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.

Oh, You’ll Get No Swimming Today, Dear

 

Oh, You’ll Get No Swimming Today, Dear

 

Oh, there’ll be no swimming today,

dear, she’s dropped you, she’s on her way

but something rotten, a man chipping tiles,

scaffolded in the gods above, rasps and files

and renovation a Ugandan security smiles

with an apologetic shrug.

 

What can you do? You recall how Ronald spoke

of promiscuous womenfolk

and why absence makes the drought last less

decide not to put him to the test,

brave deserted windswept streets and walk.

It’s only yourself with whom you talk,

like Prozac or some other drug.

 

Your feet know not which way they drag,

and the brick weight of your brick bag,

grips at shoulders, chafes under armpits

to make a blistered bent back sag a bit,

reminds you you’re no longer young

and the slave that is the desert sun

is tasked to make you sweat.

 

Once you’ve rounded those several blocks

indecisively, hobbled over the extra rocks,

put in the unnecessary yards,

dodged the omnipresent security guards,

tapped in irritation to whining prayers,

questioned why you’re even there -

unfolded the laptop, scowled at reasons,

mumbling curses at their unforgiving season

that will almost surely get you yet.

Finger at the Stars

 

Finger at the Stars

 

He jabs his finger at the stars; proclaims

you’ll eat no cake for thirty days

like an inverted Marie Antoinette.

Oh, for God’s sake, you dare not think,

end of days without a drink,

everything shut, and this town

is coming like a ghost town

except you cannot mouth it, sing or act,

expect a hefty fine for that,

best incarcerate and shut your trap.

Such a forked celebration,

for a league of nations

who come here with deliveries from evil -

fleets of scootered fast food.

Here’s a cat without her flap,

she’s nailed there in crucibles of crucifix,

you’ll get her spayed for giving lip,

so best to just put up with it

when even chewing nicotine gum

could get you some -

watch these old, old men spout tired fire

and you wish to hell they would retire.

Laid Solo.

 

Laid Solo.

 

This week, I've been laid so low,

hardly knew which dice was thrown -

it’s humbling, and I felt deep cut

like a Tears for Fears bonus track

from an unreleased side project.

Dissonant, distant, buried in the mix

and thought I'd a few better tricks

than these, even those lazy words

at my command rebel unheard,

seeking new careers in new towns.

Ramadan came, I scarcely noticed,

tooken hold of by a malignant virus

sweating within, sickening the skin,

paling the brow with clammy, thin

frostings of iced-sweat. Bedsheets wet

beneath my streaky-rasher back

and I toiled, labouring long and hard

to seek Nirvana, dreamt of same cars

I was always crashing in, broken glass,

something awful drawn on the carpet.

Standing on The Wall, waiting target

for that sniper’s rifle, well aware

he’d seized his chest in health scare,

by ambulance they’d brought him there

where he’s convalescent. My years

more or less - him short of breath

feeling those tightenings of his chest,

abnormal flutterings of sick muscle,

how thin the covering skin that rustles,

keeping pace with thick blocked valves.

What in the world can we do?

I’m in the mood for your love; you flew

so far, I’m laid solo, out of sound,

out of vision, but above my ground

zero, take wings to speed you home

for we're most ill when we're alone

and don’t you wonder sometimes,

how we'd come back from subterranean?

Kate

 

Kate

 

He wore a wig, Kate,

revealing perhaps a soupcon of pride

as it gnawed at him from the inside -

the chemo – not a great look, to be fair,

a bit chewed rat’s tail, off the rail,

unfitted and bought on spec.

There was nothing about him much bespoke,

we pointed, laughed at it

enjoyed a black country joke.

He was being thrifty,

well, you knew your dad,

maybe better than me,

although, I wonder, really.

Always reckoned Iceland food was a neat idea,

wrapped in thick plastic,

drank litre on litre of cheap bottled coke,

the own brand, dodgy supermarket kind.

Were we talking? Then, I mean.

Somehow, something had come between us,

you, or Peter, maybe –

my poor behaviour, chucking an empty can

onto the hard shoulder of the A30

that time we’d gone to see a punk band

in Exeter John Peel had been raving about.

I was pissed. Must’ve been my turn.

Sometimes it was his, believe me.

Then, he told me six months only.

Everything didn’t change, really,

he slipped away, I’m remembering football games,

times we took you to the horses,

holidays in France, Molineux, Les Conches,

and your mother kicking him out

with all his stuff in black plastic sacks

because once you’ve had black –

her words, not mine.

I miss him but I’m pleased to see you’re doing fine,

Sky Sports, glamour time, off the shoulder,

now that’s hat I call customized, a flash of flesh

and flaunting it all over press,

not an inch more, more an inch less,

and I wonder, looking back,

what he would’ve made of that?

 

 

 

A Third Class of Robber

 

A Third Class of Robber

 

Amongst other things,

such as monogrammed serviette rings

that might’ve been silver

and all that’s better to wipe you with, dear,

although he more properly might have used napkin

because such things

can say a lot about a fellow, you know –

there was a pottery mug for drinking.

 

Coffee, probably.

 

I know what you’re thinking,

but this was a fascinating piece,

worth a bob or two at least

if it could even be retrieved from the 70s

where, no doubt, it lies in smithereens.

 

Bits of glazed white tessellated stuff that gleams

cracked up and hidden

at the bottom of your undisturbed midden.

 

Depicting, as it once did, a scene

that remains seared onto the anterior neocortex

these many long years and I expect

you’re familiar with it, have seen the design,

of a train in four units, three classes,

a robber, a businessman, some rich ass

being locomoted by an avuncular Casey Jones –

mustachioed in brown derby up there, alone,

and there’s chains - chains binding coaches

and each passenger oblivious

if any other makes moves or encroaches

and that robber, well he’s looking unconcerned,

taking no prisoners, slash and burn,

armed with a vicious looking jemmy,

he’s heading home with a pretty penny,

you’d think - gruesome 

sheltered under his umbrella.

 

Now, that mug was the subject of much debate

around the breakfast table

which never much hinged on the fate

of our first-class passenger,

but, instead, focused on the idea

of why a third class at all.

 

Now, this might be just a fancy

but part of me remembers a trip to Hornsea Pottery,

to purchase the very same.

 

Somewhere way up, beyond a sooty Humber,

from Bawtry, tracking North

to a part finished M18

which ends about the same place that it begins,

therefore, his right hand down and left wheel,

navigating with hands of steel

across the pince-nez, ashen East Riding fields

and here’s the North Sea -

that very place where Vikings sacked and pillaged,

running amok through this English village.

 

Now probably to do us all a favour

we were sent forth from the shop, the factory floor -

we might have rubbed noses on the glass door,

but, you know – kids, crockery

mix and light the blue touch paper and shoot

and they’re inside,

raiding shelves for porcelain loot,

though, in truth, nothing was lifted but a mug.

 

Maybe, I stared out to sea –

I certainly would now – seen many waves grind shores,

many a bandit, many a robber,

and even though I mug my class – vote Labour.

Black Angel Down

 

Black Angel Down

 

Now does she hang, twist, pirouette deep in space,

ripped-fishnet topsails, like ballet dancer violate -

she is all but abandoned to her fate.

And like lettuce shredded that once did decorate

many an honest Captain’s peak

who harked many an honest politician speak

of all those hoary old promises she did repeat

and meant them when she summoned them

to her lips, did vow such spells would not be broke,

did vow until on her own tongue she choked

and here is the time for all good men -

but these now are few, have lately fled

while she who was once proud now does beg

for courtly favours,  now does curtsy, now does stoop;

all her once firm flesh does sag, does droop

and her sacked decking performs mobius loops.

Yet, here’s some will launch the away boat, me bullies,

we who will not abandon, who will hang off the pullies,

shank blocks, run tackles, lower and set course

for the far Earth’s pale Moon, to shun this divorce,

casting for more than darning cloth, pitchers of black tar

and hundred weights of hard teak lumber.

Now shall we land our great Captain bold,

who has gazed into that which might freeze the devil’s soul,

journeyed this much, this far, crossed black vacuums cold -

thus undertakes barren Mare Imbrium to traverse

driven by sole purpose – 

that he with his creator himself converse

extort from him safe passage to Earth

and snatch back all that malignant and jealous cutpurse

with force of arms did seize from all of us.

Bass Line Criminal

 

Bass Line Criminal

 

The stage was set - we’d raised sweat

moving instruments – third time in three weeks

consecutive and you like the sound of that –

it slots home, sticks it to her, rocks, you know?

By now, one or two of them are filing in,

my lady’s wearing more a grimace than grin,

heeling the neck, heeling the neck and berating.

We’d just about knocked out Midnight Cowboy

a little dissonant direction from his keys

that’s true – I’m winking at him, he at her,

she’s counting on me to make my Yamaha purr

but as I’m counting out some bass crime occurs

and it’s felonious rather than harmonious.

Should we slink off, like a thief with a cutpurse?

I think not, dear – it’s all Ocean’s 11, in it together,

no hearts of lead but hearts like feathers

and glorious, glorious raising rafters

because after all of that there’s happy ever after

and knocking it out of your park.

I dreamt of you, you know? It’s less now

but I think I saw you, looking cold, looking long

and you didn’t know you were in this song –

I think I saw you see me and I moved along.

Guitar

 

Guitar

 

If there’s an F Hole, then a foreign object lay concealed –

well, there wasn’t and there was – a little victory

in an arousing sweet and sour musk,

something to keep, breathe in deep, to make you feel

good on those bitter Scottish Winter nights.

There’s a cheap blue transistor radio; a record player, too –

a hand me down after they’d bought something new.

You’d lift the teak veneer plywood lid

and stack your old MFP and Contour knock offs,

bought cheap from Woolworths

and she’d say the mono needle would wreck the grooves,

skip tracks, repeat and stick, locked in by use,

but she was wrong – and one by one, they’d clatter,

clack-drop needled as they toppled onto the spinning platter.

He was no conjurer, was he? Put a plug, you’d entreat,

and dodge the flying fish or feet that would greet

such an impertinent request. Still, Uncle Fred

accepted the challenge and gladly hooked you up.

But the best and worst of times by far, an ancient guitar

she’d donated; its repaired neck, steel strings, over-raised nut

that caused many a bruise and threatened deep cuts

as you tried in vain to shape a chord.

That time she’d caught you miming one day,

shook scoffing head, said why you don’t learn to play

is beyond her. But, then again, many things were.

Eventually it stood it in a corner waiting better times,

and concealed there in nylon, buried deep inside a soundhole –

something for the weekend, you know?

Today I Have No Timetable

 

Today I Have No Timetable

 

Today, I have no timetable.

 

Late to bed, having booked Uber

to send her; watched that black track line

until she arrives on time

then eight rounds with three pillows

until on the deck, out for the count.

 

That plane’s skimming Indian Oceans

as the duvet undulates in motion

ripples, swells, disgorges -

 

and I here plead guilty to the skipping gym,

accepted her sentence, no mitigation

that's why you’ll always find me in the kitchen

at parties, squeezing lemons,

stirring up your actual apple cider vinegar

and swallow, swallow – filling hollows

but who knows what the result might be?

 

And the Bragg’s bottle reads With The Mother,

why not Mistress, why not Lover?

 

For it’s surely little things I find you miss –

I’d tell you now,  but you cannot see

through sets of lenses smeared in gritty mist

because she did not apply her daily wipe

or apply the cleansing lotion

to my thinking elbow’s thickening skin.

 

So, let’s go through the motions,

shall we? it’s quiet, too quiet…

and cold those Doha winds

that breeze through these britches blue,

but, blow me if I was wearing any.

 

I’m no Timothy Winters, just going commando

without rifle, ammunition, bullets, bombs

or even a sense of the bars of which song

I should summon up or even hum along to

as my feet drift the scattered trash.

 

Infirm of purpose -

These feet don’t know which way they go

but ended here anyway, somehow.