Bass Line Criminal

 

Bass Line Criminal

 

The stage was set - we’d raised sweat

moving instruments – third time in three weeks

consecutive and you like the sound of that –

it slots home, sticks it to her, rocks, you know?

By now, one or two of them are filing in,

my lady’s wearing more a grimace than grin,

heeling the neck, heeling the neck and berating.

We’d just about knocked out Midnight Cowboy

a little dissonant direction from his keys

that’s true – I’m winking at him, he at her,

she’s counting on me to make my Yamaha purr

but as I’m counting out some bass crime occurs

and it’s felonious rather than harmonious.

Should we slink off, like a thief with a cutpurse?

I think not, dear – it’s all Ocean’s 11, in it together,

no hearts of lead but hearts like feathers

and glorious, glorious raising rafters

because after all of that there’s happy ever after

and knocking it out of your park.

I dreamt of you, you know? It’s less now

but I think I saw you, looking cold, looking long

and you didn’t know you were in this song –

I think I saw you see me and I moved along.

Guitar

 

Guitar

 

If there’s an F Hole, then a foreign object lay concealed –

well, there wasn’t and there was – a little victory

in an arousing sweet and sour musk,

something to keep, breathe in deep, to make you feel

good on those bitter Scottish Winter nights.

There’s a cheap blue transistor radio; a record player, too –

a hand me down after they’d bought something new.

You’d lift the teak veneer plywood lid

and stack your old MFP and Contour knock offs,

bought cheap from Woolworths

and she’d say the mono needle would wreck the grooves,

skip tracks, repeat and stick, locked in by use,

but she was wrong – and one by one, they’d clatter,

clack-drop needled as they toppled onto the spinning platter.

He was no conjurer, was he? Put a plug, you’d entreat,

and dodge the flying fish or feet that would greet

such an impertinent request. Still, Uncle Fred

accepted the challenge and gladly hooked you up.

But the best and worst of times by far, an ancient guitar

she’d donated; its repaired neck, steel strings, over-raised nut

that caused many a bruise and threatened deep cuts

as you tried in vain to shape a chord.

That time she’d caught you miming one day,

shook scoffing head, said why you don’t learn to play

is beyond her. But, then again, many things were.

Eventually it stood it in a corner waiting better times,

and concealed there in nylon, buried deep inside a soundhole –

something for the weekend, you know?

Today I Have No Timetable

 

Today I Have No Timetable

 

Today, I have no timetable.

 

Late to bed, having booked Uber

to send her; watched that black track line

until she arrives on time

then eight rounds with three pillows

until on the deck, out for the count.

 

That plane’s skimming Indian Oceans

as the duvet undulates in motion

ripples, swells, disgorges -

 

and I here plead guilty to the skipping gym,

accepted her sentence, no mitigation

that's why you’ll always find me in the kitchen

at parties, squeezing lemons,

stirring up your actual apple cider vinegar

and swallow, swallow – filling hollows

but who knows what the result might be?

 

And the Bragg’s bottle reads With The Mother,

why not Mistress, why not Lover?

 

For it’s surely little things I find you miss –

I’d tell you now,  but you cannot see

through sets of lenses smeared in gritty mist

because she did not apply her daily wipe

or apply the cleansing lotion

to my thinking elbow’s thickening skin.

 

So, let’s go through the motions,

shall we? it’s quiet, too quiet…

and cold those Doha winds

that breeze through these britches blue,

but, blow me if I was wearing any.

 

I’m no Timothy Winters, just going commando

without rifle, ammunition, bullets, bombs

or even a sense of the bars of which song

I should summon up or even hum along to

as my feet drift the scattered trash.

 

Infirm of purpose -

These feet don’t know which way they go

but ended here anyway, somehow.

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.