All of Me

 

All of Me

 

Part of me demands to know

which way it is the winds will blow

and how you did bring snow.

 

Part of me is callous, pressed string

and thickened against all those things

your milk of human kindness bring.

 

Part of me is exultant and glows

when fingers shift and fingers know

how A major to D minor flow.

 

Part of me is fluent in spilling rages

like black bottled ink upon pages

that question all your seven ages.

 

Part of me is adept in skimming oil

off calmed waters and toils

to look into all that waste and spoil.

 

Part of me longs to be there

and wills me to close my eyes and stare

at they who walk on waters fair.

 

Part of me wants to ask

if there’s anything left that lasts

in songs we play that live in the past.

 

Part of me smiles at we who are five,

is grateful for how we bring it to life

and how it is we did survive.

 

All of me is lips and arms and heart

that once were torn apart

but finds reconstruction of the face is art.

Ah, Daniel

 

Ah, Daniel

 

 

Don’t they chuck you into a lion’s pit

and - come dawn - you weathered it?

As you were, boys, she’s on the keys

hitting Es, gives you the finger, up, up –

spinning her ghost pegs to coax strings

and she’s cranking it or backing it off,

twisting space like a gripped nipple

and you’ll face the music of her violin

gladly. Give it a go? Course you’ll try

but at 64, your tuning fork’s a bitch,

while under her hair sings perfect pitch

and Isn’t that a husband passing by?

Just checking chests and heave-ho,

his policeman’s helmet is on patrol,

noting busty flushed swollen mounds,

licks his pencil and scrawls a treble clef

on the lookout for a pilfering theft.

She takes her bow, strokes out a frown

in the general direction of two clowns -

that’s you and him, bass and rhythm,

but hark - when she flashes her salty grin

it sends you soaring high, above the pit,

gut-punched drunk, solar plexus hit

gasping, grasping frets for bum notes.

On the manuscript of her face is wrote

Devils to Georgia and Galway Girls,

and milkmaids with their butter churns,

fisherman’s blues in chests that burn

foiled packets took diamond shaped.

She’s necking the heel so why not take

all of me? Take my arms, take my lips,

raise up those sleepy lions, crack whips

and pour her harmony onto lusty louts;

for God sent angels to shut their mouth.

Apollo 13

 

Apollo 13

 

Once in Worksop there was a library someplace,

where on a far shelf, lay a dust-jacketed book

in hardback that he’s only took home to look

at a small black and white photo of Saturn

that beguiled - grainy rings of moving things

sitting on a black-drop, so bleak and freezing.

 

Abbey Junior Mixed, age sixes and sevens

with you, Miss Blades, you – in broody, young

hawks hair back-tugged into a tight black bun

and clipped there like your clipped tongue -

if you had a cane, it wasn’t made of candy twists,

or barley sugars – but scored with chalked up lists.

 

Habitual leg shaker; he’s kicked them into fifth gear,

as some minds would rattle for release

and those cramps crawl anywhere but here.

There was that Kevin Bragg, remember? His dad

owned the best BBQ chippy in town but his lad

was first to put the black on you. Only deaf ears

 

listened to any protests – except once.

Grim news – Apollo 13, circling those heavens

high and rumours that they all might die,

something about pills, how brave men don’t cry,

that’s him talking, he’s holding the floor

while you, Miss Blades are considering a response

 

and Bully Bragg stands hesitant by the door.

Later, a class writes to astronaut Jim, in command,

crayoning wax-scrawl in small and tall hand

which maybe they’ll mail to Cape Kennedy.

Years from now, there’ll be a film - Tom Hanks -

and some kid looking back on a book with thanks.

Linseed on Willow

 

Linseed on Willow

 

Somewhere near Sherwood in a garage or shed,

a boy can only remember looking up –

and decades later how there was a book, given,

something like We Need to Talk about Kevin

or KP, his biography, some scandal or other

but like Squeeze, he couldn’t be bothered

with arrangements, a left note, a door closed,

or another nail for the heart.

And in this garage or shed were tools and such,

linseed oil, a sweet smelling lint-free cloth,

circular motions and a cricket bat set forth

on his bench. Instructions – how it was imperative

for, if not, that soft willow will crack.

In truth the boy was not much interested in that

but probably wondered if it was the wood that wept

because I know him. And as for the book,

well, the flies buzzed around lamps when he slept.

Her First Spoon and Pusher

 

Her First Spoon and Pusher

 

They puke up recommendations

you know – from algorithms,

other selections you might enjoy

along those lines, I don’t care enough

to fact check that stuff,

I’m sure you’re quick enough cotton on,

an idiom and archaic phrase

that comes from the adhesive state

of fibres, since I asked; you didn’t.

I see these videos all the time

and is it on the nose to point it out

along the lines of - well, why?

There’s another one you may’ve missed,

harks back to railways, theodolites and such;

gangs of navvies glyphing millstone grit

to carve their initials there.

But look, try not to snigger as he stares

pretty vacant - clickbait, you’d call it, not me:

it’s My Daughter’s 1st Listen

to ‘Home by the Sea’. That’s all?

Genesis, 43 years old, not great,

off an album thought third rate,

not a patch on Foxtrot, Nursery Cryme

which are definitely beyond this pair,

but could I give a monkey’s? Not me.

Here’s a few I’ve tossed off, feel free:

My daughter’s first bib, first beaker, first fart,

her very first piece of very shitty art,

look - her very first Barcelona baby-gro,

and maybe someday he’ll actually go

to Spain, Portugal or Mother Russia.

Fuck him; his adoption of half assed tunes -

and if you’re watching her very first spoon

then check out her very first pusher.

Right Here Right Now

 

Right Here Right Now

 

This morning:

 

Saturday early doors, in the gym,

nothing labyrinthine,

nothing fatboy, nothing slim,

nothing much of anything.

 

He thinks:

 

The 90’s are far, far away,

and, on losing their way

in 75, Slade refrained from that.

Dylan long raised his pillbox hat

to Ray Davies’ phenomenal cat

one lazy sunny afternoon,

he’s gonna be there, very soon.

 

She cocks an eyebrow:

 

Silky mistress, keeping score

says how they should do more

it being the weekend -

and looks right fetching

in that tight bustle

licking lips, something supple.

 

They’re eating breakfast:

 

After a half hour’s preparation

sets out a cold collation,

sofa’d up, catching news,

and if she’s confused,

he’ll translate –

fruits upon a wooden plate

careful cuts fondly shaped.

 

She considers:

 

The dentist for treatment

of a couple of gaps, replacements:

has sourced the best value

suggest he checks and he allows

they’re not getting any younger.

 

And they both wonder:

 

About lay, lady, lay

and it can be that way -

but often at this age

it’s something of a slog,

getting the sleeping dog

to wake up and bark,

how it’s only a part

of it all, anyway,

and why it happened 

right here, right now,

why not yesterday, somehow,

or way back when

it was told you’re never too old

to begin again.

Bus Shelters and Tunnels

 

Bus Shelters and Tunnels

 

Manchester refuses to swim into being

and cannot yet coalesce

but Sheffield is there – bits of it –

 

Bramall Lane, a child asking Wednesday,

some block-built offices where he worked,

cars cross-stitching a double deck viaduct

and rumpled paths in steep-vallied woods.

 

A rail divides this concrete bus shelter

in brutalist hollow paneled kicked out glass,

framed Winter winds are blistering skin,

his small hands need a good mittening.

 

Maybe two others there, too,

it’s of no consequence – what’s piquing

and forming in his mind are hollows.

One, either end. Why? How can

passengers find shelter there, when air

must funnel in at that end, then this?

Where is the warmth, middling bliss,

of the balming womby fleece?

 

They may or may not

have got on a bus,

but, in any case, with nothing like the fuss

of a jump cut, he’s taken,

across a road near Bocking Lane

looking down to stare at trains.

 

Leans over that drystone wall

built of rocks, raises a call

that echoes through thickets,

over trails and rooty rough mud track,

he’d picked his way through that,

holding Aunty Jean’s rough hands.

 

Tunneling far below in miniature

like a thin metal needle through unsewn sampler,

thunders the 1155 to Manchester.