I was never in,
save if there was a new album
in which Monday mornings
spent flicking through covers
and memory
of songs heard on the radio
during the weekend
were too much for my psyche
to let go, the hook,
the lyric became my needle.
Never in, always out,
what was the point in self imposed prison, surrounded
by walls, decorated by posters to cover
the stark white oppression and unhappy warden;
now I stay in, the world has become
my prison, for the body and mind cannot
I might be a Manchester Blue,
so old school that I used to have slate
and chalk to calculate City’s
progress up
and invariably down the league.
A fan since the days of Dennis Tuert,
Willie Donachie and Asa Hartford, yet
still as the new season approaches,
I salute one of the special ones,
the soothing
Voice of Anfield,
the heroic stance in the box
of echoes and history,
the voice of football
in a world gone mad with the overpaid
and the undeserving, George’s timbre
And social media loses its mind…
a phrase that seems to strike panic,
what am I missing out now,
the in word, the gossip,
the click bait, celebrity rumour mill
going round and round
and round, till the spin dries and what
is left is nobody’s business
at all, the opinion of a guru,
the judgment of a stylist,
the belief of the uninformed,
does it matter, at all, truly…
all is gas.
Ian D. Hall 2017
Disconnect me
I feel my time here
is over
or at least no longer wanted
for I see it in every strange pair of eyes
that home may have abandoned me
sent me out into the cold,
and whereas before I could
see a way to move on,
to move aside
put on my shoes, pack a bag,
overfilled
with memories and the hope that I might
recapture them once day,
now I just experience pain,
loneliness
and fear
that all has been
Set a table for the auctioneer,
the gavel comes crashing down,
going once, going twice,
how long before the patient goes,
we bid for them, but only
if they live for six months or more
as the cost is too high,
we bid also
but can we inspect the merchandise first,
give it a good going over, see its history,
not a person, a thing, an item, cracked
and worn, smoked once, we don’t want you,
had a sip of gin at a nephew’s wedding,
Across the spectrum, from you to me,
we are told to be
patriotic, to shoulder the gun
and protect the country,
to fight for our right to be free,
don’t ask me if I could put a gun
to another man’s face,
eye to eye
you might not like the answer,
but I would rather not;
yet somehow being Transgender
makes you unfit to serve
under Trump’s bold vision,
so as an unfit, overweight
pacifist who you don’t want to see
pull a trigger, I would be welcome more
If I turned up at your door tomorrow, would you
think me broken, as we haven’t spoken
for a while, always the chin
held firmly, would you remember all
that I once did for you
or even the odd screw up, foul up,
because after all I am only human
and I have never labelled you perfect,
I have never seen you as the fixer
of the busted, the shattered or the ruined,
I have just seen you as the friend,
the final one who might just understand
Just that little nudge,
the everyday elbow
that sends you ever closer
to the final straw snapping
somewhere in the darkness.
Today I have a headache,
formed by the blood not flowing
properly and the neurons
firing at everything I am,
taking me downhill
like being ignored socially;
today I have a headache,
I keep rubbing my forehead,
almost violently, with the intention
to harm as my spine harms me,
my own payback
on the spite, my revenge
if you will,
1900 voices
in my head
saying nothing,
quiet
but not gentle, their silence
damning as they talk to each other,
whispering away,
laughing away
in the tranquillity of no noise,
no reached hand
to include, only
to ignore; these
1900 voices
in my head,
a pay for view
no attention
and I feel the turning away.
Ian D. Hall 2017
The last day of anything
should be treated as though
it is a day for games, to emulate
the final day of term
in which the teacher, finally
acknowledging that she has exhausted
herself, gives up and lets the kids
run riot.
Parliament could play Buckeroo,
the appointed donkey
accounting for Government sins
as they try to explain
the difference
between a wheelchair, mental health,
a nurse’s salary and a nuclear bomb.
Athletic doping cheats,
at the moment of being banned