Have you ever seen me
smile? Laugh even;
snort like a free-wheeling pig
as it bathes in the mud,
almost lose the ability to breathe
as the joke hits home.
Have you ever seen me smile
properly I wonder, I rarely
show my teeth when I do,
the ones where I am ready to bite
down with anger, the smile of revenge.
Did you ever catch me, earphones in
and my mind spaced out, high
on a Galton and Simpson trip,
Flying like a Brick!
Down on my luck
I have got absolutely nowt
But my Universal Credit
will help me out
By tomorrow I’ll be a benefit millionaire
that’s what it’s all about without a care!
The Day my UC comes in my account
It’ll re-float my sinking boat
Well I’m not stupid
I’m not even thick
Swimming in lumpy gravy
I’m flying like a brick!
I’ve got a Trout mask replica
Like Captain Beefheart!
John Hall 2018.
Have you ever seen me
cry? Not just a tear, a stab of relief
of physical pain mind you,
but a river, a rolling spiky ocean,
a steady flow of information
making its way down my face.
Have you seen me cry in frustration,
over a film, a whole class once did
in senior school as Boxer
the Horse was sent down
in place of the people; I wailed then.
Did you see me shed a silent,
inexplicable tear over the death
Soon, the extreme Puritan
will rub their hands in private glee,
it doesn’t end with a Victorian
painting being removed,
nor does it end well,
we are being judged for a laugh
we had that has now been forgotten,
except by those keeping score
and aren’t they just
doing the black and white dressed
authority figures of the past
justice, everything a crime, erased
and expunged, obliterated and left
in a bunker underground, growing feral,
becoming bitter,
till one day fashion dictates an innuendo,
Six rows in front of me,
as I was facing backwards, both
slumped back looking down
we never made eye contact, never saw
face to face, though cheek by jowl,
our eyeballs never saw each other
at the same time,
my friend, what held your attention
instead of me giving you mine,
new headphones I noticed,
drowning out the noise
and the half mouthed, silent hello
as we sat there on the 53 in to town,
each in our own worlds of wonder,
not seeing the meteor racing past
The three fold man, I see you
in mahogany mirrors, two either side,
of the age I am now, the boy
to the left, coloured in regretful sepia
and fading from view, the old,
untapped and unseen but hoped to be,
still invisible, a sign tapped out in Braille,
don’t count your chickens sonny,
I should be grateful in wasn’t in semaphore green
or the malignancy of burning bush confrontation,
thou shalt not…
this three-fold man, remember me,
here in the middle
looking back at you.
It is not for me you understand,
the question of loneliness,
of solitude unasked for,
of isolation, perhaps enforced,
cut off from plans, talk, conversation,
chewing the fat
with no one
but me, the solitary figure;
it is not for me I seek an answer
on being lonely,
I’m just asking for a friend.
Ian D. Hall 2018
Here in Limbo, ducking down,
avoiding the gaze of God and the Devil,
chums and old pals, compliments
spoken freely at the matter of my passing,
caught between the unbeliever
and the quite sure the place exists,
they are not sure what to do with my soul,
let it burn in Heaven or let it grow cold
in Hell; neither wanting, neither demanding,
they flicked a coin in the air,
there in the darkness they put me,
till the coin stops landing on its side,
in Limbo.
I won’t accept the gift,
it was in his eyes, fifty five
years young and self proclaimed
special brew, special one,
it is not surely what he would
normally partake in, swift swallow,
long gasp of recognised favourite
as it goes down the hatch,
West Country greeting
lost upon this sophisticated man
that we cannot join in the pun of
Cider with Jose.
Ian D. Hall 2018
From roughly twenty seconds in,
I hear what you have seen,
the echo of guitar
caught in the ferocity of sunlight
and the regal nature of an Iron Man
with blank staring eyes looking out,
unblinking, unmoved,
metal thoughts kept to itself,
of the scene that unfolds before
as you take that perfect picture
that resonates in your own soul,
a day out with the wife, now joined
by this silent companion,
the Sandancer on the beach.
Dedicated to John Chatterton and inspired by his photograph Sandancer.