It felt…
nice,
to hear that I didn’t do
something wrong, that my words
committed to the screen
and bound by feverous desire
to get the story out of my head,
were good, better than good,
they were enjoyable;
it felt nice to not be
looked upon with despair.
Ian D. Hall 2017
It was with the once gleaming look,
a smile with a glint attached
and a face that radiated honesty,
that I thanked anyone
who had liked,
loved,
fancied,
drooled over to the point where
spittle ran out of the corner of their mouths
and they had the look of basting
a turkey for Christmas etched
across their sly grin chops,
kissed, French kissed,
snogged like there was tomorrow
and in some cases like there was no
day after that,
whispered down the ear such words
Again, I enter your domain
and feel the queasiness
of my symptoms take a tumble,
for your eye is uninterested
and your stethoscope brutal,
a cold metal harbour
for your five minute lesson
in your ignorance
and impatience, watching
the clock tick over, counting down
the sick, marking them off,
crossing them off;
the sigh of the same story once told
now the conjured message of disguised help
me please, modern
life the incorrigible scourge
of modern living.
I look into your eyes,
Learning to read
the British Rail National Timetable
was a rite of passage
I enjoyed early
as my mum
would invariably
restrict me to one comic
only, purchased at the station,
as we made our way from Birmingham
to Plymouth
when I was a small boy;
exotic names, unheard of treasures
would find their way
worm like and lay eggs forever
into my subconscious.
I lament the passing
of such information,
lost to print it seems,
found only as an A to Cornwall,
I bought the wrong winning ticket,
easy mistake to make,
and yet the council
won’t take the wrong money
to pay off my bills,
the slave owners of credit cards
insist I still owe them
despite mistakenly wanting to settle
my debt and the milkman
is adamant that he still feels
obligated to inform me
that I should hand over
the spondoolicks for my
regular full cream top.
I wanted to shell out shrapnel
to the people that own my house
I have a silver knife,
an antique picked up
from a market stall
in South London, a depiction
of a car, old as the time that
the Hallmark suggests,
I wrote a snappy poem
and put the picture up
on social media,
it wouldn’t load,
I only asked
if friends knew where they
would plunge it in me.
Ian D. Hall 2017
I don’t know how to respond,
perhaps you are having
one of those bad days
in which the world can go to Hell,
or is it just a portion, a half,
fifty percent
that you would see burn, break it down
to the man
you despise
and the assertion
that no man is capable of true emotion;
I don’t know how to respond,
not because I am devoid of feeling
or lack empathy, I just don’t
want the argument to escalate
further as you march
Every night
I say sweet dreams, I check
the room for spiders
and walking beasts that might scare
you, I wipe gently
the crusts from your eye
and tickle your nose
and it is that holds me
together, for a while
but then I see the papers,
and I know I fight my own
losing battle each night,
a small war, a territory
lost in the middle of screams,
silent and rubble
built back over night
to show a smile to the world;
Of course I am always broke,
try being a poet
and paying off your dues
the old fashioned way,
try being a writer
and
finding that the dues
always have interest
from their end attached
and then see how
that work out;
cards stacked against
lower class
as you get told
just think of the exposure.
Ian D. Hall 2017
Hillp, Jelli,
(bother)
Hello nate, mate,
Blinet, blimey, that’s geeat mews,
Nole, nipe, nope not seem your sitter around
recently, fidnt, didn’t knoe sheep was
going back to yni, I hope sheep
gets the reslut sheep deserbed, sheep
wad always a geeat, ham worlet, waker,
warker, worker.
Whem do yiu get jome from prosin,
P]risim, prisoin, (damn) when are yiu released?
Anyway, fat thumbs at the reast, teadt, ready, herr,
Don’t crew up your remaning dates, days,
wouldn’t want you blowing
your feesdom, freedsam, freedon, freedom,