin once blacked up,

Rigsby’s magic love wood sticks, interrupted

with lustful cries of Miss Jones, Miss Jones.

Oy, yoi, yoi, you with ologies, scrolling iPhones

while overseas, not too far from here,

the stage is set and we’ll impose our ideals yet,

close your strait and mine your ocean

because I’ve got a notion, suntan lotion

has your actual emulsion base, part oil

so spread it on your hot peeled skin, baby,

and while you’re boiling, we’ll send the navy.

Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth

from within the Great Barrier Reef

and beyond – Westward, Calendar, Look East,

they said wind turbines would bring relief,

geothermal and hydroelectric is where it’s at

photovoltaic solar farms and other crap,

see what brave new worlds have brought you,

your tankers hove-to, dead in the water,

they're lying becalmed, but where’s the harm?

The Last Post

 

The Last Post

 

Middle hours of the night, 

let's throttle and thrash

head over heel, pull thin sheets

which combat mosquitos

but escalate heat

until all’s sticky,

wake each morning with headache

and wonder if 

today could be the last post.

 

The odds in favour? Infinitesimal.

The odds against are strong

and yet who knows if 

this warning klaxon

or next thunderclap 

could be the final one -

a last trump, a bugle long.

There’s always that chance;

what you thought you knew is gone

and dreams come deep

as dawn's shadows creep.

 

Last night you dreamt of John,

resurrected within admiring throng,

signing copies, quintessential

while Dylan chewed 

from cold cups of stewed lentils,

a red dal – boiled cheap

into sticky thick red heaps

a plague upon snatched sleep.

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.