Undercover of the Night

 

Undercover of the Night

 

You woke - unexpected, that –

nightmares, always – like muskrats

interrupting the river’s steady flow

to build skyscapes of cone on cones –

blinking  blearily at the ceiling.

 

Here was Kristina crying, Monika’s embrace,

waving away that tangible trace

of sweatered breast you caressed

with her wink – two boys, indefatigable, following,

whipping with sticks of liquorice, swallowing

your streets in hunger.

 

It could be thunder,

reach for the clock, 1.30

and because the weather’s dirty

out there, the match’s been delayed -

not a ball’s been played –

undercover of the sheets you’re weighing it up

was it fate, was it luck?

 

Sneak to the office quietly, take your chair,

cross fingers, switch on, the crowd’s there

sucking in any remnants of thin air

bowling around The Azteca -

praying for all of us without a prayer.

 

For those about to rock -

thunderstruck pitch or some such nonesuch

they’ll lose, that’s the received hunch

and cheery pundits predict a trouncing –

Joe Hart, Mica Richards, Rooney:

They play the ball like that again,

at altitude, under heat - mainly falls in Spain,

you know, the rain -

good for early baths before catching planes.

 

Ah well, let’s get it on:

but they’re brilliantly, hopelessly wrong –

The first 20 where the game’s killed,

that taste Bellingham’s brace –

someone you’d not really rated

a sending off, two pens, final 20 tense catenaccio

and what’ll you do?

England 3, Mexico 2.

 

It’s 4. Snatch a couple before she rises,

you think, then softly, softly dream surprises

and later, lost in thought –

what, if anything, has this taught?

In her daytime you’re like to weather the scorn –

of guitars, of sport, of life abroad,

oh, how thick she lays it on; warns you well,

which is why you might never tell

of secrets spilling over with strange delights,

undercover of the night.

Anthropomorphic

 Anthropomorphic

 

I come across two courting birds -

well that’s anthropomorphic, for starters,

two young flirters –

not that I really know they’re young, of course,

but he’s sidling up to her

with a sideways beak and cat’s cream purr

as if he’s been sporting claws

for all these wasting years

that have yet to pass him idly by.

Look – I don’t know why –

but there’s a shitty parch of pavement

outside Aush Al Bulbul where pigeons flock

and nest - they’ve definitely been sent

to rile the proprietor – who shocks

public feeders, screams at them to drop

any intention of sowing seed –

and scrubs off the guano daily – they breed.

No one eyed, yellow idol to the North,

points out which of these have given birth

lately, but you can spot the old ones;

they don’t move, sing songs

then shut hooded eyes to fall over apologetically -

I wonder if they ever tumble from the sky?

Still, back to our youthful fancier –

she’s leading him on a merry dance

as if to say – not today –

and he’s torn up they were made that way.

In Shape O Beast

 

In Shape O Beast

 

 

Oh, how foolish do those fears seem now,

brown cow?

 

The Friesian in the field is slow –

she lumbers towards the 5 barred gate

where too many hooves have clomped up mud

into such a swamp;

we can’t go where we’d go

or break a bale, straw the floor, offer feed

from the palm of an outstretched hand

where thick warm tongues

work to suck up seed.

 

You say: Oh, you’re always in love

with someone, but life’s late blooms

have carpeted the trees, the rooms -

let’s reach out for something to embrace,

grasp it before it’s too late,

look -  all around - warm faces

flushed in welcome, beckon us forth with glances

that speak of making hay with chances.

 

And can weak poor hearts resist

such unspoken given promises

of secret kisses, covert ecstasy, hidden trysts –

ancient as we are?

Oh, those looks she fires have travelled far

and wound every cell that kicks inside,

they shoot from the hip

taking aim with steady grip.

 

And there’s a winnock bunker in the East

where sits Old Nick -

in shape of beast -

lapping comfort crumbs from life’s feast.

Future Past Present Tense

 

Future Past Present Tense

 

 

How have you been, these past 20 years?

You’d question, having both learnt life’s lessons -

presumably - some 10 years from here.

She’s 62, that much you’d calculate, you’re 74 -

and – what’s that a-knocking, late doors?

Is it you? Well, love once washed away the flaws,

who knows – what you’d once deemed pretty

is sitting at the table, looking like swirled grit,

potato peelings and dried onion skins,

dug out from the bottom of the compost bin

your mother once, in 76, stuffed your glass with

told you drink, so next time you’d think -

change that goat’s water, clean the trough.

Oh, time’s the leveller, time’s rough,

in grainy box-brownie pictures of thinning hair,

her tattoos once worn fair have rotted there,

on the backs of the legs, on hanging dugs,

stretch marks like shrivelled peach skinned rugs -

somewhere buried beneath - a hardened stone

baked dry - nothing you could crack with teeth.

You’d both smile, try to nurture sproutlings

sometimes - oh, tender, tender was the dawn,

you’d mixed tapes enough to make a cynic yawn,

but – here’s the killer – you’d ask her with a look -

can we still unhook that which was hooked?

A grimace dressed up as a mirror cracked

into what could be called a pout after the fact

might coalesce – you’d think of past caresses,

damp grasses that had stuck to stray tresses,

but no, not that, and not yet, don’t forget

there were plus half the letters of the alphabet

she’d claimed as her own – maybe she regrets,

now, but them’s the breaks, it died years ago.

Yes. Wished you’d known someone down past,

with plum Rolls Royce curves, a chassis to last,

her smile as broad as Norfolk’s and just as deep,

and a bell of hair that flounces as it sweeps -

she’d stroke thumb on her middle and index

into heart symbols, twisting it, up, up,

because she’d know exactly how to fill her cups

without wasting a drop, mistress of majored minors

and when she plays, boy, there’s nothing finer,

ladling her enveloping buttered panna cottas

of vows, of swollen blouse, of deep crimson folds,

of plush cherries spooned on ripe hummocks bold,

and how both wished they’d soon succumb

before time might blow all those passions numb.

Goodness Me - So There Are Five of Me Now

 

Goodness Me - So There Are Five of Me Now

 

In London Town, rain’s falling down -

silver rain, no doubt, upon dirty streets:

meantime, I’m picking up my feet

300 miles, give or take, from The Fleet

thinking barkers playing flutes, simple tunes

Toot Toot – and you’d better enjoy yourself,

it’s later than you think, Sir Keir.

No, in truth, shipmate, it’s better here,

Doha, Shanghai - anywhere will do –

lump it long to the big guy up front

and do you believe it - I bumped

into you - Mother makes Five.

Wendy Craig, odd nose, Butterflies,

look, I’m no Carla Lane, all the same

how you doing? I’m looking good, nice of you -

it’s all that Arabian sun – and I saw Morag,

bit sallow, down in the mouth, dragging bags,

she’s in Mark’s and – no didn’t spark

up a conversation – probably best,

even back then, I liked her less.

John yesterday, Angel the day before, that’s 4,

oh, yeah, and Gill, the Madam, ‘Hello!’, flooring

it South in a pedestrian contraflow.

No – since I left, I’m better than OK, Julie,

although, back then being exiled was truly

a punch in the knackers – off you go,

don’t let bitter brains flood in Amaretto –

watch billowing sails fill full from the rigging,

and leave all the lazy minds to the digging.

Like the Caffrey’s

 

Like the Caffrey’s

 

I’m 64 – a no score draw – what’s that worth

on your coupon then? Buggered if I know,

shrug, pick up my pen and go.

Words, music – they don’t amount to much for most

or me - it’s nothing overstated, no hollow boast –

I wish you well – feel like it’s nothing rotten

I’m just over it; want to be labelled long forgotten

glad our paths diverge and might never cross

again - give me ceaseless obscure and forever lost.

You’d call me soft – if you had another chance –

Yesterday, Sainsbury’s I crossed trollies

with some old flat-capped blighter,

maybe 80, he gets no second glance from me,

I’m lost in dreams, you see?

But there he is, barring my way as if to say,

‘No Quarter’. That’s ‘Houses of the Holy’ to you,

and damn fine, it is too. I doubt you knew,

but he did, ‘Hi, kid,’ says he, cordially, ‘Remember me?’

And all those years swept away, for a second –

looking him up and down, I reckoned

I did – teaching, in my first year – cross country,

how we trained them, snow, rain or shine,

we exchanged a few words, some shy smiles.

And now I hear you bought yourself a pile,

Alresford, grade 2 listed - 1.5 Million pounds worth -

but we’ll all still end up holed in the dirt.

To Say a Sorry Sight

 

To Say a Sorry Sight

 

A foolish thing – to think

and yet you’ll often find yourself sinking,

waiting on the past, weighted

by cement boots, holding up his flyover,

ten years passed and ten years older.

 

Is that you, floundering in my night visions?

It must be – nice to suffer no revisions

to that face I once dearly held

before he came to fell

our forest – where thought keeps you imprisoned.

 

A foolish thing – to chance across

that which you have certainly lost

you look without looking, a trace of hoar

that was not so before,

no, I read in your face  so much more –

 

quickly picking up a paper by the shop’s door

to scan without scanning,

if I could form a plan

oh, then I was a man –

but what? Perhaps contempt, maybe grief,

way past bargaining or belief.

 

In thoughts much kinder than the facts,

I move away, not looking back,

to let the past be the past,

perhaps it was time enough at last –

 

little left of her I once knew,

scraped back hair, tinted red, grey tattoos -

boiling love to leave love flustered

refitted with hardness, bluff and bluster

of avoidance – we are blocking the stage

for a read through at 50 paces adrift.

 

No – stay lost in Sargasso thought, becalmed,

where ten years passed has done no harm

and holds up to catch the light,

before the other can say, ‘A sorry sight’.