The Basic Problem

 

The Basic Problem

 

Nowadays, people spout ‘reach out’.

it’s been seen going about -

one of those tuppeny ha’penny phrases,

that’s done the rounds a while

tossed off towards the end

of every insincere email sent.

Those with brains recall The Four Tops;

resonance of guttural shouts

that had ten times more integrity;

and meant something.

There’s wellness rooms, too,

if you’re overworked, stressed,

or violently depressed,

boasting scented candles and vibrochairs -

book yourself in, have 20 minutes of throb,

try not to think of Monty Python, Black Rod,

or Wankel rotary engines.

Meanwhile, another batch of undercooked

employees, most of them crooked

or on the make profiteers

with nothing squared between their ears

are heading your way, starstruck.

The basic problem is people, you see?

solve that, live easy.

A Clink of Lite

 

Clink of Lite

 

Just a ray and a Dreyfus’ eyeball

winking manic then winking out –

nothing more, that’s all

except gob-fulls of spat rhetoric,

but the other side denied it,

never happened, they claimed,

we care less, send your planes.

Door cracking off a quick blink,

oh, yes, you’ll see a glimpse

but they rewrote continuity

in time for ‘Revenge’s’ ambiguity –

he’s banged up in an asylum,

but then, maybe they all should be.

All this is moot, these chinks of light,

Sammy’s not for packing, no sir,

claims of cancelled flights,

domestic arrangements, childcare,

terrible Wi-Fi, honest, he swears

leaving those left over there

to slum it, pick over his traces,

do all that work on his behalf:

you can’t blame him for a last laugh

he’s praying that you’ll be all right -

toasts you with a clink of lite.

Rags and Shags

 

Rags and Shags

 

Watching news, your gaze is held, braced

as if by the locking arms of a service structure

before a rocket launches into space.

When you went to Everton primary,

you’d chafe at the bit for the mobile library,

lend The Big Book of Space and devour it.

Today, they shot frames of a pink deck chair,

abandoned in tatters, cut to it over there -

in amongst the killed concrete.

The deck had gone, hanging incomplete

and as for the fabric – sailcloth, canvas -

well, these artists brush in broad strokes.

Later you watch as a bridge is detonated,

surrounding brush and scrubs decimated,

causing gaudy peacock plumes to rise.

Meanwhile, on a brick littered Corniche

they’re building oilskinned cities of tents,

tarpaulins draped from tailgates, low rent

one ringed stoves slowly boiling over.

There’ll be no school today,

instead, a brother pushes his sister to and fro,

doing the Science, counting sink holes,

contemplating a combustion chamber’s thrust,

delivering its payload, driving aloft,

doing the Math, stirring the dust.

Scission

 

Scission

 

Over there you say being over here’s

too high a price to pay, too severe,

and talk of war zones, missiles, drones

send messages on your iPhones.

It’s all over International Sky News

journalists and pundits’ informed views

as long as it includes ordinary blokes,

UK interest, like this bird’s fat folks

whose flight was grounded. Stranded,

I’ll bet wishing they’d never landed -

after a while Al Jazeera’s a better bet

than listening to recycled shitheads.

I’m waiting at signals by The Corniche,

after casting for sheirii - that’s fish -

caught zero, bugger all - but it's fine

sitting under the rising sun, passing time.

My mind’s elsewhere, of course

in case there’s an alarm; deadly force

arcing overhead. I’m there pondering

fate, how you’d said I’d be squandering

everything when I put it behind me

coming here, then, by accident I hear

you gossiping incidents ten years prior.

Know what I think? Life must be dire

indeed, if that’s all there’s left to fire

up engines. What's kept is meaning less

as we’re getting older, shorter of breath:

when you retire, you said you’d travel.

Well, fine. Just leave me here to unravel

the dullness in your thoughts that drone;

I’ll happily reap this whirlwind alone.

Your Ordinary Citizens

Your Ordinary Citizens

 

Have not had a break in such a long time,

shoplifting’s on the rise,

a victimless crime,

no off-ramp in sight,

and didn’t you vote for Brexit?

 

Headline inflation’s on the up,

something about an oil slump

your prices rising at the pump,

benefit costs of feeding the five thousand invalids,

and didn’t you elect Boris?

 

It’s a profoundly devastating unenviable - a big spike

from your bottom on the rise,

and there’ll be a hike

in mortgages, rents, package holiday flights,

and didn’t you catch Love Island?

 

No comfort at all, post Covid, after Austerity, it’s all in bits,

massive effect of an immediate hit,

your heating bill’s due a bit of a blip,

something to do with geopolitics,

to be honest, you didn’t understand it,

something about existential shit,

and didn’t you vote for Brexit?

Sunday Sunday

 

Sunday Sunday

 

Once upon a time, fifty years ago

when I was younger – well, there was Sunday.

The sullen seventies winds blew

doctrines of unappealing church bells

across dockyards, spiritless syllables

of ancient grizzled undertows.

If you searched, you’d have found us

at Aggie Weston’s Royal Sailors Rest,

Albert Road, for a pound a night or so,

the very place after Saturday at Castaways.

No manic Monday about Sundays then,

in the television room, Brian Walden,

interviewing old, tired men,

Jenkins, Callaghan, Wedgewood Benn,

to Nantucket Sleigh Ride by Mountain,

a year out from Bowie’s ‘Fashion’

which would somehow be the difference.

Maybe you’d avoid a bible study group,

always voluntary, of course,

unless, like a sprat, you were caught,

and, if that was the unhappy case,

prepare your knees for hard talk

for her humble tiled floor was brutal,

keep any look neutral, resistance is futile.

And all the shops were always shut,

repeats of ‘Black Beauty’ or ‘Follyfoot’

not nearly enough to keep

hungry like the wolf from the door

on the hunt for five loaves and fishes -

we'd just scream with boredom, wait,

bristling for matinees at The Drake,

or The Friendship Inn to open,

for just one hour, twelve until one

after sermon’s done; final hymn’s sung

serving cockle shells of vinaigrette prawns

pineapple and cheese, impaled onions

and just half a pint of bitter, please.

I’m glad it’s all over,

my friend, just think yourself blessed

those wretched Sundays are behind us now;

that door bolted and shuttered

unless you are by some means found

in primeval lands of religious nutters.

Dimmer Switch

 

Dimmer Switch

 

You’re driving at night, ignorant,

on some single track with pretensions

to be a trunk road – which, I don’t know –

 

maybe that winding one

skirting Loch Lomond; slippery when wet,

your switchback at Inverbeg,

those ancient potholes of Ardlui

or hidden double dips at Luss -

when, without announcement or fuss,

there’s incoming at full beam on.

 

But you’re pondering, mind wandering

about ancient cultures and heritage sites,

thinking, well, you know,

they weren’t actually that bright,

were they? No wonder they didn’t survive,

neither side;

no one gets out of here alive.

 

Maybe it’s excessive pride

that eventually did for them.

 

Like Michelle once cried:

When they go low, we go high

which is complete bollocks, really,

after all, you tried,

but it trips glibly off the tongue,

when you’re young.

 

Here’s another one.

Football, a matter of life and death,

he assures you.

Defend until your last breath,

then, take a celestial escalator, ascend

like David Niven, remember him?

 

Oh, football’s serious, a battlefield

not a park when those fans are screaming

doctrines like we want revolution,

so here's some for free

have a bit of ideology

knocked into you, boy,

and fisting each other if they get

a wrong line or chant out of step -

mate, they should’ve known better

at their ancient age.

 

Game? Forget it:

You couldn’t see nothing,

in amongst the throttling,

left them at half time to get on with it,

maim each other,

cripple themselves, brother on brother

waving flags, sticking their own eyes out,

until the last gasp of the last shout,

and the ref blew up.

 

But still, all this is really nothing,

a diversion before that onrushing

truck I mentioned

still oncoming and foxes you with headlamps,

one hand a wheelclamp,

the other holds the cards; a strategic bluff

or straight flush

your single track, not wide enough

for passing places or off ramps -

will you extend a middle finger, let it come

or dim your lights from full beam on?