Undercover of the Night

 

Undercover of the Night

 

You woke - unexpected, that –

nightmares, always – like muskrats

interrupting the river’s steady flow

to build skyscapes of cone on cones –

blinking  blearily at the ceiling.

 

Here was Kristina crying, Monika’s embrace,

waving away that tangible trace

of sweatered breast you caressed

with her wink – two boys, indefatigable, following,

whipping with sticks of liquorice, swallowing

your streets in hunger.

 

It could be thunder,

reach for the clock, 1.30

and because the weather’s dirty

out there, the match’s been delayed -

not a ball’s been played –

undercover of the sheets you’re weighing it up

was it fate, was it luck?

 

Sneak to the office quietly, take your chair,

cross fingers, switch on, the crowd’s there

sucking in any remnants of thin air

bowling around The Azteca -

praying for all of us without a prayer.

 

For those about to rock -

thunderstruck pitch or some such nonesuch

they’ll lose, that’s the received hunch

and cheery pundits predict a trouncing –

Joe Hart, Mica Richards, Rooney:

They play the ball like that again,

at altitude, under heat - mainly falls in Spain,

you know, the rain -

good for early baths before catching planes.

 

Ah well, let’s get it on:

but they’re brilliantly, hopelessly wrong –

The first 20 where the game’s killed,

that taste Bellingham’s brace –

someone you’d not really rated

a sending off, two pens, final 20 tense catenaccio

and what’ll you do?

England 3, Mexico 2.

 

It’s 4. Snatch a couple before she rises,

you think, then softly, softly dream surprises

and later, lost in thought –

what, if anything, has this taught?

In her daytime you’re like to weather the scorn –

of guitars, of sport, of life abroad,

oh, how thick she lays it on; warns you well,

which is why you might never tell

of secrets spilling over with strange delights,

undercover of the night.

Anthropomorphic

 Anthropomorphic

 

I come across two courting birds -

well that’s anthropomorphic, for starters,

two young flirters –

not that I really know they’re young, of course,

but he’s sidling up to her

with a sideways beak and cat’s cream purr

as if he’s been sporting claws

for all these wasting years

that have yet to pass him idly by.

Look – I don’t know why –

but there’s a shitty parch of pavement

outside Aush Al Bulbul where pigeons flock

and nest - they’ve definitely been sent

to rile the proprietor – who shocks

public feeders, screams at them to drop

any intention of sowing seed –

and scrubs off the guano daily – they breed.

No one eyed, yellow idol to the North,

points out which of these have given birth

lately, but you can spot the old ones;

they don’t move, sing songs

then shut hooded eyes to fall over apologetically -

I wonder if they ever tumble from the sky?

Still, back to our youthful fancier –

she’s leading him on a merry dance

as if to say – not today –

and he’s torn up they were made that way.

In Shape O Beast

 

In Shape O Beast

 

 

Oh, how foolish do those fears seem now,

brown cow?

 

The Friesian in the field is slow –

she lumbers towards the 5 barred gate

where too many hooves have clomped up mud

into such a swamp;

we can’t go where we’d go

or break a bale, straw the floor, offer feed

from the palm of an outstretched hand

where thick warm tongues

work to suck up seed.

 

You say: Oh, you’re always in love

with someone, but life’s late blooms

have carpeted the trees, the rooms -

let’s reach out for something to embrace,

grasp it before it’s too late,

look -  all around - warm faces

flushed in welcome, beckon us forth with glances

that speak of making hay with chances.

 

And can weak poor hearts resist

such unspoken given promises

of secret kisses, covert ecstasy, hidden trysts –

ancient as we are?

Oh, those looks she fires have travelled far

and wound every cell that kicks inside,

they shoot from the hip

taking aim with steady grip.

 

And there’s a winnock bunker in the East

where sits Old Nick -

in shape of beast -

lapping comfort crumbs from life’s feast.

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, mistress of majored minors

and when she plays, boy, there’s nothing finer,

ladling her enveloping buttered panna cottas

of vows, of swollen blouse, of deep crimson folds,

of plush cherries spooned on ripe hummocks bold,

and how both wished they’d soon succumb

before time might blow all those passions numb.

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 - hearts singing and glad

to be tugged by necks around UK towns - drags

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-bellied - so big they’ve dropped

beneath legs that struggle to hold them up –

and listens impatiently to second hand 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.

Have a Kit Kat

 

Have a Kit Kat

 

June 2026 and Beckham’s face plastered everywhere -

because those old walls need a bit of pointing,

cracks in the tiles, needs a flat finish – you’re aware

it’s just wound down, but could flare

up again at any time – and not forgetting baggage squatting

implacably, eyes glued to Not the Nine O Clock Cup

whilst around and about its head the rotting

carcass of shagpile brings flies in need of swotting.

Denmark? A canker of the ear, part of you needs to stay here,

whilst another needs rest, aches for an achy breaky break -

have a kit kat - and all that for goodness sake

stuff – but they don’t package it for nails now,

no innards to push or tin foil to slit before you chow

down – just ubiquitous cheap plastic wrap.

It boils in your dreams when you take a nap,

Gary Lineker’s sweating forehead and cheeky grin,

boss – have a word with him -

Beckham slotting that last-minuter in

between the sticks - before pulling out of a tackle -

metatarsal - Ronaldinho Gaucho - the woodwork rattles

and we’re down .and out once again.

They said next year will be easier, good things coming

like the sun rising behind the disused tin gasometers

take a thermometer, check room temperature

and you’ll see that what was once has gone

but something tells you there could be better songs

to sing than this one – and how will she fare?

Left behind with time zones - a two hour delay

until after five days, her turn will come, she ups, flies away.

But when the hands on the clock strike ding, ding, ding –

and everyone stops for tea – you’re left munching

on Kit Kats over what next year might bring.

We Love The Enterprise We Really Do

 

We Love The Enterprise We Really Do

 

We love The Enterprise, we really do - 

garbage scow -

I suppose you could pass to Mexico,

but as for the other two?

Still, no matter,

we get tossed off leavings

on a trencherman’s platter -

a highlights package, your televisual feast -

so is it possible to reserve the BBC2 channel

for the duration? No. 

Why don’t you talk properly:

those B’s look like P’s

and who’s ever heard of a Boast Office?

No one’s drawing Mr Hutchinson’s map,

it’s halfway across the world

where these bastards don’t even like football,

let them chuck hoops, slam dunks, touchdown

and cheer for the hempen homespun homerun –

but call this an own goal by no means –

oh, there’s plenty of fast bucks

to be made – you love football, you’re out of luck,

mate – where’s Captain Kirk?

He’s the one with McDonalds sponsoring his shirt.

I Stand Relieved

 

I Stand Relieved

 

What? Oh yes, you might suppose

that standing beneath the compass rose

having spent a Middle Watch putting

ten of starboard on, sir,

come to midships, midships it is,

that I have no spur

to prick. But, I care not to care

and therefore might be somewhat put out -

not that they’re moving tankers

but that they had to be anchored

there at all. I mean, what’s the point?

Personally - after they’d cased the joint,

wielded secateurs for a bit of dead-heading –

I dodged a few projectiles

lobbed in my general direction,

reported the pretty ribbons bow the sky,

watched my workload spike

and the workshy fly –

it seems flowers bloomed again and spreading

sprawling across the rockeries.

And anyone with a brain to scratch

might wonder why those boffins lifted latches

on cry havoc – instead of inventing the tool

with which a man might try.

What? Oh yes, you might suppose

you relieve me, sir, and might believe

I stand relieved.

Truffles

 

Truffles

 

A swaggering, overbearing,

tin-plated dictator

with delusions of godhood,

see you later

Truffles - viewing figures

scraping the barnacles

off Bill’s bottom,

with banal lo-fi hi-jinks -

don’t kid yourself, pal, the Devil’s bored

gets to thinking up yours,

Pantheon of Discord -

I’m locking the piano’s lid, you fraud:

back, back – the time of the Osirans

is long past

because this time round

the scripts were trash,

here’s a horrid thing

hear the song I sing

of Mr Ring a Ding Ding

no one’s watching –

there’s a tavern in the town (in the town),

where horrid hacks hung around

shipping slash fiction,

Spock/Kirk, 60 years too late,

seven writing fake Blakes –

ideas that were well past

their sell-by date like –

here's one, Ron, Oo I could crush a grape,

servicing black gay mates

rocking kilts down the disco –

because, Doctor, they let you go

butchered butchers’ hooks

and took delight

in setting alight

some other hard-working chap’s farts

because the past has been bottled

and labelled with art.

Does The World?

 

Does The World?

 

I once thought if I closed my eyes,

the world would disappear –

cease to be like it was just memory

but I didn’t tell, in case it was true –

like how can you know

that your blue is his blue

if blue is the colour?

 

That was when I cared about you

or such stuff as dreams are – you know –

but now – on leaving home of a morning,

catch the bus -

I wonder if all that fuss

she makes is apropos of something,

or something of nothing

and maybe if she stops, the world does too.

 

Scraped back her oven-bun hair

and running to fat -

perhaps - but careful, cancel – puckered lips

blow goldfish bubbles

or like a red snapper snaps air

pitched medium to high –

a ball toss the batsman misses –

she’s forever blowing kisses,

pretty kisses on eclairs.

 

Sometimes words are chucked

casual, forwards, backwards,

over the shoulder for luck

as a pinch of salt

on the last chops in the chiller,

handled, thumbed, pressed to the back

where all the unlucky flies get trapped.

 

From first to last verse

it’s prattled and pursed,

an endless bargain bin flutter of fascinators –

words to erode riverbeds

fashioned from basalt ballast

she’s a bedload of corrasion

for every occasion

a shedful of din

to collect your clutter in -

while the world upon its axle spins

I close my eyes...start to grin.

Despair Thy Charm

 

Despair Thy Charm

 

There were tears before bedtime - as prophesied.

It did not give him any pleasure

to behold her blinking red eyes,

or later, his - in anger, sorrow or measure for measure –

 

and when the drummer in the band

stretched out hands

to the bassist

there were traces

of red – caught in-between – he confesses

saw sobbing tears tumble upon her breast  –

and is this the price of some such success.

 

Later, when the band assembled

to tune up, the violinist trembled

when breasting her sunny C major

and Adam ripped it out from his chest – let it be, let it be –

taking up arms against a troubled sea.

 

So, in extemporis, all five of them gladly play

catch up - perhaps in doing so, wanted to say

to these three, who do not see

I am the song so sing me

or here is the false face of futility –

because it will never, ever be enough.

 

Pave the roads

from Lands End to John O Groats

in evidence, surveys, spreadsheets fit to be ticked,

because it was Thor who was tricked

to take draughts from the Ocean’s horn

still the tides returned

ground and churned

this rock into a million, million grains of sand –

 

Despair thy charm,

that only can oftentimes win you to harm -

and there’s a chance that you might see

there may be an answer, let it be.

She Looks Like A Sugar In A Plum (Plum Plum)

 

She Looks Like A Sugar In A Plum (Plum Plum)

 

And when he emerges from the shower,

toweling his back,

rubbing deep and dirty between the toes,

up the knees and onward elbows,

puddle-duck feet filling ceramic cracks

there’s a naked body –

small, caramel toasty and he could rest his chin

on that raven-black crown,

as capital C clasps her lower case –

cannot see her face

she’s penciling wall, something on the paper there,

and fronts him in full despair:

‘Oh, it’s gone up again.’

‘Ah, you could be right,’ he grins,

lifts and retires within –

until later, she’s slicing banana, assesses

that the small Malaysian ones are best

and should they put it to the test?

On his way, after all, to buy from Palengke,

this sweltering day, marked by EmJay

coming from there within and shouts ‘What Ah-Teh?’

Well, he could say that where he's from,

she looks like a sugar in a plum 

(plum, plum).

In The Morning The Sun Will Sing My Lifetime Away

 

In The Morning The Sun Will Sing My Lifetime Away

Black coffee in bed is something I never did –
but there were black beds
too numerous to count,
buried in black grounds
that slipped a French press’s mesh
found mugged and swirling around.
Black thoughts like blackthorn—
and then, come dawn, you were born.

Five days later, hitting 50 out of the park,
you attended – a scrap, a spark,
swaddled in thick blankets,
Inuit faced, but your blue eyes scoped skies
until nightfall – you were home by last knockings
as I cleared up the dregs,
chewing knuckles, shaking head.

He was there, and a year later held you
for the first and last time,
spoke to me about crime –
unjust that he had this and I had you
and soon after, he was gone –
turbid black plumes thickened air, I despaired.

It was in St Helier they contrived,
said someday next year you would arrive,
and how some fathers fly, far far away,
little baby Don – and I thought about it –
those black beds in black coffee
slipping and sliding and taking a dive –
and how would it have been?
Now, those black thoughts sit forever in me
and often make me cry.

Because we have built together
wondrous layouts that will last forever,
and as time unfurled, we grew whole again.
Fourteen summers have come and gone
since you came along –
I’m sitting here in Arabia, far flung,
whistling Clair, living long, still strong
in blessing your life and the years yet to come,
still young enough to play -
for in the morning
the sun will sing my lifetime away.

 

Delicious Is In The Details

 

Delicious Is In The Details

He’s already on his third coffee

and later he’ll try to sleep

without success - toss and wonder why

they’re slinging slabs of meat

on cheese, ladling on the salt

and claiming delicious is in the details.

There’s third rate brains that compete

for attention, leaders replete

with latest block transfer computations

forming thin entropy out of thick air,

sending striations anywhere

in faint pulsars beyond the farthest star

overlapping in convergent subduction -

and tomorrow he will try to work.

On Sky, views might make them weep

but they’re 20 minutes in, hip deep

in babbling brooks - cataracts who greet

each other, stone each other’s backs

fool gold for noises off the Richter scale –

and tomorrow he will try to teach.

Now this - she’s on the phone,

bodies gone to rack and ruin, with knees

chockful of some ill diagnosed disease,

cigarettes, chocolate, gin not tonics,

they say we’ve got it something chronic

send more money, please, won’t you?

And tomorrow he will begin anew.

Build

 

Build

 

We don’t build anything good anymore,

don’t drill, don’t pump, don’t mine -

no shipbuilding on the Clyde or Tyne,

or coal- fired plants that yawn and roar

bite into landscapes with feral force,

to turn the mills, to tap the source.

Honour Owen Williams’ M1 bridges -

block concrete stalwart staples stitch fabric

warps, majestic wefts, hauling traffic

to docks, to ports and to the world.

Now windmills squat by potholes -

silk spinning spiders in milk white cloaks,

vast fields sewn with rooted mirrors who live

and are all the better to see you with

whilst catching the setting sun over Albion.

They’re tapping on our broken pipes

- hey, who switched off the lights -

in morse codes, help, save my sole  -

tinpot echoes from drought linked cells

of dripping cloying honeycomb,

our millions indolent stay-at-homes –

paid in crypto to forget coined in iron,

told they’re sick, to give up trying

and, if they forget, then they maybe are –

to replace petrol with electric car,

remove hard shoulders and call it smart,

rebrand telegraph poles as abstract art.