It’s like teeth, once
one gets pulled out,
falls through the gap
of the regimented neglect
or the dust that gets underneath,
the termite filth that snaps back,
then the keyboard never feels
or looks the same, bare tooth grin
in the corner, full set of dentures
perfect black tiles with tattooed
memory, yet one missing tile can speak
a thousand words
and misspell the one that is important,
the sentence incomplete, inadequate,
when the perfect smile is tinged
with a missing tooth.
I don’t need
to scale Everest
to know how difficult
it would be
to take each step,
to go
and place my tiny feet
in the
crisp white snow
and icy domain
and not fall to my death.
I don’t need
to swim the Atlantic
from the steps
of Cornish past
to the shore of New Jersey
and sit breathless
on the jetty and water weeds
of Benny’s Landing
to know how
take in a lung full of salt and knotted
I
wouldn’t be surprised
by anything at all
in this world, its plunder
of the depths of barbaric
and turning it into light entertainment,
I imagine them bringing
stoning back as a way of life
if the audiences could be found
and sponsors chomping
at the bit to bring
all the latest technology
to the event and a championship table
being shown on the news every
half hour as the latest twists and turn
and insightful ramblings of a manager’s
team are played out
I had wanted to go home,
my day, not what I
had planned for myself,
had consisted of feeling the bitterness,
of remaining
in my bed with no radio
to soothe the soul,
instead it culminated
with being outside,
the soft sounds of Jonathan Walker fighting
in the cold
and the strength of wind
biting chunks of my resolve,
of the vestiges of my tormented will,
as the snarl came from behind me
thick and strong
but not to my face,
We are caught between two rising,
resurrected and revived Mammoths,
what chance did we,
the children of the atomic clock,
have against the generation of the
Baby Boomer and the Millennial
who look down upon Generation X
as if we caused all the problems in the world
we inherited it from the Victorians
and we could not get a word in edge ways
as children, suffer the silence,
suffer the disdain, suffer the attacks of personality
that Generation X are feckless, that we
were the generation of the cultural shift
My bartering skills are out of touch,
Twenty-First Century purchasing power
revealed in an empty wallet,
save an out of date Blood Donor Card
that I carry to remind of a Time
when I might have been useful.
The papers are full of brinksmanship
of the nuclear button kind
as ships from the other side
forget the day
that Nagasaki fell
in dust and radioactive bites
and I scour the antiques
in search of something I cannot own,
leave in the dust of my memory
Tiny pricks,
the numb feeling
spreading from my early morning
face and down my left arm,
already embroiled in the memory
of a similar sensation
many years before,
and oh how that brought me down,
now I find that friends have rallied round
with good wishes, unlike before
where She told me
in no uncertain terms
that I was a waste of space,
the numbness echoing and dying,
so she maintained,
in her heart was enough
to wish me dead.
These tiny pricks
My parents
Lived
through the Cuban Missile Crisis
and breathed their desire
for a
Nuclear free world
down to me.
I lived,
as did my friends
and teenage crushes
through the spectre
of the
war of words
and sabre rattling
by America
and Russia
until a decent man called Gorbachev
took a step back from the brink..
I
Lived through 80s insanity.
I worry now
that my sons
who would not hurt a fly
are now facing
White pill,
sexy mo,
keep me going,
who needs the blue triangle
it only gets wasted on sex,
white pill,
crumbled down,
beats the thought of Ginsberg’s
heroin in the eyes,
don’t need to be high
to write down thoughts,
just lucid
enough to care that it is right.
White pill,
no other beast for me,
white pill,
my liver is fine
and counteracted by the fire
that still rages in my heart
and soul,
white pill,
chalk dust memories
May I ask a favour,
one that might upset you
as it upsets me;
just for one day,
on our anniversary,
do I have to mourn you?
Would it be O.K.
that today
on the day we remember
twenty-one years together,
that you allow me to grieve for you
without breaking my heart?
Our time was brief,
I knew of you for ten minutes,
before that I had never
heard your name;
yet somehow you have stayed