Your late night text message,
unexpected,
non demanding of return
and the only question
that was there on the ill-lit and cracked slightly screen,
was
How Are You?,
sent in unassuming type, sent with only
the thought that I might reply,
at some point.
How was I? I didn’t know,
I could lie and reply back
that I was on top of the world,
whereas in reality I was flat on my back,
no pillow to soothe my head,
and felt as if the weight of the world was upon me.
His death was unexpected,
in a year which had taken
an artistic hero of mine,
it was only in hindsight
that the quiet moment of finality
should take one of yours.
I did not grieve for the man you lost
as many tears had been spilled for the
musician that had abandoned me
but I mourned for the moment,
I stopped and immediately thought of you,
perhaps in your kitchen, holding a last cup
of tea on a busy day and the radio coming on
Nobody told me I couldn’t
so I walked along the single track,
a phantom sound
from somewhere close by
and the barb wire scratches the lens
of the camera as I try to take
a poignant picture; no guards,
the solemn vow of the past
being picked apart
rivet by rivet
as I get to about one hundred yards
down the track
and the fear still seeps through my shoes
as I imagine the terror that this final stop
in gas and smoke and bullet
Winter calls, or at least
the two week crush of bon accord
where the crush of last minute purchase
to secure favours in the coming
year are packed in so tight that there is no
escape from it all, the relentless must get this,
sprout after sprout after washed down, forced down
holding nose down sprout, cooked to death, force fed death
as the gargle and false puke noises outrank the endless
television adverts for the hot summer climes…
winter calls,
I don’t answer, not for the first two weeks anyway,
If I should cease tomorrow
would it matter, all that I have achieved
is but dust waiting to fall from my hands,
to shed loose from my skin, the words
lost in Time, nothing ever truly resembles success
for in the end, life,
is the mirror’s illusion, the offering to resign
before the shit gets wiped in your face
from those who have forgotten you.
I should have stayed in the dark,
waiting for you to carry me home,
for in you, at least, there is no despair.
The sound of a million phones
is set to mute,
I know so many by ring tone alone
but none of them
now makes a noise; they may
as well be turned off,
put away in silence, the only
noise is that of a lonely bugle boy
playing The Last Post
to the voices of high functioning anxiety
that has replaced the signal
inside my head
set.
Ian D. Hall 2016
If you must wear the face of shocked indignation
be warned, it is not a look that suits you,
or indeed flatters the features that are surrounded
by the years of hard drinking
or perhaps moaning twisted forceful tears
you have wrenched out of those crow lined,
feather scattered eyes. When you believe in your ugly
mind that what you say at four thirty in the long
cold festive driven afternoon is anything but crass,
that your gutter waiting mouth, spit and drawl
running from the side of your lop sided lips
I am looking forward to tomorrow,
I might meet up with someone
who likes spending time with me, but then
the questions start rummaging in my head,
scattering thoughts and wild demons,
of just what do I do if I cannot apologise enough,
that they take exception to smiling
in my direction, if they cannot contain
the dread of being in my company;
or if I should say one thing wrong,
compared to the hundred topics
of bile and consumerism they dictate,
that they will sneer and kick me
I admire you;
in a sea of black,
plastic umbrellas,
yours
is the only face
not afraid
to let the tears
outrun
the rain.
Ian D. Hall 2016
The midweek floodlit match
and Stevie Heighway on the wing,
the memory of Bill Shankly
and the time when Kenny was King…
the band I listened to called them Fearless
and as images of Hamburg days and leather jackets
filled the fluid nature of my very existence;
got to choose between the Stones and The Beatles,
my vote went north every time
and went stratospheric the first time
I heard Pepper take the band out for a spin.
They are the Fearless, they are the glue
that frightens the Westminster village