Ferry
from the stone
walls of Sliema
may not have the same romance
as the one that rides
the waves
from Birkenhead
to Liverpool
but in the glare of red dust sun,
with the towering spectacle of ancient
Valetta still crumbling across the bay,
it is a sight that once seen
can never be forgotten.
Ian D. Hall 2016
Too much Oestrogen in my blood,
or a simple matter of genetics;
it is the only way I can explain
the osteoporosis that has lurked in my bones,
stolen my strength,
since I was a teenager and where I had to fight
against prejudice because of my age
and my gender.
Too many times I had to endure
the words that suggested happily
that it was all in my head,
that the disease of black discs
was nothing more than teenage attention…
…so I pushed myself harder, I tore at every fibre
Careers advice at school,
such a waste of time,
trapped in an office
with someone you had never met before,
like being stuck in a cramped lift
with a murderer looking
at you and wondering which part
to attack first, always settling
on the heart and the head
before dismembering anything
resembling individual thought…
“What do you want to do when you leave school?”,
the question raised over glasses
and hoisted eyebrow, sarcasm elevated
at the ready and the answer of, “Nonsense,
The height of bad boy expression,
fifteen years old and hanging
on the corner, holding your mate’s fag
in one unseen shaking hand
whilst casually sipping
on a can of cheap, devilishly sick
beer, brought from the off licence
as he looked over your shoulder
at every car that went past in case
it was an off duty policeman
ready to nail his arse to the ground
for supplying you with the means of courage
to talk to the girl who was flavour
of the month in your diary,
Beautiful photographs captured
with digital stillness in full colour
and without enhancement
of a county
I haven’t been able to see
with my own eyes since before
we worried about the Y2K bug
and the image of the end of days,
they all float before me,
my eyes growing damp,
of a county tattooed
on my brown like skin
and the cross of St. Piran
held high upon every rugged coast line,
another country, a different place
and one that I wish I could see
The tattooed Crow
and I go way back,
longer than almost anybody I remember,
save for immediate family
and a girl I loved named Jo.
Tattooed Crow, tattooed crow,
once a skinny Birmingham boy
to whom the words of cars,
machines, 50s beat,
and Elvis were the product
of a life I could not imagine,
not giving a damn about how
an engine worked or the days
of music long since past,
or of Rugby, a game that wasn’t
mine to enjoy,
I want to talk to you,
just like
we did in old times
over a beer, over the background music
in which we catch ourselves smiling
at each other, shyly as children,
hormones unwilling to commit
as adults.
I want that beer to turn to three or four,
a session in a pub garden in the middle
of an Oxfordshire abyss or quiet literary desert;
let that beer sink, dregs drained
another one ready at the bar…
…I miss the gap in the silence
of comfortable reproach, when you
I need to hold your hand
when the pain hits, when
it comes in waves I need
you to mop my brow and tell me
that it will soon subside,
that it will eventually release
me from its iron grip and the clench
of anguish, the fascist dictator rising up
and telling me that the pain
will set me free, it will consume me
but it is for my own good;
I want nothing more
than to pull the trigger on that
son of a bitch, to make it disappear
Another day, another town,
and life goes on around
as they make you scared, bit by bit
to leave your home, to leave your room
and yet become expectant of another
atrocity, another killing in the name
of a faith, of a devotion to the word
of death, the ultimate cult,
the end justifying the means
of swift negotiation with a bullet,
bomb or sword;
another day, another town
and life goes on around
but it feels more sinister,
both sides want you to be afraid
Being in part a country boy,
raised with Cornish ideals
and my teenage years in a small
rural market town
deep in the Oxfordshire
countryside, summers in glorious
abandon on Guernsey country lanes,
I see no problem with tipping cows,
after all most work hard
in the sweaty conditions
of any restaurant and they get treated
like serfs by the chefs;
I see no problem with giving them
fifteen percent
on top of the bill, especially
if they give a courteous moo.