It could be viewed as a bucket list
romance, my eighty days
staring at you,
getting to know you,
understand you,
hate you,
love you,
be fond of you,
swear at the frustration you cause me,
gently run my fingers across you,
bash down when the right thought
does not come to mind,
hurt you, as you destroy me
become your mirror image, embrace you,
finally leave you be
as when the dog days of August
whimper in heat after snarling
The rare writing on the Cornish slate
is older than the notion of England,
as it sits now in Tintagel Castle,
a display for the excited
and the learned to ponder over,
it’s meaning lost in Latin and ancient script,
but it must be gleaned in this land of legends,
of old Dumnonia and the last King of Dungarth,
that the script must only contain one message;
Do not put carrots in the pasties.
Ian D. Hall 2018
Roasted Hog,
basted and the cut, succulent,
dripping fat on the stoked
fires, upon which I feel
the burn
like flesh deposits crinkle
and leave me with crackling
on my back,
a taste of cooked meat
hangs in the air, sickly and putrid,
a cannibalised flesh, rotten
now from the inside out,
so bad that even a black fly stops and hovers
for a while and refuses to land,
no blue bottles, just maggots
upon my skin
today.
Ian D. Hall 2018
It is the cruelest trick,
to offer someone a future,
a second chance in which
to make things right
in their heart; this now is the path
before me,
a cruel trick played out,
a future denied,
and last night I tried to dream
but all I saw was the face
of the ideal and the possible,
taken away.
Ian D. Hall 2018
Welcome…
…Here we are,
Ladies and gentlemen, and those to whom
we respect define as neither,
splash on a little make up and relax
for here we are in the last heady days of Berlin,
the days of Rome
before the Vandals
and Nero’s enigmatic solo
on a half strung fiddle, raise a toast
and see the world, frolic, dine,
take a picture of your neighbour’s dinner
and give it a groovy like, drop your pants
in excitement as low core porn
becomes a reality programme, and
We spoke of the news
long into the night
and in time for the moon
to dance between the slits
of our blinds
and our once blinded opinions,
a coal fire dying slowly
and our lungs to breathe
in the remains of the dark day
that had passed,
huddled together
we spoke of the news
of the constant evil, of the never ending
criminal, corrupt, immoral
and natural disasters in which
deep down we crave, to satisfy
our longing for calamity, our need
I just felt like
I should run away,
it is a familiar feeling,
one that has been a bleak guide,
this signpost of being in the way,
of offering nothing,
just a spot in the dark
where it would be easier
to overlook, easier to find solace
in the long walk to another
self-destructive path
where they cannot reach me,
for a while,
paved with painted stems of sunflowers along its edge,
bristling with imagined life, for there
I might stop seeing the faces
Silver shimmering ghost in spray painted
bowler hat, a mime formed
on Bradford Interchange Station
platform one, she moves,
feminine gestures, this quiet symbol on the streets
free to do as she pleases
when she believes nobody
is watching her satirise the unmoved;
a hand outstretched
she greets a pale pallor Parlour girl,
poor and wastrel, waif in bustles
and then as the train to York slides along
the platform edge, they depart,
quiet but moving; unspoken gestures of comfort
in their stony set faces.
I wrote a thousand words down,
mostly direction, some form,
all cloud and dust from a temper that rages
to be free, simple
and subtle substance of memory
adapting to a new place, released
by a new phrase, new belief,
and yet as I look upon this meagre world
where pseudo black ink
discretely blots out pages of snow
and ice bound though,
I cry a little, for it surely is all for nought.
Ian D. Hall 2018
Wherever you were yesterday, know
for sure that I thought of you,
that I talked of you, that I hoped
beyond measure
that your day was respectable, that you
did something positive
for someone else and atoned perhaps
the storm you left me in,
the disrespect shown as you slid
into a dirty corner and withered
from my sight, of no contact, of no Time…
I would ask of you, to seek me out
one day and ask of me what your actions meant