Bubble

 

Bubble

 

She pushes 2 strips of Nicorette

across the counter, didn’t forget

how you always toss packaging;

refuse the plastic. You examine

dark eyes, banded by face mask

and hijab, they’re hot; it lasts -

her burning brand drawing fire

that rises from straw - you mount

the escalator and tamp it out.

Sit, take coffee, glance around

thinking about how you found

a place here. Yesterday, in bed,

giving her lunch, resting heads

afterwards, hearing her shrieks

as Ginebra, letting points leak,

missing baskets, lack control,

could not put balls in the hole.

Reminiscing how you’d cupped

flesh and all that sifted air sucked

through teeth, hoops blown soft

provoke froth, send bubbles aloft,

that live in gilded precious bursts,

can for an instant satisfy thirsts,

then fall in liquids on the earth.

With that conceit; kill your phone -

and long for being left alone.

 

 

Al Sadd

 

Al Sadd

 

You took a selfie sitting on the steps

of ‘Brands For Less’ -

there are two,

one at the other end, abutting the Metro,

where an unwary motorist

is honoured with medals for illegal parking –

Alex messaged: ‘Where’s that?’

You typed ‘Al Sadd’ while a stray cat,

tortoiseshell, and therefore female,

made a play for your lap;

gave your thigh a friendly pat.

The cars are a nuisance,

backing into careless pedestrians,

blasting hot air at dripping legs,

as cloistered commuters point at fools,

sipping karak in the cool.

Change direction at random

to avoid pits in the pavement,

exposed bricks, quick drying cement

that can outstrip the arcing sun,

and in grey, clogging rivers run,

form cooled outcrops that crest

levelled hardscaped flagstones.

You generally stride out solo,

pass familiar landmarks

– you’ve known them years –

Chtoura, Marmara, La Paz,

with Filipinas who will cast and stab

at any chance to engage and hook.

Catch eyes with private looks

of promised pleasures, straighten backs,

pushing upwards, in pairs or threes

lipping rumours to capture and tease

while disregarding feckless husbands

left in Mindanao far behind.

Still sat down, Let’s tackle her message

incuriously, received spuriously,

you’d best guess -

from Kenya, Nigeria, somewhere

anywhere, words that want care

and come with attachments,

something harmful, somewhat libel,

and she’s slung her hook

5 years ago. You look.

‘We should catch up, keep in touch.’

You wonder why

it stirs nothing much.

Dear Old Friend

 

Dear Old Friend

 

The only time I sniggered

watching ‘Steptoe and Son Ride Again’

was during the funeral scene –

specifically, Yootha Joyce’s mocked up pain

while crooning: ‘Dear old friend,’

on top of a clapped-out horse and cart.

Good acting, that.

You would've disapproved, I know,

cited the latest Tarantino

but you never saw ‘Hateful 8’

or ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’.

I like the latter and the way History

was bent out of shape and twisted

to bequeath a happy ending.

But, I left it all far behind – still amazed

you never put the black on Brexit 

or faced plague –

but I think of you most days,

wonder if you'd have beaten pans with sticks

like the rest of them

while watching YouTube, streaming The Beatles,

in a distant world so removed

from anything two of us knew

in our lifetimes -

Sunday driving, not arriving, on our way,

looking back at us from far overseas

while she comes to me

all bass runs and Shangri La

in falling towels dripping showers

oriental and perfumed flowers.

My dear old friend,

it goes without saying

there was no comedy at yours

when they closed those committal doors,

it was curtains -

I wondered how life could continue.

But now, with different songs to sing

she’s crossed her fingers, wondering

what our next 5 years will bring.

Conflicted

 

Conflicted

 

That hot sauce, I ordered with my pizza

last night will out, they say,

sauce will have sauce

and leads to thoughts of taste:

why, 20 years ago, enough to floor a horse

if my mouth were equine by nature.

I idly wonder, while clutching my belly

and beating a path to the bathroom,

machetes cleaving my guts in two,

if the chef was putting the laugh

on me – but, no, that surely cannot be

the person dipping his bread was me.

And some Uber driver on the way

was extolling the virtues of Sri Lankan holiday

because the voters there had spoken,

got rid of the wankers running the place,

replaced them with more grinning faces

no doubt. Armando switched tennis on –

we're talking Swan Lake and the Russian

ballet from Moscow –  that had performed

this time last week, I was torn,

conflicted, as the art ripped tears

that quickly dried; 'It's all one, they're just here.’

this side's that side's compromise.

Overseas, there's midterms;

the media speaks of heel face turns -

but I'm wondering what it is that blunts taste,

if age creates a tungsten tongue

that was not there when we were young,

while later on, their bellies burn.

Implacable, the old, old foes

each the other's weakness knows,

and pay no attention, tweet intention:

Half of us sue for peace

while the other half hunger for release -

and I wonder if any of them look up

and spot a flock of seagulls,

because they ran, they ran so far away

to drop their bombs between the minarets

down the casbah way.

Don't Feel It, Fight It

 

Don't Feel It, Fight It

 

He said he was putting up wardrobes,

I heard picking up drugs –

In Romania – that’s close to the border.

I apologized, but it’s a tall order

hearing properly over tinnitus

and entry-level kids from the Emerald Isle

acting the maggot and speaking Child

on the bus to work. There’s frigates

destroyers, aircraft carriers, off the coast,

hanging around, ready to roast

some obstinate regime with ideals

from fifty years ago, grudges they’d steal

from forefathers if not for amputation.

If you’re drowning in a pool,

pull someone else in, fill it up with fools -

when there’s enough there floundering,

you could stand on their shoulders

or displace the water – so my theory goes,

but it’s easily debunked, disproved,

like the crap it is. In a tailspin?

Write in the margins, blame immigration,

bravely launch apps, carry on watching

continental students storm The Bastille

and keep calm – why, only yesterday Fergie

landed Beatrice and Eugenie in harm

and a pig was born on Clarkson’s Farm.

Roderigo

 

Roderigo

 

Roderigo arrived without fanfare

at the start of some term, he was just there

from Portugal - tall, well-built, no hair.

At first glance, attached, it seemed,

by the hip to the Queen

of Business Studies – no mean feat,

a result, you could say,

feather in his scalp to share the throne,

and some conceded - a great hair day.

Still, he wasn’t well-endowed

or overburdened with teaching skills,

so, they parked him at the back

of classrooms, where what he lacked

he made up for in looks that killed.

After shattering eardrums, being shrill

in meetings and mouthing loud enough

words: love, respect, well-being and stuff,

they acquiesced, gave him a desk

in a room downstairs and mostly left

him to: ‘Assist This!’ And sometimes, he did,

in between studying his phone

and complaining that time the boss insisted

he move a bit, get up and shift

his desk to make room for the band

to set up instruments and rehearse.

It seemed he knew a verse

or two himself – The Cure, mostly -

but they weren’t keen, let him go

and the Queen said, ‘That was a cruel blow.’

Until, one day, he was there no more.

Later she confirmed she’d closed the door

on all that, no commitment, a coup,

and did you know what he could do?

Yes, perhaps. It took a month or so

of nobody searching high or low,

when someone scratched hair and said,

‘Know what? I can’t find that bloody Roderigo.’

 

Must Have Been A Hole Somewhere

 

Must Have Been A Hole Somewhere

 

Leave an overflowing water bucket idle,

and eventually it will dry,

leaving you to reason why –

evaporation or breach?

Now, you could take and hold it up to light;

that damn thing seemed so watertight,

yet what was in it has taken flight.

Keeps you from sleeping nights,

but not always - some days, the butchers

have had their pounds of flesh

and, in the aftermath, rest

comes easy - but you still wake, weary;

interrogate that spent receptacle.

What can it be? Yesterday’s spark

will not fire kindling, smoke straw,

she’s in the kitchen, slams the door

and pours frustration into her sewing machine,

cannot thread, the bobbin’s fled,

and minute stabs draw blood instead.

One look will freeze imprudent wisecracks

on your lips, will draw attacks

instead of grace or favours,

no aromatic libation, no musky scents

will liberate what you must repent –

empty buckets leave us thirsty fools,

somewhere there must have been a hole.