78

 

78

 

It’s just one of those compilation videos,

you get them on YouTube, don’t you?

50 bestselling singles,1978. Not radio,

that’s gone, but remember tuning in

back then? To scratchy tunes of alien,

ethereal whining, haunting airwaves,

wondering how anyone might be saved.

Each tune carrying, clings to its back

something best forgotten - bootstraps,

kicked across concrete floors to strains

of Abba’s ‘The Name of the Game’,

‘Rat Trap’ or ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’,

a last year of ‘Saturday Night Fever,

‘Grease’, ‘Star Wars’ just been released,

owning ‘The Boy from New York City’,

wishing to be there, somewhere else,

or if time would learn to defend itself.

How some of that music overlapped,

became tunnels into future days

bearing song into the 80s and far away.

Watching from anywhere but here,

remembers a house, back in 1974,

behind a wood-stained wainscoted door,

unknown staircase to an upper floor,

for young minds, this secret passage

tumbled, from pages of any Enid Blyton.

Ascending through darkness saw there

a suite of decorated rooms, now bare

of any fancy flourishes, soft furnishings.

Just hard clapboard, but laid with care,

across most drafty rafters and cladding.

Rumours of servants, of days long gone;

remnants of a bell system to summon,

discovered in a kitchen, by the range.

Had it always been there; was it bought?

Time flares, it lingers in your thoughts,

this tall cabinet, doors opening outwards,

upon which sits a grubby felt turntable,

no amps, no speakers, no electric cables

spring driven, a fistful of brass needles

and within, a multitude of acetates at 78.

Being brittle, they would easily break,

slip from fingers, hard discs would chip

but each held a promise of something.

Can’t remember now how it was broken,

and four years on, 78 had spoken

in lyrics that muttered concepts of fear,

all that was bad living in a final year.

Cards

Cards

 

Dobson’s never one to speculate,

but always thinks he acts too late—

if he acts at all—at that which might appall.

 

He grows weary; it’s all too much,

seen it before too many times,

maybe doubts it’s even a crime.

 

Did you read about cankers, ears,

something rotting, lying in state,

or was it something lying in wait?

Too late.

 

Breathe and you’re dead.

Don’t say what you really think—

smile instead.

 

After all, they’ve sent many a soul packing.

They call themselves cards,

but something’s lacking—maybe hearts.

 

Enough spades to dig graves,

enough clubs to cudgel the brave,

foolhardy diamonds in the rough.

 

He knows how they dealt

the cards themselves,

built houses from stabbed backs,

marked the deck,

shuffled the pack.

 

Advancing one step up a pyramid,

built from cardboard edge to edge,

like ladders reaching

feathered crows’ nests—

trees swaying over toxic seas,

praying they don’t tumble.

 

Now Dobson knows

he shouldn’t grumble

at leaders who grope and blindly fumble,

 

hoping if they chuck enough mud,

some might stick before it crumbles.

Knows he must not tip his hand—

make a stand,

self-preservation.

 

So he shrugs.

In those poker faces,

he’s seen blood.

Simon

Simon Sometimes

 

Sometimes, Simon, an epiphany strikes

in flashes that feel not wrong not right,

replaced a leaking roof at great cost

with one that leaked - and all was lost.

Some years ago when we all took flight,

you remember that? It's sink or swim,

that’s what profits were muttering

at the time - you'll jump or be pushed,

financial matters - they weren't flush,

quick sand and corkscrews of decline;

you scratch my back, I’ll scratch mine

too – now fuck off with the lot of you.

Of course, they offered up kickbacks,

recompense for shipping all that flack,

bunged a bit of cash to tide us over

as we struck out for new shores solo,

forever after out and out betrayed,

so much hate for those who stayed,

called out rats who skippered the boat

gave elbows the slip, stayed afloat,

or so it seemed. Ten years since then

have slipped; I’ve picked up my pen

five hundred times or maybe more,

to set out thoughts, to settle scores

and yet today, in revelations fair,

I cannot find it in my heart to care.

Kept no friends from yesteryears

and won’t hear from anyone anymore:

I find that good. Of Angel, what of her?

Each day I look into my lover’s eyes,

sweet bird of paradox, surprise, surprise;

John said, we crave no other company,

finding more strength in mutuality

that wasn’t there before. Learnt much:

new thoughts, new skills, deft touch

on fretboard and plucked steel strings,

I had forgot that I knew how to sing,

and sweetness such melody brings.

My friend, all that dissonance now chimes;

it’s good to see you, Simon, sometimes.

Bankrupt

 

Bankrupt

 

What does it take to get ailing patients

on their feet?

More than just icing, however sweet,

no cakes topped with chocolate, vanilla,

or that buttery, artificial lemon mulch

will do the trick. It will make you sick.

Sticks tongues, pastes palates with glue guns,

coats your mouth’s roof, rots your gums:

please, extract our teeth before cancer comes,

and sugar kills, anyway, doesn’t it?

Her cakes are hollow - well, everything is.

Behold that old duffer, making his splash

across today’s sickly front pages,

why, he’s been having it off for ages,

piling up his trashed Himalayas of cash,

now visiting hospitals and some might hope

he’s racing towards the finish line.

So, what’s the tale of the tape?

Most likely some sort of financial crisis,

a black hole, a Max Headroom,

an event horizon to swallow their dole,

smash and grab and take a handful off

the lazy ones who lie in bed and cough,

and just because the lady loves Milk Tray.

After all, when they do come out to play

it's on one leg, hobbling about with metal sticks,

and since Covid they’ve been on the sick.

She will never play fast and loose. Here’s truth,

why not slash foreign aid to pay for bombs,

disinter acetates of war songs,

and put some boots on foreign ground?

But, before you can help others,

why, you must surely help yourself,

and many are happy to do so.

While across the pond and overseas

greater minds diagnose disease,

watch her sinking to her knees,

perceive her needs and lick at greedy lips,

applaud Brexit and her sinking ships,

recall how once they paid in pounds and shillings,

and bid Godspeed to coalitions of the willing.

Manifesto

 

Manifesto

 

The cover art wasn’t up to much,

showroom dummies, dressed up

to resemble the living. Luke warm reviews

for the East Side; West Side too,

from Sounds, Record Mirror, NME,

some remarks damned unfriendly,

but it spawned more than a couple of hits:

Dobson has always liked it,

still plays it some fifty years later,

even if it said nothing to most, didn’t cater

for your popular palette - well, their loss,

there’s hidden edge beneath Bryan’s gloss,

he’d have it over Flesh and Blood.

Never popular, this is the sort of stuff

he collected, never really cared enough,

so, was often alone in a crowd

and that was if he was even allowed

to sit amongst the good and the great,

where he supposed he was just makeweight.

So, he kept himself at arm’s length,

or is held there, which makes good sense,

be it at home, mess decks, common room,

flouts that piper calling the tune,

looks instead towards gates of dawn

and any lugubrious look, or cracked forlorn,

is only the way they shaped his face.

Which is why you’d find Dobson unphazed,

holding the smile, holding the gaze,

of his diminutive and noisy lover,

while she, in turn, asks and gives cover,

at the centre of their cross, yet isolate,

inhabit the world only they create.

What they discuss, you can never know,

just ask Bryan to sing you Manifesto.

Medium

 

Medium

 

You heard the medium is the message.

Who said that, what does it mean?

Getting confused with touchscreens

just because you're senile,

jabbing and fingering like an imbecile

at protected indium tin oxide

assuming that something will slide

up, or down, but touch is immutable,

and they call the shots.

Do you think you should adapt?

Imbibe any fucking shit

that is spouted forth by gibbering fools,

like liquid leaks in drips

from your over excited dick,

or ingested swimming pool scum

that laid you low because you gave it some.

They love it too, don’t they?

You know, you know, you know - it’s filler

all the time, thinking they’re killer,

nailing it, some sacred cow, some cross.

This morning, a power outage

and, guess what? There’s outrage,

shock, shock, horror, horror, shock, shock

at Heathrow: not a cut, not a fault,

nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

born of understatement,

just some blubbering moron in facepaint,

squawking like a vulture about

‘majorly concerning’, ‘hugely bothering’

or any other blockhead trope

borrowed from Facebook,

Instagram, Tik Tok, X,

flexing alack of attention in grammar class,

where they were a pain in the ass

and complained about detention.

Why, only this morning, after sex,

she only now in horror suspects,

her aged parents, inconvenienced,

not used to flying, but she’ll wait,

be there with her phone at the arrival gate,

where, even at their age,

they can avoid her like the plague,

Well, you’d hope so, wouldn’t you?

So, ultimately, you curse at screens,

but you can’t change anything,

not media bites, not toothless curs,

not the way their stretched skin,

is pegged back to resemble a jigged skull’s grin,

just try and wipe it from your mind:

use some toilet paper, borrow mine.

Michael

 

Michael

 

There’s evil in those hills,

dropping in venom pearls

to poison boys and girls.

It passes through generations

carried like worms in the blood,

rears and hoods

like the cobra would

on its way to kill the sleepers,

dispensed to them in swallowed pills,

and the tallow cheeks 

of John Stuart Mill.

 

Dobson doubts he will be heard

or even a Kentucky bluebird

could get a message to Michael now:

Imagine it - swooping high

over Gringley’s low peaks,

swifting down past Drakeholes

where somewhere deep below

his Chesterfield Canal sleeps

cut and covered in tunnel deep,

sluiced its way from crooked spire,

to Idle’s drowsy meanders flow,

where they lie coiled, antique,

and On! On! To Everton,

past The White Swan,

where once upon two brothers greet.

 

Michael had thick curls,

a dimpled cheek when he smiled,

his mind open to any dreams

Dobson would pour into his ear

like summer’s melting ice cream,

or gold into an ingot’s mold.

Freewheeling and rattling

downhill on his rusty bike at speed,

bought for a ten-shilling note

from some broad stroked bloke

where it lay recumbent

in his back street garage,

to bring such childish treasure

as Sunderland thrashing Leeds,

pulling Bremner and Lorimer

here and there like dandelion seed.

 

One day dawned as all days do,

with clouds across the sun,

something wicked this way comes,

an exam, unexpected, unforetold,

adults watched, with eyes that rolled,

plus whispered spells of eleven:

It’s such a grand old age

their anxious children scan the text,

read first or second best,

something shrouded, something bleak

something Dobson dare not speak.

 

And later, in old Harvey’s study,

thick spittle gathered on his lower lip,

to the gathered boys, he let slip

his prognosis – Michael wept.

Dobson recalls his brand-new steed,

in red and black livery;

comfortable seat, three gears for speed,

how he came to believe

he was better now and first class,

Michael’s Scunthorpe; he’s premier league,

with a certificate of pedigree,

and this is how all evil feeds.

 

Now years have passed, Dobson thinks

he’d like to meet Michael for a drink,

recalls after the fights and jealousy;

some shy smiles of forgiveness came,

but what was broken forever remained,

in damned black spots and tear stains.

Detention

 

Detention

 

If you wish, you can grasp it,

it is, after all, entirely understandable,

since the wizards in their wisdom,

pointed convex lenses at the sky,

and a proclamation, raised high,

claims we are tossed back to 1975,

or somewhere give or take a chance,

like thar last dance in Mama Mia,

they’re wanting anywhere but here.

 

Who’s this? Head on desk,

avoiding eye contact, here’s him

that hands slips to those who sin,

like parking tickets - they fill them in,

when banged up in detention.

 

Of course, it’s well known hereabouts,

after his issued screams and shouts

have shrieked final echoes,

he slopes off to get his head down,

keeps silent class with manly scowl,

while filling in the spreadsheets.

 

But, you know, they swallowed rats

who gnaw and gnaw at empty bellies,

bring lack of sleep and counting sheep,

come to lessons, try to sleep,

my, my, someone fetch a priest.

 

Donning his pleasant crescent black-cap,

lent by bleaters from tall white towers,

with an edict to prune the wildflowers

bring order to the house,

bound for chair, grim fiend with mouse

and knitted brows of fury:

he’ll bring you verdicts, judge and jury.

Baselines

Baselines

 

Let your fingers do the walking;

let the music do the talking;

somebody more gifted than me might say.

And look -  here’s one busy with her pen:

more likely using an artificial aid,

to mimic music once played,

because ink is effort, it’s styli passed

like sharpened needles made of brass

to play acetate at 78,

and manuscript in beautiful, cursive swirls

no longer pulls your boys or girls.

Her notes transposed, all lines, all numbers,

you’re wondering why there, not here,

as if there’s ways to do, ways to go,

she’s proper nodding like she knows

how clefs are trapped in corners,

to turn base metal into performers,

using geometry, right-angled rulers

while tsetses snap and bite at necks.

Ah, give it a rest, we’ll dance instead,

let’s figure the thing out by ear,

let our digits push and place

where they will, hitting strings with calluses,

scales and balances,

And raise our pitch a step or two,

with fingers that know what to do.

Moon

 

Moon

 

Since sun set, hostility whispered

after the moon had uttered words

through her pale crescent mouth.

Her slither of slight lemon peel

shavings afloat on water, not gin,

is a mocked up plan view of a grin,

side on, askant and distant skewed.

Cross shopfronts slam iron cages

from words she passes down ages

while all faithful turn her pages.

We, pressing our slimming fingers

against fishbowl display cases,

see cakes decaying and cannot last,

for she is waxing ere she’s waning;

they will not see this month out.

As time long lingers, she’s gazing

far across her moonlit pastel seas,

denies she’s delighting in disease

where all her just wars are raging.