Tonight Tonight Tonighr

 Tonight Tonight Tonight

Let’s all get up and dance to a song

that was a hit – there’s fragments of it,

shake yourself from an afternoon kip –

let slip slumber, lose any grip

of internal worlds you’d unspooled and projected.

It’s half of two, give or take –

day of a big game - well they’re all big, this late

on in tournaments, England Norway -

He would’ve loved that, found a pub somewhere,

wittered on about live atmospheres,

Erling Haaland – you don’t get much more

corporeal than him – certain to score –

press sharpening knives, watch how he skives

on the park, but, boy, he’s sharp.

Find yourself in town, wandered down

from Angel Towers - some excuse about potatoes,

sun’s a thieving crook, gone and took

what water he can squeeze from your sponge –

and although you mostly avoid pubs

you still hang on to the Con Club –

paying annual subs

for a final bolt-hole that could prove handy -

nip inside order ice-cool shandy.

Maybe you’re halfway through

when you’re recognised –

hailed with a ruck of a shout, a hearty maul,

but you don’t remember his face at all,

later, when he’s off for a slash

you make a quick pass at boy bartender,

confess you can’t remember

who the hell he is – but didn’t you hide it well?

Jason’s back, now you’re in the know –

recalling how we used to go

with Chris … remember Old Trafford, England game,

we had more than a few, him, me, you,

he bought his lad – no, no, that was my boy –

was it? You fell down the steps,

well, we was all fucking wrecked,

twenty years back along, Steve McClaren, Rooney,

and City, lifting the Vase at Wembley -

choker about Chris – let’s not go there –

no, no, you’re right, shit, one day, he’s just gone –

I know – passed on, it’s just bloody wrong,

isn’t it? It was, like – let’s not bring it all back,

he was my best friend, come on,

I’ll put one in, have another one…

You make your escape,

but City have got Exeter, Saturday next, pre-season

friendly, well, there’s another reason

to hang on, you guess,

agree to catch up in the bar, bring the Grandson,

because we all belong

to some sort of football family.

And if he could brush ashes from his eyes,

wake up from an afternoon kip,

wonder what he’d make of it?

Your Own Now

 Your Own Now

If you often find yourself on your own now,

let me point out - the observer once observed

is just as valid – it depends on how

fast your relative’s travelling – 

If they blaze a fulgent curve,

well, case closed, it means you’re no more real 

than them. You ask - are you able to feel

the way I feel, if every present is present

and every now is now?

Evidently. The off-side rule laments bereft,

hides under beds in plain sight of the ref

until pronounced hereby abolished

and told to take up dust-moting instead.

Pitiful pastimes, these, watching drops racing drops,

thinking about how many sailor’s socks

I might have darned, if I’d stayed in, not left her

to take her up – 

We’re walking Cornish woods,

where we’d often talked in woulds and coulds

when I felt my present take your present’s hand

in mine – and it stopped me there -

while your ghost fingers combed my hair -

but someone observing us at light speed

saw that you were much more real than me - indeed

they sighed and said - I was the one who'd died.

Fruitcakes

 

Fruitcakes

 

 

Some boffin’s gone and crossed

a croissant with a muffin,

called it shitzhu, mufftini, something –

pumped the whole thing full of vanilla,

so you can’t taste nothing -

witness Fanny Craddock’s grief,

thrill as your Galloping Gourmet sprays

short slurps on studio floors in disbelief –

he never met a cab he didn’t like,

might order one; take flight.

I saw him platforming, up and down,

not Graham, but another fruitcake,

a sultana short - across his brow

what he thought might make for a fierce frown

rucksacked, like me, T-shirt, too –

anything could happen in the next half hour,

where’s Troy Tempest? That’s him,

accosting other travellers waiting

on the 8.15 from Manchester –

well, Penzance lacks the glamour

and I think, if he packed a hammer,

we’d stand back, plea bargain, submit,

but he hadn’t, just screaming shit

looking the very picture of pain,

as if the world and its people are insane –

lunatics breeding pastry crescents,

Pillsbury Doughboys in want of crust stuffing -

he’s in, out, up, down, tugging his cuffs

grilling those he can’t trust,

winkling them out for a shower of spit –

he’s finding plenty of material

to get to grips with – saves his best bit

for two bearded blokes giving it dap,

because in his head he’s got their backs,

better believe it, buddy –it’s your lucky day.

We’ll shuffle uncomfortable, look away

as though he’s wraithlike, doesn’t exist,

well, that’s the best way to deal with it,

after all, who here can honestly say

he’s wrong? There are some there

who thought Gareth Gates was a neat idea,

watched Mad Lizzie wake up and dance,

and absolutely swear by Lemsip –

it’s either heartsease or heartache

until they think up something else to bake

he’s just trying to ward a world off fruitcake.

They’d Quite Like To Apologise

 

They’d Quite Like To Apologise

 

There’s a tinker without an axe to grind –

just a tea chest full of table knives

down Helston way and onto The Lizard,

all the better to nick the gizzard,

he misses arteries but snicks the veins –

spot him from window seats on the train

where an interminable litany intrudes

upon these fascinations - has us glued

to cheap moquette polyurethane foam,

an adhesive of beading sticky sweat

and we’re not even part way there yet -

a hissing classless deadpan monotone

slithers from speakers and drones,

plucked slit wristed, tanpura style,

by a two-fingered woolly mittened

thread-sleeved Stourport dreadnought:

It seems they’d quite like to apologize:

for moving slower up your inclines

than they’d like, for running late,

it’s a lot to ask; there’s a lack of seats

due to pulling two coaches not three,

please give yours up for infirms or elderlies,

unexpected air conditioning malfunction

at Droitwich, that earlier cancellation

mentioned previous, but compensation –

if you search up and click GWR Delay.

While Cornish countryside makes its way

inch by inch, inspector’s sent, greets you

with a surly, ‘All tickets joining at Truro,’

clickety-click, but we’d quite like to glower,

sullen at the backs of seats, ignore

that courtesy, let them punch fresh air,

conjure up streaky rashers of fare flouts

spitting in pans - ticket touts, litter louts,

waiting for a long-delayed day they shout –

‘The Emperor’s got no clothes.’ Point out

quiet lanes, long and winding routes,

from London to The Lizard via Helston Town -

your saw-toothed tinker's heaping mounds

of all slack tongued lip-service he ground.

Sweet Potato

 

Sweet Potato

 

 

There’s an uncollected solitary sweet potato, going off,

with shrivelled skin and soft

centre, front left corner of the otherwise

empty wickerwork vegetable rack, and its eyes

might sprout if they weren’t shut tight.

 

Still at least you thought you wanted it,

which is more than I can say. There’s grit

in every sip of that tea I didn’t make,

a carbon monoxide alarm for carbon monoxide’s sake

and smoke alarms that would sit awake

 

if you’d ever reached up to replace expired batteries

in sleeping policemen. The factories

burn and churn them out – dying is a thriving industry;

and there’s a something symmetry

that I can’t articulate – proclivity and declivity

 

or a loop the loop, where the ends don’t lock.

They’ll convince you – bastards fronting Watchdog,

that bottle tops kill, radon gas leaks undetected,

lock doors, bar windows, shut curtains, stay protected –

but when your number’s up, you’re collected.

Ruby’s

 

Ruby’s

 

 

You make your escape mid-morning –

pictured the carnage you’ll be cleaning before they set to

chopping fruit, several self-composting kilos

for Saturday’s protracted wedding do

and you’ve absolutely refused to go –

picture the longuers clearly: church, people, photographs,

our tune, unnecessarily crap laptop disco –

a couple of speakers, cheap LED glitterballs

watch him hyperfocus on punching that ‘enter’ key.

Oh, darling, save the last dance for me,

no thank you, feet up, football’s on telly –

So, that’s you, Falmouth train,

a bit of bin-digging on the brain,

flicking through yesterday’s paper.

A scorcher – hot enough to boil a halibut’s eyeballs

on the pavement, you’ve sweated over market stalls,

passed on pickled seafood salad,

huffed up Jacob’s Ladder, rooted through charity shops -

nothing doing - until you’re at your final stop –

Ruby’s. ‘All the clothes half price,’ your hawker pledges,

‘Vinyl’s marked down 20%,’ he alleges

and you’re quite adept at flicking dusty racks,

but there’s nothing you feel like humping back

save an old Al Stewart, unusual sleeve, and pretty sure

you’ve ticked that box some years before.

Eventually you chance across four CDs propping

the shelves above, cracked and purporting

to contain semi-playable discs.

You think: ‘What’s this’ – and – ‘Ah, go on, take the risk,

why don’t you?' Remembering that proffered discount,

you approach his bunker all confident bounce.

He glances, sifts, tots it up, checks your face’s pages

and demands full whack – shuffle your feet,

make protest, but he responds, ‘Nah, you’re too cheap’.

Maybe he checked himself, but you don’t really know,

wonder who Ruby is, what she would do

and when you get back, the kitchen floor’s sown

with deconstructed fruit you’ll swab alone.

Snapshot

 

Snapshot

 

 

He was young, green, wet behind the ears,

a shaver of snapper-wood off some old block,

less colt, more foal -

a hands off cock, on socks,

turn to, look lively sort of lad

and he trembles at you

from underneath his pudding bowl.

 

Order coffee from the wagon, Pendragon,

his some kinda ham-fister barista schtick

means everything takes one extra second too long –

punches in the codes wrong,

asks you to repeat your orders

like, ‘Do you want a sub with that?’

and you’re thinking HMS Trafalgar, nuclear fission,

state the objective of the mission.

 

Here comes reason. She sidles up

from his behind – dripping experience and D cups –

smiles a this is just my summer job, love,

sports a couple of senior years, a bit of his n hers,

he’s first day nerves, butterfly balls - she’s had it all,

offers up and grinds out the right call.

 

She’ll be having some later, he knows it, you see it -

ponders all day, well, just how will it be,

will his world expand, what will it all mean?

Leaves you to retire, find shade, 'Thanks, chief,' 

suck coffee grit through ground teeth.