Tag Archives: poetry from Bootle.

Set List.

It means nothing,

a scrawl of a name upon a sheet

of type faced paper,

the songs upon it mean the world

but they could have come from

your own computer, your own stubbed-

out fingers creasing upon your ink dried

heart, then signed by the artist…

however…

pen written, the taste of ink on the fingers

of the flowering talent,

of the smile that comes with it for free,

two way mutual respect and admiration

and the surge of holding

onto the setlist, shaking as they dedicate it

The Bed You Made.

They said I made my bed

so I have to lay in it,

yet I sleep on a sofa

perhaps for a while

and during the day if

I am lucky, if I have had the temerity

to take tablets and pain killer courage

by the bundle; I rarely get to see a bed

and when I do it seems it was made up

by maid service or the dumb waiter

who never actually let me finish

my fucking sentences

because it either suited them

The Women Of Amish.

The women of Amish,

looked at the English boy

in their midst, circling around him

and with a faint smile

on the eldest of them,

the matriarch of the small travelling

party deferring with her eyes

to the man in the black

iron pressed cloak and stiff-rimmed hat

and softly thanked the boy

for taking time to talk to them

despite their initial

worries, their concerns

of being caught

on camera, their souls in peril

at the thought of modern technology

eating them, devouring from the inside out,

Murder, Smears And State Sponsered Abuse.

It’s only murder after all.

You deny it of course,

you will reject the charges brought

and laid down at your defeated door

and hide behind the badge

of office and rank, you will draw

a smokescreen veil to further assist

the cover-up as the whispers

become louder and more vociferous,

that demand your head,

stopping short of a silver platter, why waste

the family

heirlooms as you wasted

the families, destroyed lives

and smeared a city

and all because you were able to.

 

Who’d Be A Boy Today.

Who’d be a boy today,

who would seriously want

to have the pressure of living

up to past endeavours by both

distant long ago relations, their successes

and their attitude;

why would we still install that engrained

outdated attitude into them

that boys are better than girls,

when if not equal then girls,

as Tiresias maintained,

have the true pleasure of life

and should be lauded as so.

 

Why in a world that needs more compassion,

more courage not to be driven by the pursuit

Francis’ Bacon And Eggs.

It was in the way he got off his chair

inside the café, the wind racing up

through the large alleyway

knocking the sign back and forth, the advert

for the all day breakfast, a small comedy

chicken with a wide brimmed Stetson,

the Midland’s answer to Foghorn Leghorn

holding a spatula, its feathers slightly

roasting away

and a pig with a creepy smile

and one trotter

out of proportion to the rest of the body

and wearing a flashy apron, emblazoned

with the words Francis’ Café,

Connor.

You came into this world,

full of hope and fragile beauty

and not breathing; panic in my heart,

alarm that something

was most terribly wrong

as the nurse ran out of the room

carrying a small delicate, my flimsy, boy

and I watched helpless as technical

help arrived and slowly, surely,

you gasped for air and you weren’t

as breakable I had imagined

for the longest minute of my life.

 

You decided to not breath again

when eating tea one night, in a rush,

I’ve Lost My Tail.

I have lost my tail.

As bereft as that small blue donkey

with rolling eyes and world on hoof

demeanour, my tail, never truly secure

with that pin in my arse and a body

that people mistake for a piñata, knock the stuffing out

of me and in their eyes they see

sweets and papers fall to the floor,

not seeing the illusion that they

have kicked the guts out of me;

is it any wonder I have lost my tail

and the voice of slow desperation

Quill, Typewriter, Pencil And Virginal White.

With a quill in hand,

I could tell thee how much they are loved,

and it would be believed, it would be honoured

for the feather would catch the late April

sunshine struggling through

the grime ridden window and would pause

your concerns for the day;

the ink staining the desk would congeal

and hard work would be seen to have been employed

in the making of verbal declarations of love

to your fair and beautiful eyes.

 

With a typewriter, an old fashioned

set of clunky keys resounding

The End Of Adanac.

His tale is over, borrowed

from his own father who sought a difference

to the world of industrial dirt

and the stench of flippant war

across Europe; the boy swam the great lake

beside his home in Hamilton, played

Ice Hockey and dreamed of fields, woods

and forests that would survive

all that he would leave behind

as he boarded the ship in Montreal

that would lead him back to another war,

one he would see erupt in yellow golden flame and damaging red

as Coventry burned,