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.

Boots

 

Boots (On the Ground)

 

Look, look - here be boots,

could be existential, possibly wellingtons,

or maybe my aged father’s ones

as he strode around his farm, on the lookout

for any oily rags up the crow’s nest

because you’re better, he’s best,

with boots grimy from soily people

fetching covenants from corkscrew steeples

with twisted ire and crooked fire,

scoping avenging angels with false lyres

riding clouds and rocking zoot suits,  

kinky boots, manly fashions

borrowed from two-bit brutes.

Here be boots, on the ground, cornered

and covered with shit sticky straw

put them newspapered by the door

and send out for the cleaner.

Is that you? Up on a high-chair high-stool,

far above the brass brosse décrottoir, 

and scraped with iron-work tools

while your flicked debris doing sterling work

in pelting your boot blacker with dirt,

shit, muck, manure – toss him a coin or two

and read out pull-quotes, why don’t you?

Wait. Wait. Hear the supplicant’s appeal,

for doth not Brutus bootless kneel

to feel blistering strike of sandalled heel?

You’re a Naughty Boy, Fawlty

 

You’re a Naughty Boy, Fawlty

 

…don’t do it again,

but they keep doing it again

and, oh my God, what are we going to do?

 

She’s back any minute and we’re all doomed.

You’re doomed, too,

don’t you understand?

 

Oh, pull yourself together, Fawlty,

if it’s all gone wrong

then do something violent,

we’re on the cusp, so tote your stick,

parry, hit, slap, thrust,

boot them right where it hurts,

pants down, wallop backsides,

better yet – take a wooden spoon,

beat and beat and beat until eggs crack -

he’ll just whimper there

in his far corner of the room

if history has shown us anything.

 

You'll teach them to look at me

in that way, Fawlty, such insolence

must be punished, such defiance,

met with shock, awe, epic fury

or else, you'll maintain my grim silence.

 

Now it’s time for little boy

to become a man, Fawlty,

because that’s how it is, son,

my great depression, my world war two,

my do not do with old black shoe,

my bread and water, my gruel and dripping,

my reconstituted egg,

my ten lards a-spitting.

 

Consequences born when I was young,

Fawlty, shall be visited onto you -

call it my just civic duty,

my must moment, my love actually

my tutti frutti, good booty,

aw rooty and dress me up in a business suit,

here’s a whistle, here’s a flute,

a bowler bonnet for my bloodshot face,

prepare yourself for a little taste

of that something I prefer the most -

burnt bread. You’re toast.

Behind Closed Doors

 

Behind Closed Doors

 

And the people like to talk,

Lord, how they like to talk

said your actual Charlie Rich.

You know, he wasn’t joking -

I’m spluttering and choking

on all the drivel I’ve received.

Oh, how they’d like to grieve,

get vicarious thrills you suspect,

like, if the last one didn’t get

you the next one might

as nation against nation fights.

Sure, they’ve lobbed ballistics

this way - and the statistics

suggest you could cop for one

but then again, that song

they vetoed in Eurovision

has only just gone and won.

More Simon and Garfunkel;

less of your long-lost uncle,

distant friends, old colleagues,

ex-girlfriends under cypress trees

that steal brains while you sleep

or so it’s wrote. They creep

out from under filthy rocks,

oh, it’s been quite a shock;

thinking of you, honest injun.

The organs and their engines

journaling above scrolling doom

in red, make you leave the room

for bed - please let’s hear it

from trapped tourists in shit.

Baby, let your hair hang down,

and let’s button our lips,

I’m in boxers, you’re in silk slips

and please, don’t make a sound,

let honeysuckle that we found

do the talking; heal the wound.