It was like scanning a dial,
an old fashioned radio receiver
searching in the darkness
for Radio Luxemburg, static,
partial signal, lost, found, ear
splitting, brain numbing sound
as you close one eye in response
and try to shrug away as the dentist,
fiendishly and with enamel desire
starts removing the loose and the cracked,
the split and gleefully
finds the station’s pulse mark
and enjoys the hits coming forth,
in at this week’s number ten, a new sensation
drill baby drill.
There will always be happiness
to be found in the announcement
of love, it is the way of things,
we fulfil a need to see life
continue, to see it flourish
and avoid the rain
that some would bring just
by their presence; you cannot beat
the feeling of love and it is to be happy,
to be thrilled, when it happens to you.
Love, you are lucky my son,
you have found the one to hold
and admire, to care for
They tell me that Elvis is dead,
they showed me the carefully
snipped out press cuttings
they had saved since
the dreadful news broke,
back in ’77, every line
preserved, poured over,
taken out every now and then
and the days of tears that follow,
a single one
slowly drifting down the face
when it hurt too much
as I see them close the thumbed
to death, barely hanging on scrapbooks
and draws and bloated cupboards of memorabilia;
floods when the grief of Elvis
I don’t know why
but it got to me
that you didn’t see Terry
before he died.
I knew that you had an issue
with death, you had lived with it,
a day to day companion, an image
in the corner of the room
whenever you thought of a brother,
one not destined to be like you,
vibrant, easy going charm,
a devilish smile, rakish
but with sound heart beating,
but not for the dead,
it got to me because I realised
no matter how close we were
I nod my head to the leader
of the band playing my tune,
the signal that silently suggests,
if he would be so kind,
to go up the range,
make it beat faster, till I lose my breath
in the smoky atmosphere and sit
wide eyed at the dance, this mix of tango
and waltz, gentle and frantic
all in the space of a single ball room
to which I play the saxophone, sweat
drives with the speed
of an out of control Plymouth,
Inside those tunnels,
I imagined rats, gnawing, chewing, ready to bite
down and feast on my flesh, the gatherers
at James Herbert’s wake in Liverpool
that night, as we toasted the horror of man
and the brain that seized them all,
made the connection between sex and the
ability to frighten, the strange allure
of the thrill in every page,
was down in those tunnels even now,
sharpening his pencil, readying his wit
to kill us, one by one, by one
who knew how to extend the torture
Have you ever seen me
smile? Laugh even;
snort like a free-wheeling pig
as it bathes in the mud,
almost lose the ability to breathe
as the joke hits home.
Have you ever seen me smile
properly I wonder, I rarely
show my teeth when I do,
the ones where I am ready to bite
down with anger, the smile of revenge.
Did you ever catch me, earphones in
and my mind spaced out, high
on a Galton and Simpson trip,
Have you ever seen me
cry? Not just a tear, a stab of relief
of physical pain mind you,
but a river, a rolling spiky ocean,
a steady flow of information
making its way down my face.
Have you seen me cry in frustration,
over a film, a whole class once did
in senior school as Boxer
the Horse was sent down
in place of the people; I wailed then.
Did you see me shed a silent,
inexplicable tear over the death
Soon, the extreme Puritan
will rub their hands in private glee,
it doesn’t end with a Victorian
painting being removed,
nor does it end well,
we are being judged for a laugh
we had that has now been forgotten,
except by those keeping score
and aren’t they just
doing the black and white dressed
authority figures of the past
justice, everything a crime, erased
and expunged, obliterated and left
in a bunker underground, growing feral,
becoming bitter,
till one day fashion dictates an innuendo,
Six rows in front of me,
as I was facing backwards, both
slumped back looking down
we never made eye contact, never saw
face to face, though cheek by jowl,
our eyeballs never saw each other
at the same time,
my friend, what held your attention
instead of me giving you mine,
new headphones I noticed,
drowning out the noise
and the half mouthed, silent hello
as we sat there on the 53 in to town,
each in our own worlds of wonder,
not seeing the meteor racing past