Tag Archives: poetry from Bootle.

Haunt Me.

Every time, not just occasionally, but

every time I hear of a senseless death

at the hands of a lunatic,

the ones who believe they are

an avenging angel of death, of retribution,

of dark black clad mindfilled with hate

reckoning bathed in their own

self righteous haze,

I think of you.

 

It is bad enough you haunt my dreams

that I dare not sleep at times

because I know you will

come to me like a lover scorned,

Poe like finger shaking as the rotted corpse

Orlando.

…and all they wanted to do was kiss,

dance the night

away in some safe, secluded spot

and forget the world, forget the hate

and the day…

and the day

that should have driven by joy,

by finding a love, a sensual kiss

with someone so beautiful

instead turns red, turns violent

and where desire once filled the hall,

where attraction and solidarity

filled the air,

bullets now fly and tears, the sense of insanity

reigns in bitterness and recriminations

and the tears rue the day that Government decreed

Bristol With Michael Palin…92-1

At Bristol Temple Meads Station,

a place I had known well

since the days of travelling, sideswiped

by having my soul

trapped between south and middle of the road

middle of decisions of going back and forth

on rails, on tracks, keeping on track…

I set out to conquer a new world

with the help of Michael Palin standing

directly behind me as the August

sun sapped my strength.

 

My father, the man who got me into

the beautiful game along with a man

James In The Fly.

James rolled his eyes inside the Fly

as we pulled down our glasses,

just a notch, enough to make the sentence

that passed round the table

to loud cheers

as football fans took

great delight in the opening goal,

to live and breathe in the land of innuendo.

 

The girl in ginger had long passed

off to another pub and we were left,

bereft upon the sea of groovy insinuation

and tied to the mundane,

until James, his wonderful

malapropisms and habit of ordering rum

Map.

I often thought about running away from home

when I was a child,

not because I was unhappy or ill treated,

neglected or even abused

by those charged with caring for me,

but simply due to the map of the world

that graced the wall of my bedroom,

surrounded by torn out pictures

of Steve Heighway, Johan Cruyff,

Colin Bell on football styled 1978

World Cup designed wall paper

that was all the rage in Birmingham

during Argentina’s rise to prominence.

 

The map became torn and scuffed

I, Monster.

Yes, there is a monster in you,

I can see it in your left eye,

its claws sharp, beckoning, dangerous

and demented as its scratches

along the iris, leaving lines that seep

out the pale red of humanity

that it affords you, that the monster,

cunning and deceitful allows you too feel.

 

I see the monster and hear it growl and laugh,

I experience suffering

as I try my damndest to pull away

from the stare, the fixated point of lascivious

longing that comes with natural ardour.

The Real Job.

The real job,

the well turned phrase

of the unimaginative,

of the angry dull

and the unoriginal irate,

why don’t you get a real job…

instead of…

cause pulling numbers out of thin air,

of chairing a committee looking

into the habits of weasels,

or driving a lorry with firmly entrenched

political views is any more a real job

than performing on stage

with the prospect of thunderous applause…

 

I presume the fuming featureless words

are always said for effect,

Tired…

Tired…

I never used to get like this.

I could happily go for weeks

and months on just

a couple of hours sleep a day,

especially if it kept the nightmares

at bay and the tightness in my chest

regulated, not so much at ease

but at least not aggravated

by missing dawn and dusk.

 

Tired…

of it all at times

and Time is winning, the curse

of mortality is that it tires you out.

Tired, bones crushing under the weight

and so little time…

Battenberg Angel.

Mine looked odd,

completely out of place.

 

Being kind you might have said unique,

the teacher called it a one off

and said it was in the nature

of a piece of work that was mine,

that it resembled me

not exceptional or exclusive

but something quite…

rare, unusual…go on I thought

daring the words out loud,

call me peculiar, after all my

Battenberg Angel was certainly that

in amongst the dazzling white fairies

constructed by the other members

of my class just before Christmas 1981.

Rusted Bucket.

Hold on to any dream you have,

even if what you carry it in

is corroded, oxidised and tarnished

beyond recognition

for even rusty buckets

held at a peculiar angle

can still carry water.

 

It might not be clean,

it perhaps won’t be seen as glimmering

or potent or even full,

the handle on its last hinge,

but the bucket does not know this,

all it feels is that in a small,

underlying physical way

that it is helping to dampen