The Basic Problem

 

The Basic Problem

 

Nowadays, people spout ‘reach out’.

it’s been seen going about -

one of those tuppeny ha’penny phrases,

that’s done the rounds a while

tossed off towards the end

of every insincere email sent.

Those with brains recall The Four Tops;

resonance of guttural shouts

that had ten times more integrity;

and meant something.

There’s wellness rooms, too,

if you’re overworked, stressed,

or violently depressed,

boasting scented candles and vibrochairs -

book yourself in, have 20 minutes of throb,

try not to think of Monty Python, Black Rod,

or Wankel rotary engines.

Meanwhile, another batch of undercooked

cookie cutter employees, most of them crooked

or on the make profiteers

with nothing squared between their ears

are heading your way, starstruck,

having been told they're professionals.

The basic problem is people, you see?

solve that, live easy, healthy, free.

A Clink of Lite

 

Clink of Lite

 

Just a ray and a Dreyfus’ eyeball

winking manic then winking out –

nothing more, that’s all

except gob-fulls of spat rhetoric,

but the other side denied it,

never happened, they claimed,

we care less, send your planes.

Door cracking off a quick blink,

oh, yes, you’ll see a glimpse

but they rewrote continuity

in time for ‘Revenge’s’ ambiguity –

he’s banged up in an asylum,

but then, maybe they all should be.

All this is moot, these chinks of light,

Sammy’s not for packing, no sir,

claims of cancelled flights,

domestic arrangements, childcare,

terrible Wi-Fi, honest, he swears

leaving those left over there

to slum it, pick over his traces,

do all that work on his behalf:

you can’t blame him for a last laugh

he’s praying that you’ll be all right -

toasts you with a clink of lite.

Rags and Shags

 

Rags and Shags

 

Watching news, your gaze is held, braced

as if by the locking arms of a service structure

before a rocket launches into space.

When you went to Everton primary,

you’d chafe at the bit for the mobile library,

lend The Big Book of Space and devour it.

Today, they shot frames of a pink deck chair,

abandoned in tatters, cut to it over there -

in amongst the killed concrete.

The deck had gone, hanging incomplete

and as for the fabric – sailcloth, canvas -

well, these artists brush in broad strokes.

Later you watch as a bridge is detonated,

surrounding brush and scrubs decimated,

causing gaudy peacock plumes to rise.

Meanwhile, on a brick littered Corniche

they’re building oilskinned cities of tents,

tarpaulins draped from tailgates, low rent

one ringed stoves slowly boiling over.

There’ll be no school today,

instead, a brother pushes his sister to and fro,

doing the Science, counting sink holes,

contemplating a combustion chamber’s thrust,

delivering its payload, driving aloft,

doing the Math, stirring the dust.

Scission

 

Scission

 

Over there you say being over here’s

too high a price to pay, too severe,

and talk of war zones, missiles, drones

send messages on your iPhones.

It’s all over International Sky News

journalists and pundits’ informed views

as long as it includes ordinary blokes,

UK interest, like this bird’s fat folks

whose flight was grounded. Stranded,

I’ll bet wishing they’d never landed -

after a while Al Jazeera’s a better bet

than listening to recycled shitheads.

I’m waiting at signals by The Corniche,

after casting for sheirii - that’s fish -

caught zero, bugger all - but it's fine

sitting under the rising sun, passing time.

My mind’s elsewhere, of course

in case there’s an alarm; deadly force

arcing overhead. I’m there pondering

fate, how you’d said I’d be squandering

everything when I put it behind me

coming here, then, by accident I hear

you gossiping incidents ten years prior.

Know what I think? Life must be dire

indeed, if that’s all there’s left to fire

up engines. What's kept is meaning less

as we’re getting older, shorter of breath:

when you retire, you said you’d travel.

Well, fine. Just leave me here to unravel

the dullness in your thoughts that drone;

I’ll happily reap this whirlwind alone.

Your Ordinary Citizens

Your Ordinary Citizens

 

Have not had a break in such a long time,

shoplifting’s on the rise,

a victimless crime,

no off-ramp in sight,

and didn’t you vote for Brexit?

 

Headline inflation’s on the up,

something about an oil slump

your prices rising at the pump,

benefit costs of feeding the five thousand invalids,

and didn’t you elect Boris?

 

It’s a profoundly devastating unenviable - a big spike

from your bottom on the rise,

and there’ll be a hike

in mortgages, rents, package holiday flights,

and didn’t you catch Love Island?

 

No comfort at all, post Covid, after Austerity, it’s all in bits,

massive effect of an immediate hit,

your heating bill’s due a bit of a blip,

something to do with geopolitics,

to be honest, you didn’t understand it,

something about existential shit,

and didn’t you vote for Brexit?

Sunday Sunday

 

Sunday Sunday

 

Once upon a time, fifty years ago

when I was younger – well, there was Sunday.

The sullen seventies winds blew

doctrines of unappealing church bells

across dockyards, spiritless syllables

of ancient grizzled undertows.

If you searched, you’d have found us

at Aggie Weston’s Royal Sailors Rest,

Albert Road, for a pound a night or so,

the very place after Saturday at Castaways.

No manic Monday about Sundays then,

in the television room, Brian Walden,

interviewing old, tired men,

Jenkins, Callaghan, Wedgewood Benn,

to Nantucket Sleigh Ride by Mountain,

a year out from Bowie’s ‘Fashion’

which would somehow be the difference.

Maybe you’d avoid a bible study group,

always voluntary, of course,

unless, like a sprat, you were caught,

and, if that was the unhappy case,

prepare your knees for hard talk

for her humble tiled floor was brutal,

keep any look neutral, resistance is futile.

And all the shops were always shut,

repeats of ‘Black Beauty’ or ‘Follyfoot’

not nearly enough to keep

hungry like the wolf from the door

on the hunt for five loaves and fishes -

we'd just scream with boredom, wait,

bristling for matinees at The Drake,

or The Friendship Inn to open,

for just one hour, twelve until one

after sermon’s done; final hymn’s sung

serving cockle shells of vinaigrette prawns

pineapple and cheese, impaled onions

and just half a pint of bitter, please.

I’m glad it’s all over,

my friend, just think yourself blessed

those wretched Sundays are behind us now;

that door bolted and shuttered

unless you are by some means found

in primeval lands of religious nutters.

Dimmer Switch

 

Dimmer Switch

 

You’re driving at night, ignorant,

on some single track with pretensions

to be a trunk road – which, I don’t know –

 

maybe that winding one

skirting Loch Lomond; slippery when wet,

your switchback at Inverbeg,

those ancient potholes of Ardlui

or hidden double dips at Luss -

when, without announcement or fuss,

there’s incoming at full beam on.

 

But you’re pondering, mind wandering

about ancient cultures and heritage sites,

thinking, well, you know,

they weren’t actually that bright,

were they? No wonder they didn’t survive,

neither side;

no one gets out of here alive.

 

Maybe it’s excessive pride

that eventually did for them.

 

Like Michelle once cried:

When they go low, we go high

which is complete bollocks, really,

after all, you tried,

but it trips glibly off the tongue,

when you’re young.

 

Here’s another one.

Football, a matter of life and death,

he assures you.

Defend until your last breath,

then, take a celestial escalator, ascend

like David Niven, remember him?

 

Oh, football’s serious, a battlefield

not a park when those fans are screaming

doctrines like we want revolution,

so here's some for free

have a bit of ideology

knocked into you, boy,

and fisting each other if they get

a wrong line or chant out of step -

mate, they should’ve known better

at their ancient age.

 

Game? Forget it:

You couldn’t see nothing,

in amongst the throttling,

left them at half time to get on with it,

maim each other,

cripple themselves, brother on brother

waving flags, sticking their own eyes out,

until the last gasp of the last shout,

and the ref blew up.

 

But still, all this is really nothing,

a diversion before that onrushing

truck I mentioned

still oncoming and foxes you with headlamps,

one hand a wheelclamp,

the other holds the cards; a strategic bluff

or straight flush

your single track, not wide enough

for passing places or off ramps -

will you extend a middle finger, let it come

or dim your lights from full beam on?

Bracken

  

Bracken

 

From the mountain’s treelined slopes,

to an unmetalled road below,

his fence-line hung in bracken robes

and he said to me, take this scythe,

hack it all back, cut a buffer zone

until the choked barbed wire is revealed,

prepare it from the ground up for repair.

I felt it was a baleful punishment

for sexual encounters, drunken roaming

tripping light fantastics late home

from the village pub, four miles or more

and in the morning my head, sore,

a dehydrated throat begging water, water.

I looked at his offered sickle

in disdain – he had other slaughter

at his disposal, chainsaws, poisons, killers

that could bust bunkers, let alone weeds

and could be put to lively use.

I shrugged in spite, let loose

with that little something, spilling juice,

determined to prove the bastard wrong

and even while my head ached

put my back into it, for venom’s sake,

carving his bidden, bloody path.

Soon, in victory, all was revealed,

barbed wire, tempered steel

but I noted, as I beat down hot strokes,

the damage to his undergrowth,

holding in my sweaty palm

those flowers that did little harm.

Later, noting his fence never was fixed,

I saw new bracken reconquer it.

My Credit With You

 

My Credit With You

 

We've had lovers who defended slippery ground,

planted flags; built their motte and bailey there -

constructed from a slightest touch without sound,

lash-lowered looks, all flicks of unkempt hair -

we let down the drawbridge to broach the moat.

while they sang Take me as I am, forget about her,

in hints of Dionne Warwick’s ‘Wives and Lovers’

but later we both came to regret our affairs.

We thought we'd definitely secured the boat,

backchecked clues, talked not quite lies, alibis,

yet it seems once our Rubicon’s crossed,

all we thought was ours was lost,

and looking forwards, how can each of us trust

in slick sidepieces that have already cheated?

Now let’s candidly demand further escorts,

once more unto the breach, summoning force -

but our credit now stands on such slippery ground

that in these wretched ways we're perceived:

either cowards or flatterers that always deceive.

The Plate of Hummus

 

The Plate of Hummus

 

Behold a postured plate of chickpea hummus,

swimming lucent thick in olive oil

no dregs here, not your common pomace,

no skins, seeds, pulp, stems

but this is built from high grade virgin

and ground sesame tahini in light beige,

khaki or charcoal black, in gluts

that threaten to overspill this chinaware.

You could send some through there,

but where the kuboos, where the breadsticks,

what mode of transport - chopsticks?

On dishes at 270 degrees to port,

doughballs congregate, flatbreads caught

sitting in breadcrumb flotillas for crows to peck,

squabble over, guard it jealous or court,

but at obverse angle, you’ve come up short,

bare ramekins, hollow vessels for toothless gums:

a drum, a drum - The Trencherman comes.

Net Zero

 

Net Zero

 

Net Zero, Cancel Culture, Operation Greenfly,

no petrol engined cars in 2035 -

Bernard Manning’s toast and marmalade

is in those little racked triangle displays -

if you’re a Bay City Roller, be very afraid

and surely Reggie Perrin once blacked up,

Rigsby’s magic love wood sticks, interrupted

with lustful cries of Miss Jones, Miss Jones.

Oy, yoi, yoi, you with ologies, scrolling iPhones

while overseas, not too far from here,

the stage is set and we’ll impose our ideals yet,

close your strait and mine your ocean

because I’ve got a notion, suntan lotion

has your actual emulsion base, part oil

so spread it on your hot peeled skin, baby,

and while you’re boiling, we’ll send the navy.

Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth

from within the Great Barrier Reef

and beyond – Westward, Calendar, Look East,

they said wind turbines would bring relief,

geothermal and hydroelectric is where it’s at

photovoltaic solar farms and other crap,

see what brave new worlds have brought you,

your tankers hove-to, dead in the water,

they're lying becalmed, but where’s the harm?

The Last Post

 

The Last Post

 

Middle hours of the night, 

let's throttle and thrash

head over heel, pull thin sheets

which combat mosquitos

but escalate heat

until all’s sticky,

wake each morning with headache

and wonder if 

today could be the last post.

 

The odds in favour? Infinitesimal.

The odds against are strong

and yet who knows if 

this warning klaxon

or next thunderclap 

could be the final one -

a last trump, a bugle long.

There’s always that chance;

what you thought you knew is gone

and dreams come deep

as dawn's shadows creep.

 

Last night you dreamt of John,

resurrected within admiring throng,

signing copies, quintessential

while Dylan chewed 

from cold cups of stewed lentils,

a red dal – boiled cheap

into sticky thick red heaps

a plague upon snatched sleep.

A Good Kicking

 

A Good Kicking

Admit that part of you is exultant
when a good kicking is gifted to truculent
bastards with inflexible views.
The end-user has become the used –
bloody, pulped nose received,
swollen, purpled bruising neutralizes eyelids,
rendering opaque what once was clear,
thick lips stopper words from eager ears
like keeping oil in the bottle
or gas in the pipes.

Think boxing, think bare-knuckle fights—
like that time George Sweeney let fly
his fists in Funchal with silent cry
over your two competing ideologies,
the liberal versus the National Front,
and you thought the bastard worth a punt,
but all it took was one swift punch
and you were down in dust and gash.

Bested, a savage battering, thrashed—
your left eye never the same;
to this day it weeps in remembrance’s name,
recalling innocent friends caught in flak,
their horror at this surprise attack
that came out of thin air. 

When it was over, his arm round your shoulder,
he says—you fought like a tiger—softly,
but kept his views intact and attitude frosty,
until what it was was forgot.

After the fury and the shock
came stratagems and a simmering pot
that never quite over-boiled but brewed—
to stew an element of surprise,
for if opponents do survive,
what is knocked down will always rise.

Hecate

 Hecate

 

Looking back, I’m amazed I got away with it,

or even what I thought it meant -

that letter I sent.

 

They were called aerogrammes, scribed on ships

and you’d write dozens, little blue slips

folded and choppered away –

forgotten until some day

you’d put into some port and replies were strewn

across the mess deck, torn into, consumed.

 

Trivia herself helped me over thresholds,

and today she loans me her ghosts

as the morning’s plummeting projectiles and missiles

remind me of that one epistle

I’d sent my lover left behind,

who later would become my wife

for approximately 11% of my life.

 

Oh, how I’d moaned, how I’d whined

in self-pitying, excruciating prose

that commiserated mostly with myself, supposed

I’d been abandoned to my fate unloved:

because I’d had previous, wrote something grievous.

 

HMS Hecate had pulled into Las Palmas

when I received her reply, harmless

but just a little mocking –

like was it some sort of test, give it a rest,

laying off self-indulgence might be best.

 

And indeed, it was that evening and getting late

a picture of me snapped with two shipmates

shows nothing of any scribbled sad depression,

and is on my desktop to this day -

Hecate looking from that past into this future

every time I boot up the computer.

Spindrift

 

Spindrift

 

You went out? She cried,

careful that you don’t get fried!

Nah, nah, I’m still alive –

but messages from well-wishers dried

up – no attention span,

you see? The month drags on.

Feel something wrong

as the sun wends a weary way

across the sky, waiting for the day

to breed black night

covets every minute of its flight,

setting never too soon

and disgorging the moon

from its distended womb.

You wonder why. Why it thrives,

if shops are shut, outlets die,

in blessed sham, a joyous lie

conjured by a ten percent elemental

who put mental into fundamental

and had it off with fun.

Meanwhile, a world’s gaze slipping

showing something more gripping,

stuff like Patrick Viera, John Hartson,

and trails for what’s so great

about being a SKY reporter –

try being a second daughter

of a mogul or shipping magnate,

we gaze contemptuous at the screen

at Cordelia or Hakim –

come friendly bombs

the month drags on.

I Wonder (Departure)

 

I Wonder (Departure)

 

You won-der, it’s fright-ning,

leav-ing now, is that the right-thing?

Because there’s this bus to Saudi -

that’s just pulled up

and your twenty-somethings

are dragging trolleys, getting on,

too frail to huck heavy suitcases,

heft travel bags onto overhead racks,

with a coffee in the left hand

but there’s always someone else to do it,

indulged for all existence

and when showering shrapnel falls,

it’s an easier life that calls.

Never alone with bloody phones,

don’t think, don’t blink,

please, please don’t come home,

but they’ll click

those ruby heels three times,

chant minimal mantras,

a piece of piss to learn –

like eat, sleep, repeat.

I won-der, it’s con-cer-ning,

what you teach

and what they’re learn-ing?

Order food, use gyms, get pissed,

your curriculum vitae must be endless,

mirror in the bathroom, can’t you see,

a real treat, an easy read,

God only knows

what you passed for degrees.

When given time to succeed,

put some effort in and exceed,

we find you playing padel

in the basement,

picnics in the carpark,

sitting on the pavement:

this your contribution to our profession.

I have a confession –

leav-ing now, is that the-right-thing?

Fuck, yes. Who-in-the-hell are they?

They-don’t-even-try, let them fly,

go – kiss your Blarney Stone -

better – take a selfie with your phone,

Instagram it, Facebook it, WhatsApp it,

I couldn’t really really give a shit.

You’re noth-ing spec-ial,

in fact, you’re-a-bit-of-a-bore,

let me show you to the exit door,

and don’t forget to pack

your tacky bra tops and cheap basques.

Now, the only question left to ask

is who’s the bigger fool -

quitters skinny dipping

in their skin-deep gene pools

or those who thought

they’d ever work at schools?

Sad Spectacles

 

Sad Spectacles

 

Ideally we avoid melancholies in D Minor key,

but here's a couple anyway from overseas:

that ponder washing the state from estate.

The jury’s out - deliberating. At any rate,

my most recent spectacles were cracked,

I could not clearly see and that's a sad fact -

still, some history - bought on Al Difaaf Street,

Al Sadd, beat up stone on pounded concrete

translating to The Dam, and you know I will be,

because these glasses split from side to side

and your curse is come upon me, she cried.

Shelter from precipitations of shapeless form

arcing cross sky; iPhones hum droning songs,

about repellants; useless no-mark insecticides

that any Doha corner shop has on shelves

but won't dispatch metalled insects to hell.

So, wretched ankle biters have made meal,

and it is with a bloated weariness you feel

like you should fist-shake ineffectuals above,

despairing of the olive, despondent of dove,

shrug and say, well, at 64,  it could be worse.

So, cast a sly mind back to some other sad sods,

another song, you know, that dream you flogged

for many wasted years – then, there she was.

You'd double take, but it might draw attention

and make any lingering animosity strengthen.

I rubbed those glasses in shocked surprise

and risked shards of glass to the eyes

because, more accurately, both of them there,

but, there’s nothing in this game for a pair,

is there, Bruce? Two women; a married couple,

if that's not pejorative - you don't chuckle

and I could feel four burning eyes at my back

like cutters, like baseball bats; I’m under attack,

in need one of those jerkins for repulsing flack

instead of my blue school 2026 senior jacket.

Emblazoned with ‘Bassman’. I’m proud of that,

I earned it like gangbusters, worked hard at it,

it’s who I am now - so what, then, to make of you?

Turn around, bright eyes, you’re in a curry queue,

and you scutter past, eyes down, two on two

to some sad table; a dark corner. I heard news –

about alcohol, fisticuffs, driving bans, disputes

neighbour on neighbour, hotly debated truths  

and cold tempers. You can’t, won’t shake hands,

bear no malice, sing rapprochement across lands

and I’d expect any hatchet buried in my spine.

Oh, this is a fine time to change your mind,

but here’s two sad spectacles that make us blind.

As For Me

 

As For Me

 

And as for me,

as a war rains confetti

for street sweepers

to clear from paths,

for who knows

who will get the last laugh

or what this one

or that one feels?

The Church bells peal

beg Felix Mendelssohn

encore, encore, my son,

but I only can see,

phantoms of wedded pairs,

one of them me

and most of them who

are no longer there

hand in hand, vanishing,

heading off-screen

into might have been.

Very Good Day

 

Very Good Day

 

You’ll remember some spin doctor who said,

today is a very good day,

or was that the Klingons? Bring on your dead

and maybe you’re appalled.

Let’s get anything out we want to bury, quick,

listen up, I’ll tell you a story that’ll make you sick

to your stomach. What d’you say?

Yes, I guess, maybe that’s hyperbole,

still tell me what you think,

draw some water and fill the kitchen sink.

Like, we’re getting complaints, a Mother’s Mob,

rallying against recruitment rhetoric,

when really it’s get ‘em cheap, train ‘em up,

import them on minimum wage or some such,

drag them over here, flaunt the imperfection.

Soon, they mostly develop sickness, infections,

have numerous lead-swinging days,

pocketing what they get for pay

and when the compact’s complete, off and away.

So, we’re up and at it, let it come –

thumbs in dykes, plasters on oozing oil drums,

using foils to feint and parry the thrust,

of A I generated missives that can no longer tolerate

so off to the Ministry for the children’s sake,

but then it came, in liberty’s name.

If you push flabby skin behind your ears,

your double chin disappears,

while - stop the press - in other news received today

that brings the faithful out to pray,

his funeral has now been delayed

for an unspecified amount of time.

Boots

 

Boots (On the Ground)

 

Look, look - here be boots,

could be existential, possibly wellingtons,

or maybe my aged father’s ones

as he strode around his farm, on the lookout

for any oily rags up the crow’s nest

because you’re better, he’s best,

with boots grimy from soily people

fetching covenants from corkscrew steeples

with twisted ire and crooked fire,

scoping avenging angels with false lyres

riding clouds and rocking zoot suits,  

kinky boots, manly fashions

borrowed from two-bit brutes.

Here be boots, on the ground, cornered

and covered with shit sticky straw

put them newspapered by the door

and send out for the cleaner.

Is that you? Up on a high-chair high-stool,

far above the brass brosse décrottoir, 

and scraped with iron-work tools

while your flicked debris doing sterling work

in pelting your boot blacker with dirt,

shit, muck, manure – toss him a coin or two

and read out pull-quotes, why don’t you?

Wait. Wait. Hear the supplicant’s appeal,

for doth not Brutus bootless kneel

to feel blistering strike of sandalled heel?

You’re a Naughty Boy, Fawlty

 

You’re a Naughty Boy, Fawlty

 

…don’t do it again,

but they keep doing it again

and, oh my God, what are we going to do?

 

She’s back any minute and we’re all doomed.

You’re doomed, too,

don’t you understand?

 

Oh, pull yourself together, Fawlty,

if it’s all gone wrong

then do something violent,

we’re on the cusp, so tote your stick,

parry, hit, slap, thrust,

boot them right where it hurts,

pants down, wallop backsides,

better yet – take a wooden spoon,

beat and beat and beat until eggs crack -

he’ll just whimper there

in his far corner of the room

if history has shown us anything.

 

You'll teach them to look at me

in that way, Fawlty, such insolence

must be punished, such defiance,

met with shock, awe, epic fury

or else, you'll maintain my grim silence.

 

Now it’s time for little boy

to become a man, Fawlty,

because that’s how it is, son,

my great depression, my world war two,

my do not do with old black shoe,

my bread and water, my gruel and dripping,

my reconstituted egg,

my ten lards a-spitting.

 

Consequences born when I was young,

Fawlty, shall be visited onto you -

call it my just civic duty,

my must moment, my love actually

my tutti frutti, good booty,

aw rooty and dress me up in a business suit,

here’s a whistle, here’s a flute,

a bowler bonnet for my bloodshot face,

prepare yourself for a little taste

of that something I prefer the most -

burnt bread. You’re toast.

Behind Closed Doors

 

Behind Closed Doors

 

And the people like to talk,

Lord, how they like to talk

said your actual Charlie Rich.

You know, he wasn’t joking -

I’m spluttering and choking

on all the drivel I’ve received.

Oh, how they’d like to grieve,

get vicarious thrills you suspect,

like, if the last one didn’t get

you the next one might

as nation against nation fights.

Sure, they’ve lobbed ballistics

this way - and the statistics

suggest you could cop for one

but then again, that song

they vetoed in Eurovision

has only just gone and won.

More Simon and Garfunkel;

less of your long-lost uncle,

distant friends, old colleagues,

ex-girlfriends under cypress trees

that steal brains while you sleep

or so it’s wrote. They creep

out from under filthy rocks,

oh, it’s been quite a shock;

thinking of you, honest injun.

The organs and their engines

journaling above scrolling doom

in red, make you leave the room

for bed - please let’s hear it

from trapped tourists in shit.

Baby, let your hair hang down,

and let’s button our lips,

I’m in boxers, you’re in silk slips

and please, don’t make a sound,

let honeysuckle that we found

do the talking; heal the wound.

When You Feel The Bite

 

When You Feel The Bite

 

 

When you feel the bite, it’s probably too late,

you’ll find raw ankles in a state,

or the very tips of your ear lobes,

your wrists, if you’re unlucky, your nose

swelling up like an excarnated globe.

And have you wondered how they know?

Here’s me, sedentary, watching news,

hearing the pundits give half-assed views,

every bulletin extracts another expert’s

grave address to camera in scabrous shirts,

helmets on, giving tongue and going for it –

then here comes another of the bastards.

You swot in violence, kill that little shit

it lies like black ink in your satisfied palm,

quivering, twitching in its impurity

and thereafter a period of quiescent calm,

you relax in some false sense of security,

before another swarm of the little bleeders

fill their thieving sacs with bloody feed.

When you feel the bite, it’s definitely too late,

so roll over and resign yourself to fate.

Ally Pally

 Ally Pally

 

So, we’re deep in someone’s crosshairs now -

some maniac lit the light, blew touchpaper,

removed the head, but kept the rest for later

to poke around in the sacrificial goat’s entrails,

read the tea leaves, throw the bones,

send the fireworks rocketing across the sky -

how far you ask? Well, I’d say how high.

Like how they built London’s people’s palace

to scrape clouds, sandpaper cumulonimbus

or Captain Birdseye scrapped with Findus

over whose fingers actually had more fresh fish

when really neither were fit for any dish

to serve to any King on any royal slice of bread.

This roaring success, torched after 16 days,

was mostly bankrupt until fat men who played

darts, shot arrows right through them and stayed

while your average scumbag, getting pissed,

chants stand up, stand up; boring, boring table,

as sportsmen lob missiles at them if they’re able

and they broadcast this slop to a sickened world.

I’m getting messages from some several girls,

of life and times behind me now, they say you ok?

Ah yes, I remember we did the hokey-cokey

some years from now, it’s either too late

to care, too late to wave, too late to say I’m here,

because I put that world behind me, dear.

Me? I just scream with boredom, frustration -

not your knock-off Ludo with the no cheating dice,

I’m watching them stockpiling water, buying rice,

preparing for an oncoming storm that'll never come

and seething here under the racing sun.

Ah, Alison – she’s an answer looking for a question.

Well, let me send you a few suggestions.

The Masseuse

 

The Masseuse

 

I’m aware that my mouth tastes sour

but not in the sweet, stale way of tinned tuna

and yet I ever brush my teeth on the hour

every hour, take Angel Falls of showers

and yet she clings, in scents so familiar

my waking mind screens and bewilders

any notion of any ranking. Still, she comes,

comes as my fingers are picking, must strum

that unfamiliar bass-line she demanded:

Oh, have you ever seen the rain? It landed

like a love note, a Valentine’s unsigned,

my bleary, blind eyes stretched open to find

had flopped onto the doormat of the mind.

The rain falls, but rises in shocked octaves

I improvised and I joyfully concocted,

where drum fills are like a heartbeat rocked

and she does not pick up her violin awhile,

instead she’s dancing at me, sultry and smiles,

throwing more than pleasing shapes. I play

until she drifts behind where I no longer see,

her fingers grip my neck, and her fingers grip me.

The bad and good notes but one and the same

or, if I play not, I had not even felt the rain

she brings, her fingers with our music play

and the scent of her breath is treble clef away

from my rising bass; and do they not say

good boys do fine always? I know full breasts

are but a whisker, a half-step from a thin vest

that the devil will coat me in. Still, she grips,

twists until weak fingers from my frets slip

with some sort of smile, plays upon her lips,

she shrugs, takes violin and heels my neck -

bows notes yet unwrote and refrains complex.