Borders

 

Borders

 

We’ll frame it all in black,

in truth, the only borders available:

a sort of corrugated card,

to staple around the edges,

hide the cracks.

because the music room lacked

the requisite panache,

a cliffhanger, last rites act

from management prior to the visit –

we shrugged, set to,

mundane, but someone has to

and we’re the band, after all.

Printed off all the old images

to slap on the boards as ordered,

sitting pretty and bordered.

And Alex said to me,

apropos of displays and such -

‘Can you remember, a first LP,

that first you bought?’ Well, I could,

duly reddened within,

so great was the sin;

defaulted to one that counted.

Music had come, gone; amounted

to nothing – but your Beatles Red

is indelibly stamped into my head -

from my very first cassette

that spooled itself into brown ribbons

around vicious toothed spindles

and snapped - to the cracked CD

double jewel-cased set sitting

next to Blue and –

above bordered grinning moptops -

two vinyls sleeved by peeling flipbacks.

Can we bear it?

To see us posted

could bring tears – they sound the same

but the bordered man

has long since bleached; faded

into run out groves, jaded.

But Daniella punches my arm,

punctures, pushes me in corners

‘Take up your bass and play!”

she orders.

A Push for the Margins

 

A Push for the Margins

 

Sitting inside our boxes within boxes

and seizing lined paper, foolscap -

where we long since abandoned

watermarks, jester’s caps

or anything amusing like that,

or along those lines and pushing

for the margin. ‘Write a date,’

we might command a class

but which one doesn’t matter.

I’m listening for the clatter

of metal on unoiled wheels,

body and wire basket, molded steel,

considering creative efforts

that went into conveying foodstuffs –

tipped into rivers, turned to rust

and think I might write about stuff

like that – and you? But here,

within these walls, we can call

but no one’s listening at all,

we could point it out, and somewhere

in our hearts, we know and we care

but it is all we’ll ever be.

Value of the week? Compassion,

of course, and caring – we’re nations

on nations of striving aspirers

but there’s flaws of floors in highrisers

that I once thought scraped skies -

we’re pointing at what’s obvious

and there’s comfort in penned oblivion.

Let’s push for the margins.

Room enough to scribble columns there

and yet I lately read of a tramp

who’d trollied everything he was,

set his face against the rat-race,

composed in decomposition,

wearing a dressing gown tied with string –

a gang of schoolboys did for him.

Need a Massage?

 

Need a Massage?

 

Walls of silence, walls of sound –

overused words, meaningless,

a blend of background noise

meets tortoise trotters –

 

and he always wins

in that story about a race up a hill,

featuring the rabbit, dog and ipis.

 

No – the real walls are in your head.

Lately I felt them,

screaming barriers, claustrophobic,

built somewhere between

terror and panic

 

and that cheese croissant on display:

It’s the same one everyday,

sat flaking in the glass cabinet

but it can’t be, can it?

 

Unless – they’ve sealed it in a vacuum,

but then, what’s the point of it,

what use can it possibly serve?

 

Hyperbole? Well, I guess so – moulting

outside, sat beside

this tortoiseshell cat,

a stray, curled up, shop cornered,

but mounting a campaign for my lap.

 

Careful – she could scratch –

but seemed so beautiful, a comfort,

content to stretch out her back

against my legs. Then, you arrived,

 

Pajero pulled up outside

‘Brands for Less’ – but I’m a mess

masquerading as somewhat dressed:

 

We depart, you speak of your sister:

‘Lori says, I should massage Daddi,

just gentle tonight, You want?’

 

Daddi – her pet name for me,

even though she’s 55, in Davao City,

halfway across the globe from here.

 

Instinct dictates

I should roll my eyes, ‘You hate?’

you reply, stroking thighs, and indicate

as we’re pulling out

across the painted lanes.

 

No. If it’s all the same,

I’ll accept. It’s either greed

or just maybe, I need.

The Last Box of Cigarettes

 

The Last Box of Cigarettes

 

The last box of cigarettes sat on a shelf,

the only company – itself,

which is tautological but quite neat,

you’ll agree – and factually inaccurate:

I have 52 more

gathering dust, in a drawer

back in the UK - always fact-check.

So how this one slipped the net

after four years spent repenting

is hard to say. Housed in a tempting

flip-back lavender-pink carton,

these Sobraine Cocktails, were a bargain

in rainbows of colour and gold tipped.

When your fingers gripped

one of these beauties, you felt rich.

Banned so fast, it made me sick

once the killjoys got their sticky mitts

all over them, because they did not sit

pretty in continuing eras of austerity,

Well, enjoy your soul grinding poverty

if you must – having extra work booked

on the weekend – some UK crooks

masquerading as school inspectors,

armed with spreadsheets, data, lectures

due - I took up the box to give to you

if you tipped up to help out. True,

I feel the spark, your heat

my eyes gypsy roving when you greet

me of a morning, lingering too long

and your engorged blouse. Wrong.

I know it, but there’s that frisson

that exists – and as I passed them across

to kiss your cheek, felt no loss

when you moved your head

to take my lips instead.

Later you sent pictures, delighted,

as for me, despite it all,

I couldn’t help but feel excited.

They Keep Killing Steed

 

They Keep Killing Steed

 

‘Same old far-fetched tat,’

you remember your mother sneering

after watching something like that

New Avengers.  ‘Crap’.

Except she didn’t swear back then

and slapped you for deploying it.

You’d hoarded covers of TV Times

with Purdey on them in that blue

tight, strappy, cross your heart dress,

put them to lively use,

a private Playtex late night line up -

and when you’d sneaked a view

or two of the actual show

it sent shivers down the spine.

Seemed so modern, worth cheering

a future where Steed’s prosecuting

his philosophy - persecuting

those bastards doing the looting,

putting the black, using shooters –

there was gnaws and cybernauts, too.

Still, they kept killing him in the end,

after two seasons, he was history,

last seen in Canada amongst mystery

like – why the fuck is he there?

Nowadays, no one cares

to use all the Motown tunes we lacked,

like Chichen Mac, Chicken,

Oh, Chicken Mac,

when are you coming back?

Because only some can cane it here

where the days of Pearly Spencer

are long gone, if something’s wrong,

then nobody’s letting on.

And I imagine you’d shoot to kill,

when they put up the electricity bills

one-more-time.

It Will Come and It Will Go

 

It Will Come and It Will Go

 

4.30 am. Blinking in a half light

cast by external globes on walls

outside, hooked into concrete,

probing through translucent drapes

that only manage half a job.

Fish beneath the sheets, give up,

toss the pillows aside -

‘The fateful day is come,’ you’d cry

if you were given to hysteria

or were a dramatic sort of cove –

well, could be, you suppose

as you pad, pale naked, across tiles,

pulling on shorts, T Shirt clammy

for the day before. It smells of piss.

Too early for gym, poke at idle work,

keeping lights dim - they could seep,

creep like snakes under the door,

wake her from her flowery sleep.

Still, not long before she appears

tousle topped: ‘How’s your sleep, dear?’

You both put plus 45 minutes in,

exit sweating from the gym,

strip each other off in the kitchen

toss the rags and shags inside

the open-mouthed machine -

empty-bellied it will chew on the cud.

She likes your shorts, she should,

she picked them, after all –

having audited all your clothes

when you weren’t alert

and declared a deficits– shirts,

too, and when you ask her why

she smiles – perhaps more wise

than ever you will be.

You sit in the car, silently,

she drives quiet dawn streets,

you’re tired, think pillows, sheets,

4.30am and the hours spent tossing

thinking lots, but saying nothing,

until, she breaks down the walls -

‘I know you, from bottom to top,

your head is full of work.’

She’s right, of course,

it’s in there, like high hurdles,

breasts and bellies trapped in girdles,

dammed blood throttling brick veins,

and nothing much you can explain.

More May Pang than Yoko,

so she calls out, softly, because she knows:

“It will come and it will go.’

Lexical Set

 

Lexical Set

 

Do you feel Anxiety - scanning right wing UK red tops

as Beloved by your social platforms; your TikTok,

reporting your wank; transcribing slop

of the highest fucking order.

Betrayal of what? Minor royals, major minions,

sinners and hypocrites – all of you lot -

Biased, shitting panties, offering soiled

evidence as Blackmail material, boiled up,

fished from woks with tongs and served. Bombshell?

Like what? Tripped up on wires, buried landmines

or something less Brutal, concoctions of candy floss

for dense masses in Bursts of hyperbole; Chaos

in some thick twat’s Devastated household tonight -

bubble bursting in an Embarrassing twist

a four-word Exit issued by a Z-listed

presenter – Garraway, Nunchetty, Kelly – today’s

bunch of fuckers, sucking off their own tails

chowing on Extreme Fury and talking epic-fails.

Horror Hots-Up,  Humiliated by a Major Warning

witness on-air Meltdowns, some fawning

bastard, licking royal boots, Nicholas Witchell wannabes,

with nothing approaching Mel B’s charm;

Panic-Inducing, stirring thick clots, raising false alarms

Plead, Plot, Pour on Ramped Up polemic

Record it - you’ll be up to thunder thighs in chunky vomit,

and Rocked to the core, Scrapped,

put out to pasture, and while you Struggle,

while you’re Urged to believe and Weaponised

you’ll Wrestle with a smokescreen and shut your eyes

on anything grievous With Immediate Effect.