POEM s

We called him ‘Nighthawk Startaker’

He was the most ordinary person we knew

His clothes were impossible

He passed through the walls at parties

Ancient god of things not requested

favourite colour was Bank Holiday Monday

Topless at a public swimming baths once

He was the Carpet Adonis  

Nana’s in the nursing home

As slight as online shopping

Deputy Head curses ticket machine

Crossing car park tundra

An honest desire for convenience

Thwarted by exact change and stitched pockets.

50 pence pieces were bigger back then

The leisure centre remains.

Useful as Hippopotamus

Causing disruption to weekly commute

No need to adapt to this new routine

In workwear and frivolous shoes

The nurses know we don’t have time

To sit and wait with nowhere to place purses

Or explain laptops and sun dried tomatoes

A juice box to be disposed of 

A piano stool to be disposed of

A glimpse of dewy skin

Snatches of,

a repeat of, a show, an old routine

An honest desire for convenience

When we get our lives back

We will miss you

Putting through glass to slice precisely through a flag frayed

Cutting through rubber mats requires a sharp and sturdy blade

Coughing up Laying back to interrupt best plans made

But in the grass…..

The faeries of the forest couldn’t power the lights of seaside towns

The sea spirits don’t dare to flush the air  

So dress and stand like steel to greet each day like napalm on the downs

Politely ask why anyone still cares

An agent with their cover blown, stranded on the permafrost

The murderous, thieving, genocidal Ocean     

A grind of blackbirds swarm the ground and round up all the wandering lost 

Blinded by the polished chrome in motion.

I saw your blueprints on display, your schemes for every Shire

Some cross the Sea in plastic boats the rest on winged Lions

They’re down there in the old tin mines

Forgot but not alone

The smoke from old brick chimneys, trapped in grey abrasive stone.

You feel it in the Vales and townships

Seeping through from empty mills

Shipyard sick starved brittle brown stripped

Flowers in jealous window sills

I walked from tip to southern shoreline listening to the land

Against the glazing baited breath, hoped to understand

One ear, head cocked towards the sky awaiting a command

Met indifference, freeze framed air returned my empty  hand

The days collide like roots, the nights collapse like so much molten glass

No East and nowhere Left, who needs a reason?

One endless middle with no shape no colour But tremendous mass

It stretches out like one unending season

Putting through glass to slice precisely through a flag frayed

Cutting through rubber mats requires a sharp and sturdy blade

Playing on glass to lie safe atop a swan’s neck

But in the grass

You’ll Wait            

A milk bottle and string yoyo

Macgyvered by unattended toddler

In just a cloth nappy and trike

I kept the empty dimpled bottles

And made a tennis visor from the crinkly wrapper

Glucose only for the bedridden

Chocolate fused into moulden balaclava

Blue and white polythene bag to weld

Rusted Volvo floor missing

They brought out new flavours, took out the sugar

And the playground canines left

The Weetabix changed their braces for Adidas

No more flare legged platform hop

Stack heeled head stomp

awaydays in striped scarf and brown yards

Gone forever lipstick smeared cassette deck

The smell of stale bread Benson and Hedges

The best pair of legs in the business

Still waiting in the cashpoint queue

Only a Hippodrome soap star bill poster for company

The indoor market is the loneliest creature on earth

He’s made of light, flashing light

Faster than the speed of Night

Phase through walls, cleaves into sight

A vision of pure blinding white

Terrible and dutiful,

A singular unargued answer

Mirrorballed and Beautiful

This wired hard stud, electric dancer

Protector of the ruling class

A fibre optic spectral saviour  

Appears like risk, escapes like gas 

The cities late night temporal raver

He sometimes half lit, recollects

Glimpses But can’t quite recognise….

The memory reboots, frags, reflects

Then like hope, corrupts and dies

That Frog is one cool guy                                          

In my head cannon Tony is shy and bashful           

And hung  

Stale milk collecting cut coupons

With good links to the city

That Rabbit’s one keen twink

Next door’s trellis frames my morning choices

Breakfasts spread old couple

Corners cut down the middle

That Count is one sick fuck

He makes the creepy trees line up

They would have shown you how

You could have had a garage

That Wizard is a goddamn liar

I will salt the earth beneath his stupid hat

Their sleeves crackle and pop

I can never go home anymore

I have a Doppelganger

My friends saw him in East London

I’ve seen a picture

I live the life they didn’t want.

But the jokes on him.

There’s some Beehives on the high rise

Not quite an apiary

Bill’s weather station is there too

No one knew it was his

Jean made a Veil, an old cowboy hat

Our Ed’s old cricket whites

With denim dungarees underneath

“Sell it at the farmers market

All you’d need is nice jars”

Sipping from Bill’s old Snoopy mug

She had offered to lend her old dress

“For the big day”

But Anne wanted something more

“contemporary”

What if, in the next world I meet my cat?

And what if he is now

A large Man called Alan

And he says;

“I never really liked you much,

I was eager to please,

and to be warm

and fed

…………..?

I wouldn't really mind, I would offer to buy him dinner.

I am old and my best work is not behind me

Like a plain teenager making do

With the rough crumb filled seats of a used car

Against their acne tender face

I  am sorry for the upset I caused in free periods

And between classes

 Eating beans right from the can because poverty

of ideas

My pet will die and friends will think

I’m upset over something else

And  console me with cheap red wine

and “Nibbles”

I have work shirts to iron

Try to not seem sharp and ungrateful

Grateful although… 

I care what fucking wine I drink.

My love is a heavy and uncomfortable thing

Thankyou for bearing it

I walked a great while to be here

To sit here fidgeting

A mossy rock gathers no penguins

I will stay by your side on Saturday mornings

Like a contented flightless bird