Ticks

 

Ticks

 

The Cornish summer, lost to me now,

is not without its hazards.

 

Burning deserts lend perspective, however –

 

gazing skywards, wishing for showers,

lamenting drenched shirts

and whatever impulse made me brave the dirt

and dust of the streets of Al Sadd -

 

where, 5 or 6 musicians brood and clutch,

pick up sticks; achieve nothing much -

despoilers.

 

The mind scuttles backwards to a sign I read

many times: ‘Be Tick Aware’ –

on the fenceposts, stiles, kissing gates - there

as I walked along adder paths

leading down to the shade of the river’s trees,

shiver and think of Lyme’s disease.

 

Dogs, too. Embedded blackheads in blotched skin,

part the hair where it’s tunneled in,

recall father lighting matches,

touching cooling char on full blood bladders,

shuddering at the convulsing something

that emerged to drop its last.

 

I wonder if ticks also landed here,

followed me over

to gain purchase; aim to thrive

be the last living thing left alive

 

in deconstructing boxes that engulf streets,

get scuffed beneath my sandalled feet,

surf the sandstorms, catch the wind;

open and dare me to peer within.

 

Maybe a future where the tick is King.

 

Autocrats, laying traps:

‘Tick this!’ they might declaim, ‘You’re insane!’

and they’d pass around the sheet again

until the non-conformity is detected –

a pedestrian out for a midnight stroll,

arrested by the unelected –

 

Exposing flesh, they burrow deep,

invent new rules to keep

or someone’s nobody spreads and creeps,

creates a million million spreadsheets –

 

For ticks.

 

So, in a practice room, not far away,

spoiling a noisy day before yesterday,

we’re scraping together this unruly tune,

leaving the rebellious door to the room

open.

Still Cooking

 

Still Cooking

 

I dreamt of Tereza last night,

laid back, close in thoughts, tight,

2 fingers crossed to form a 2-bar gate –

so, I thought of blue

and to see if you

were ready for your lunch

although it was early –

popped a diamond rolled it around,

but it was still cooking.

You tasted a spoonful

tongue tip then supped it

to see if it was yummy.

Not yet, still needed to marinate

so the juices would suffuse and mix,

swim one into the other.

I thought to bring you to Palengke,

let MJ choose a flavor –

what will it be?

Chocolate lime, strawberry,

slip, take scissors and snip the top

unwrap it like a lollipop.

And after you had taken your lunch

I slipped back, slept, to dream again

of Tereza, MJ, anything.

Bring Out Your Dead

 Bring Out Your Dead

 

You might see black clouds massing

in the East

if you ever lifted your head.

 

instead -

 

What a jolly good chap the King is,

in the counting house, by the toll booth

this side of Boothferry Bridge;

 

there’s horror for Andy

can he survive the Winter - he’ll be lucky

if bias from Munchetty

don’t get him first;

 

and Traitors cancel an entire series

due to a devastating four-word firestorm

while influencers swarm

over Stockport’s nursery manager

with the kindest soul;

 

there’s fresh outrage sparked

by sleeping trailblazer,

bombshells Meghan, will nothing faze her

or bring this odious couple

to their knees

rid you all of this turbulent priest;

 

while over there in Pickle Cottage,

divorced celebrities plant beans

but cannot say

how many make five;

 

bless Garraway, oh Garraway

and all who launch her,

crack champagne bottles, splitting his sides

if he gets out of there alive;

 

your viewers aren’t happy,

they never are,

when a minor Premier League icon

is always crashing

in the same car;

 

marveling at the UK stockpiling toilet paper,

alongside 6 other everyday

household items, but cannot say why,

 

and millions on the dole; hand-outs,

foodbanks, posting salvation

taking holidays in the nation’s

sick capital, Merthyr Tydfil,

spawning epidemics of falling ill.

 

You might see black clouds massing,

in the East

if you lifted your head –

 

Instead,

bring out your dead.

How I Wish You With Me

 

How I Wish You With Me

 

‘How I wish you with me,’

but I’m more Sweeney –

call me Dobson

stirring the bath – I let her raise dust,

watch spinning wheels

depart to break bread, ponder

if there’s communion wine used

or if they make do with grape juice.

It’s crushed super-sweet -

I know this,

having braised lamb shanks,

seasoned them with mint

sipped jus; still winced.

I noted there’s still a soupçon of rust

about the knees in the gym

this morning - spoilt my quadriceps

from that step too far

I took. Golden the Glossop days

and how I cursed,

unswallowing every expletive ever learnt -

a trip I took on trust,

sent tumbling like Iranian stocks,

absorbers not enough for shocks,

belly’s but a backpack of rocks,

left only with regret

for the sweet and sour pork balls

I didn’t get.

Still, she pulled me up,

from the rowing machine –

where I’d managed a ginger stroke or two

asked me to film her lifting weights -

‘Great tits dear, nice ass,’

I called, as you do:

you're told you shouldn’t these days,

but clearly we’re both out of date

because, 'Thank you,' and she laughs.

Later looking at the watch-fit, contemplate

my obesity – reading the grim news:

She scolds me, ‘You’re pogi,’

and tells me she still has use

for all of that which we call our own.

I could complain she’d adjust my waist

quite easily if I lose the requisite -

but she would’ve called me out

for talking shit

if she’d ever used words like that.

Instead, she drops me here to sit out 2 hours

to write of cast-offs, sailors, ships

as she communes with those higher powers

that I somewhere let slip.

 

 

 

 

‘What If Tom Baker…

 

‘What If Tom Baker…

 

…left at the end of Season 15 (Invasion of Time)?’,

opined some pock-skinned You Tube git –

a tongue-tied hobbledehoy with zits,

a self-styled influencer, all round, cradle-bound tosser,

a greasy spot well versed in yeast, a foreskin flosser

with less right to comment on Great Tom’s legend

than your baker’s dozen basket-case of knob-ends.

Ask someone who was there – no, why bother:

yes - substandard production, dodgy script -

they’d scheduled ginseng and arenas of killer cats,

but inflation put the mockers on all of that -

so, went for a weekend and whisky script,

bunkered down, pseudonymed up, tore through it,

the rest is history, French for story, you doubt he knows.

What if? What if what? What’s your point?

He didn’t leave – three more glorious years, anointed

the greatest on most occasions; I vote you fuck off -

don’t spend weekends filming yourself rubbing cloth,

speculating your chin-dribble in spattered glasses,

ejaculating misinformed dictats to the spanking classes

while the rest of us watch the donkey leading the asses.

Construction Time Again

 

Construction Time Again

 

In this city, it’s construction time again.

It was yesterday, it will be tomorrow,

for us it’s all one and the same.

Deployed -  Hyundai 220 mechanical crawlers

that yawn elaborately, bare teeth and bite

deep, ravage this poor sub-soil

of grit, concrete, gravel and spoil –

nothing green grows in such solid grey caliche

never a bush let alone a tree.

You wonder how anything rooted here,

what it destroyed, what it cleared -

that’s me, picking my way between bunkers

screened by poor to middling safety bulwarks,

therefore, anyone intent on tumbling

can only blame themselves – that, the night,

or the heat haze blurring lines of sight.

Avoid murderous traffic, two-fold slayers

who exterior heat to interior cool or flay

your heels alive with spinning tyres

that pitch and toss the dust storms higher

than they’ve any right to be. If I make it –

the jury’s out – I might order coffee, ponder

why the pit outside is dug that deep,

did they remember chemicals to exterminate

the scuttling cockroaches that proliferate

and find nests so easy to build? Once inside

I am besieged by the one fly

who somehow knows and has found me out,

will attack without remorse or any thoughts

for its own survival – I swot without any hope

of success in preventing exit or egress

and wonder if I hung a flypaper throughout

it might ultimately lead to my arrest.

Chickadees

 

Chickadees

 

Not the most promising of subjects,

but it has to be tackled - I expect

little will come of it; won’t move mountains,

overturn rocks or grind pebbles into sand –

yes, nothing much here, nothing grand.

Chickadees - and you may ask what sound

is made – newlings, who flew using westerlies,

accustomed to sitting back, coattailing,

utilizer to cancer and something of that

and how loud they are, how sweet they sing –

of sealing wax, of silly-string

of rum, red bull and teaching,

of shots, soft pillows, sleeping,

of minted lattes delivered late,

of however did she get in such a state?

A sweet midnight chorus punctuates my night;

tossing sour, turning bitter and overbites

into unfurling dawns that reach surging crescendos

until, one day the silence of nothing at all.

It’s sound and fury of empty kettle

switched on at socket, of filament blown

and circuit breakers that halt the flow

burnt to cinders; let licking flames

fuse the hems, to part the stitching once again,

make merry with meal of candy brain.