The face was smashed, cracked
and damaged from where
it had hit the floor with a mighty,
sickening thud, it still held life though,
radiating through the near dark
of the stairs where it lay, though how long
before it drained out,
private phone numbers
mixing and congealing
with internet browsing history
and flirty text messages
to her husband, the see you later hun’s
and the inevitable three xxxs,
the phone had fallen
or had it been pushed,
as the face drained of its icons
I am a coward
and your opinion of me
matters,
I wish it wasn’t so,
I wish I could just
forget
and erase, expunge with ease
all those times
I wanted to make you proud
to know me,
to have once raised a glass in my honour
when I wasn’t there
to defend myself
from your toast
and despite
it all,
see me not as bruised, vanity tinged
and needing an occasional memory
of what I meant to you.
What if she wasn’t dead,
found floating down river,
bathed in fallen leaves,
a dead man’s finger on her pulse
as her face turns grey, to draw
out a murderer, clever
hero, a feminine trope
dashed, thrown to her love
in England, a false sign of madness
spreading, in him melancholia,
in her a wailing of the emotions…
all lies, she drew the murderer out
and paid for it with her love,
as he lay poisoned by the touch of foil,
dead as she had thought to be
Seen
through the afterglow
and embers
of your love for me,
my face is burnt,
my eyes streaked with pain
and my heart broken,
a final beat,
a minute later
one more sign of life,
clouds over, the sun which once
streamed through the window
and gave a mystery to the room
now has been replaced by the stillness
of thunderstorms, and in that flash
of weightless lightning, my face is illuminated
one final time, killed
by the love you had
for me.
It is hard not to rate yourself,
compare your existence
to that of the smashed avocado
when wondering how you fit in
a world that gave you a voice,
you see that green filling
spread all over a piece of toast
and you wonder first
whatever happened to the black pudding,
when did the mug of builders’ tea
and the steam covering the waitress’s face
give way to a coffee that costs more
than you ever paid for your first piece of vinyl,
when did it become O.K. to have your name
Emerging from the spotlight glare,
I watched, enraptured, spooked by the divine,
the whispering ghost of poetry, of words
teased out and song like, capturing the mood,
capturing the daylight pulse, sweetly tempered
by a trumpet which plays in the ether
and calls to the angels, they have to find room
somewhere, for here on Earth, it seems one
has escaped and sinks her blush free lips into
a mortal man’s vision, tasting it in her mouth,
tasting it go round and round, sideways
she chews it over, relishing the genius
On the day they line the streets,
I hope they remember to smile.
There should be no tears falling,
not in this place, only in the comfort
of a joke well told, the punch line
creating laughter
in the crowd, for on this day
as they line the streets for a son of Liverpool,
waving tatty-bye for now, tickle sticks
in hand, clutched tight, remember
the man brought joy,
one that cannot be replaced.
Ian D. Hall 2018
I keep looking for the cracks,
the tell tale sign of disrepair,
that stems from attic to foundation
and the worrying whisper of wet,
damp through rumours and idle gossip
of the leak somewhere in this housed body;
perhaps I should look for the solid join,
too few,
too few original parts,
just the undertone of shifting
boards that sigh, telling me it’s too late,
my edifice, my home
is breaking down.
Ian D. Hall 2018
I go to search for you
online as I haven’t heard from you
in quite some time, I picture your face
and I smile, I remember your laugh,
your loves, the sad times and the moments
that fell to Earth in between,
thousands of ground dust silica particles
inhaled and tearing apart the breath for you,
as I struggle to think of your name,
once a volcano
erupting
reduced to shredded glass and faded recollections
suffering under the weight off the landslide mud
that has come to clog my own dying volcano.
There is no water that flows or drips
down the drain and to be carried
out to sea, it stands
almost still, interrupted in its quiet
domination of all it touches
only by the gentle aftermath of wind,
slowly pushing at the edges, slowly,
slowly, rippling back time.
There is no water that flows from the drain
to the sea, it stands moat like, defence
in its favour, defiant, as the one grate
it surrounds, stands aloof and proud
to be on a higher plane