Future Past Present Tense

 

Future Past Present Tense

 

 

How have you been, these past 20 years?

You’d question, having both learnt life’s lessons -

presumably - some 10 years from here.

She’s 62, that much you’d calculate, you’re 74 -

and – what’s that a-knocking, late doors?

Is it you? Well, love once washed away the flaws,

who knows – what you’d once deemed pretty

is sitting at the table, looking like swirled grit,

potato peelings and dried onion skins,

dug out from the bottom of the compost bin

your mother once, in 76, stuffed your glass with

told you drink, so next time you’d think -

change that goat’s water, clean the trough.

Oh, time’s the leveller, time’s rough,

in grainy box-brownie pictures of thinning hair,

her tattoos once worn fair have rotted there,

on the backs of the legs, on hanging dugs,

stretch marks like shrivelled peach skinned rugs -

somewhere buried beneath - a hardened stone

baked dry - nothing you could crack with teeth.

You’d both smile, try to nurture sproutlings

sometimes - oh, tender, tender was the dawn,

you’d mixed tapes enough to make a cynic yawn,

but – here’s the killer – you’d ask her with a look -

can we still unhook that which was hooked?

A grimace dressed up as a mirror cracked

into what could be called a pout after the fact

might coalesce – you’d think of past caresses,

damp grasses that had stuck to stray tresses,

but no, not that, and not yet, don’t forget

there were plus half the letters of the alphabet

she’d claimed as her own – maybe she regrets,

now, but them’s the breaks, it died years ago.

Yes. Wished you’d known someone down past,

with plum Rolls Royce curves, a chassis to last,

her smile as broad as Norfolk’s and just as deep,

and a bell of hair that flounces as it sweeps -

she’d stroke thumb on her middle and index

into heart symbols, twisting it, up, up,

because she’d know exactly how to fill her cups

without wasting a drop, masters majors and minors

and when she plays – boy – there’s nothing finer-

in vows of swelling blouse, her deepening folds

and how both wished they’d soon enfold

before time might blow all those passions cold.

Goodness Me - So There Are Five of Me Now

 

Goodness Me - So There Are Five of Me Now

 

In London Town, rain’s falling down -

silver rain, no doubt, upon dirty streets:

meantime, I’m picking up my feet

300 miles, give or take, from The Fleet

thinking barkers playing flutes, simple tunes

Toot Toot – and you’d better enjoy yourself,

it’s later than you think, Sir Keir.

No, in truth, shipmate, it’s better here,

Doha, Shanghai - anywhere will do –

lump it long to the big guy up front

and do you believe it - I bumped

into you - Mother makes Five.

Wendy Craig, odd nose, Butterflies,

look, I’m no Carla Lane, all the same

how you doing? I’m looking good, nice of you -

it’s all that Arabian sun – and I saw Morag,

bit sallow, down in the mouth, dragging bags,

she’s in Mark’s and – no didn’t spark

up a conversation – probably best,

even back then, I liked her less.

John yesterday, Angel the day before, that’s 4,

oh, yeah, and Gill, the Madam, ‘Hello!’, flooring

it South in a pedestrian contraflow.

No – since I left, I’m better than OK, Julie,

although, back then being exiled was truly

a punch in the knackers – off you go,

don’t let bitter brains flood in Amaretto –

watch billowing sails fill full from the rigging,

and leave all the lazy minds to the digging.

Like the Caffrey’s

 

Like the Caffrey’s

 

I’m 64 – a no score draw – what’s that worth

on your coupon then? Buggered if I know,

shrug, pick up my pen and go.

Words, music – they don’t amount to much for most

or me - it’s nothing overstated, no hollow boast –

I wish you well – feel like it’s nothing rotten

I’m just over it; want to be labelled long forgotten

glad our paths diverge and might never cross

again - give me ceaseless obscure and forever lost.

You’d call me soft – if you had another chance –

Yesterday, Sainsbury’s I crossed trollies

with some old flat-capped blighter,

maybe 80, he gets no second glance from me,

I’m lost in dreams, you see?

But there he is, barring my way as if to say,

‘No Quarter’. That’s ‘Houses of the Holy’ to you,

and damn fine, it is too. I doubt you knew,

but he did, ‘Hi, kid,’ says he, cordially, ‘Remember me?’

And all those years swept away, for a second –

looking him up and down, I reckoned

I did – teaching, in my first year – cross country,

how we trained them, snow, rain or shine,

we exchanged a few words, some shy smiles.

And now I hear you bought yourself a pile,

Alresford, grade 2 listed - 1.5 Million pounds worth -

but we’ll all still end up holed in the dirt.

To Say a Sorry Sight

 

To Say a Sorry Sight

 

A foolish thing – to think

and yet you’ll often find yourself sinking,

waiting on the past, weighted

by cement boots, holding up his flyover,

ten years passed and ten years older.

 

Is that you, floundering in my night visions?

It must be – nice to suffer no revisions

to that face I once dearly held

before he came to fell

our forest – where thought keeps you imprisoned.

 

A foolish thing – to chance across

that which you have certainly lost

you look without looking, a trace of hoar

that was not so before,

no, I read in your face  so much more –

 

quickly picking up a paper by the shop’s door

to scan without scanning,

if I could form a plan

oh, then I was a man –

but what? Perhaps contempt, maybe grief,

way past bargaining or belief.

 

In thoughts much kinder than the facts,

I move away, not looking back,

to let the past be the past,

perhaps it was time enough at last –

 

little left of her I once knew,

scraped back hair, tinted red, grey tattoos -

boiling love to leave love flustered

refitted with hardness, bluff and bluster

of avoidance – we are blocking the stage

for a read through at 50 paces adrift.

 

No – stay lost in Sargasso thought, becalmed,

where ten years passed has done no harm

and holds up to catch the light,

before the other can say, ‘A sorry sight’.

White Lines, Red Lines

 

White Lines, Red Lines

 

The white lines are not daubed,

Sedgemoor Services, M5, you’re bored,

a windowed face staring blank.

That must be you – hard shouldered banks

of uncut thistles, gorse, seeding grasses

conducting the wind through the glass –

dead traffic unmoved these plus two hours

and you could confidently count flowers

that will never grow. You wonder whether

speeding cars would tumble in heather

from mere lack of luminous paint. No matter -

put from your mind any clatter

of metal on metal, screaming brakes

and trust to luck for luck’s sake.

Tomorrow you’ll find yourself browsing

bleary eyed, charity shop-shelves housing

someone’s second hand CD collection –

maybe had been given with affection

you’d assume – someone must have desired

this music, set someone’s heart afire,

maudlin collections of greatest hits

must have stirred some ancient soul a bit –

but there’ll be nothing you’ll want to pocket.

From behind – a voice - ‘Excuse me,’

she shoves past with ill repressed enmity,

you crossed some red line, that I guarantee,

a random face you’ll never again see,

dragging pushchair, dog, she’s anxious to flee

to navigate forests and consider the trees.

Placeholders

 

Placeholders

 

 

When I called him, he approached with caution –

a burnt ochre offering with a rug on,

stuck on back-stick twitching like a metronome.

Keeping bad time, I must state,

no musician could make much of his six eight

less a rolling meter, more a shaggy dog’s tale.

I wouldn’t say he had a cocky eye,

pushed a grizzled muzzle between my thighs

but if he could talk, he might sigh -

been instructed to worry a given pronoun

like a long dead buried bone

that calls every hole in the ground a home -

and told not to take it lying down

while upon his brow – that ancient frown

which, as you might think, determines nothing

at this time. You ask yourself – do they do that?

Dig them out of the mud, drop them clagged

in dirt on the ground - with hearts singing glad

as around about UK towns they’re dragged

in lieu of a proper walk or the thrill of the hunt

by sour faced or ancient one-sticked grunts.

He’s had his fill, leashed outside vape shops,

Waterstone’s, Boots the Chemist, the Co-Op -

scruffy, scrawny, big, small, box-blunt chopped

or hop-bellies so big they’ve dropped

beneath legs that struggle to hold them up –

and, listening impatiently to their gossip

while something that passes for an owner

looked at life and took him for a placeholder.

Footnote

 

Footnote

 

You removed yourself from the WhatsApp group,

that much you did – it is certain,

you drew down the curtain – it says ‘left’ –

and not a moment too soon.

Some people leave footprints upon the moon,

they made their mark there

and it is possible – but difficult to prove,

that those same marks still stand –

what with the lack of wind up there, no air,

those prints could be indelible for all we know.

You were absent all this last week,

a naughty little bit of hide and seek

after you’d trousered the leaving rate

so, where will you go?

Oh, you arrived as so many do, the big ‘I am’, this is ‘me’,

have a care what you say – this a ‘step down’,

‘my husband, you see him? A big wheel.’

Turning, turning – you come, you go,

always the same story blow for blow –

first the quiet sulks, then the complaints

they’re turning cartwheels about you,

then closing your doors, hugger-muggering

in corners, blowing hot breath on tinder and kindle,

pumping the treadles, turning the spindles –

until the presses roll, to strike the 1000 sick notes.

Well, they noted your absence at the leaving do

with all the interest of an automated customer service line -

couldn’t make it? That’s fine,

in the end, another waste of time,

a sour grape in a sour bunch,

convinced of its own vintage, self-authenticated

burning bitter in the gullet, but uncomplicated,

ordinary vin plonk – author of its own joke

and nothing but a footnote.