#poem #poetry #amwritng #march #digest #poems

the march digest poems....

.....

 moon as bright as day

back behind the conifers
   sap scented creosoted fence
splintered excitement tingles
to be alone

she shows me hers
and I show mine

thumb hooked market stall cheapness
   with cute cartoons stretch
we crane necks to inspect
       the unexpected

       as clothes rise and fall
   her face the size of the sun
our den becomes the world

....

 IV

deafened, we scan the sky for breakage.
what lies seen and unseen between us
is behind,
forgotten, only in the now beneath
the tin roof of this moment will be remembered.
dragging you back, from the village,
which idles, in the fold of the horizon -
seen through cascading rain
we see those possibilities -
seen and unseen - rejected, taken,
carried in the bulb you fed me
and the promise of you - seen and unseen.

....

 maggots

after a morning
throwing knives at trees
and each others ankles
we climb onto the bus shelter
roll on our backs
and watch the clouds

one looks like a dragon
another like dr mopp in his car
but our interest is taken
with the              
              fifteen furrows away
amid the seed potatoes
we uncomfortably giggle
at the squirming rats
on the poisoned pigs

penknife at hand
we all say we like it
especially
the rats eating out the eyes

after a dinner of rainbow
and spaghetti hoops
we drop bricks off the bridge
daring the younger kids
to show their face

....

 oxygen

it's a funny age thirty seven - me not her -

she's fair enough if not to brag of
and from what I can see as a I blow in this pipe
her tits are alright for something to look at

my carbon monoxide is down
would I like to stick with the patches
or try the gum

these frigid types always ask dumb questions

what I would like is a half corona- hand rolled and cuban -
to accompany three hours spent with a rounded bordeaux
then a bit of sleep apnoea to scare the missus

instead I pick up the prescrition
wander home inhaling the dog-shit and woodsmoke
tongue hanging out like an hormonal teenager

.....

 shift end

'not a good night' she says
handing out the bowls of chocolate hoops
'is that coffee hot'
                            leave your willy alone
                            eat your breakfast
'mary died'            get dressed - in that order - thank you
toast pops up        you were saying
'I'll drink this and go to bed'

.....

 suffer little children

it is always the slightly gritty scrape of clarkes shoes on stone
    mixed with the lingered perfume of candle wax and brasso
    and a subtle hint of incense from the high church vicar
         long departed
         to tend richer flocks in greener pastures
which strikes me upon return

at school christmas service we would squeeze into dark wooden pews
    nudging ever eastwards
    to chalk the elbow of the unlucky outsider
    on the damp whitewashed walls
and sing into our sleeves of sock laundering shepherds
    or the magi following the star by bus and taxi
                                                         and on scooter
                                                         bibbing his hooter

later I gathered from a church poster
    attempting to lure my return
    that god is in the smiles of the happy children
but in this church with the vicar and sir
    unamused by boys singing no-A no-B n-C noel
we learned not to mock the headless saints
    but to fill the holes in which their crumbly bodies stood
    with respectful song
at the price of the slipper or the cane

.....

 To Tenby

that moment at the end of bleary chivvying
summer special on my lap sweets already half eaten
in that moment when with a thunk
unclunked or clicked we were sealed into our holiday

brown vinyl burning legs below my snake belted shorts
father's cigarettes virginian sweet ashen flicked midges
caught on the wind sucked back through the window
sugaring minnie the minx or ginger and numbskulls

all the while mother asking 'are you feeling sick'
brown paper bag ready in the footwell
with the tupperworn buttered ham sandwiches

into an A-road world of trees and hedgerows
square council housing jig-saw cottages new build bungalow
portico piles down long yellow driveways
and tractors and caravans bicyclists and muttered
white knuckling grip cursing lost time

through country towns with one set of lights
church clocks and women wandered markets
wearing chemically printed polyester

                        i spy sky road car 'can I see it'
and groans for the unguessed three cows drinking
five miles behind
                          
as we ingested the size of the journey
and digested olympic breakfast pancakes fizzy orange
tartrazine brightness free lollipop
the afternoon sibling squabbling
the threats to sit still and put your feet down
then songs would begin

how young my mother was
as she slipped a fox's glacier
                          into my fathers mouth

......

 Watercolour

the london we shared was barefooted on the kings road
edging even'd to sloane square guinessed and giggling
always carefully establishing to those guessers
that our tokens of affection were friendly gifts

on sundays we would accidentally meet regularly
on the same bench in kensington gardens by the pond
always at two for effect you read barry waiting
I liked that it showed awareness of our situation

we filled a fruiterers bag with satsuma skins
as I revelled in your rendition of richard bach
interrupted on the sand track coming back
by two fine cavalrymen exercising their mounts 

......

 Triangular Trade

occasionally I will shake my tambourine
crying sisters and brothers repent
repent the day of judgement
was last tuesday
and now we are all damned

but mainly I avoid angels except on utube
and live a quiet life of contented
drunken joy

sometimes I help others and sometimes
when asked directions
I deliberately send them in a circle
so they can shake their fist
through the help the aged window

but mainly I don't do that
as selfies annoy me
almost as much as other people's faces

I'm changeable you see
aren't we all
well you not so much

I draw the line at meths and weak lager
preferring the middle ground

though if I am feeling extravagant I will drink dutch gin
distilled by the desperate
each stone bottle contains a suicide note
and when corked
the factory throws them into the sea
without regard for profit
      then mermaids collect them
      taking care not to break their nails
      and deliver them to remote scottish islands on winter nights
      when half mad scotsmen put them in boxes
      and send them south to tangiers for distribution

the gin is terrible

but like the henna smoked by teenagers
it's the thrill that makes it worth it
and the license it gives

you do have to be off your head to pay for a bottle

but the blurred words of desperation
and the knowledge that creatures real and mythical
have died to bring you poor pleasure
makes it worth the need to top up on shiraz
if you want to feel anything at all

......

 esus Wept

somewhere between the 23rd psalm and another
call for revival the trollopian
charicature we call vicar peeping

out of the choir stalls while the x-factor
lot were busy working their repertoire
of hymns dull groovy and modern the four

horsemen of england joylessness on
guitar scantity on comb and paper
zeitgeist penning tunes on the amped

stylophone feminism droning bassoon
a blackbird flew through the unrepaired roof
crapped in the communion wafers then

sang nearer my god to thee very sweet
a revelation the bassoonist clubbed it
on the grounds it was methodist scum

promoting rape there's always an excuse
to general cheering from the vicar
service resumed eclipsed sun shone again

......

 stunted

the visitor from porlock is offered
coffee cream ernest thanks more tea friendly
we talk of poems spoiled by quick visits
from excusory friends oh we laugh now
and then when seen in bitter night of thoughts
regret those marvellous swift turns bobtailed
the ascending fright of the lark the craw
of the raven we wonder why caffeine
ten beats to the line is not the poem

we were meant to write

.....

 Trombone Voluntary

On blue days, when the sun breaks the clouds,
I like to take my lunch by the courthouse.
You might call it a fetish. I crunch crisps
and criminally profile the coming and going.

What really draws me though, is the statue
at the centre of the square to Delius.
Every time I promise to listen to his music
and every time I never do. Instead, having eaten,

I circle the bronze leaves, with the green
and amber glass, and marvel at the beauty
of art; of art in a city without much -
even Sir Henry Irving died to get out.

I'm never sure if you are allowed to touch
civic displays. There's no red rope. I want to -
I want to - to contrast the heat and light,
find imprints of the sculptors fingers,

embrace the shadows of the stained glass
on the shit strewn slabs. But - I don't -
instead I jab it gently, so that if a court official
challenges me, I will say, "just seeing if it is bronze".

Today I am disturbed. At the mouth sized stage
of my second sandwich, a girl sits down,
on my bench; next to me. I at one end,
hand in crisp bag, sandwich hovering.

She takes the guitar from it's case, and
for no reason that I can see, begins to play
the Adagio, Concierto de Aranjuez No 2,
I know this because it was on an advert

and I liked it so much I bought the CD.
Not being the rude sort, I set my lunch aside,
and listen. All the while admiring,
and appreciating, Amber Hiscott anew.

She played the whole thing perfectly.
I thanked her, and said she should try busking.
"Fuck Leeds", she said.

.....

 kissing gate hedge thin view
boats high grounded untided blue rim
red bottom unsailed

snake rope buoys elbow lean
estuary channel
                         dippers waders
kingwild strut
                       bob head
                       peck peck
                       strut 


.....


Small

always whiskey bottle beside the steel ashtray
the mirrors under the settee arm end out
butter melting by the fire dogs hair blankets
and the smell of roasted pheasant simmering
soup clink teacups with red hunting scenes

always the woodbine tarring steel ashtray
and the brown fingers pointing gesturing
at the story or blue joke the room too small
cannot hold the joy or the sorrow and dogs
too small for the rough logged broad hands

always tinned biscuits smelt soft coconut
whiskey tea dipped chin caught crumbs
mopped by the tongue increasingly toothless
and the gentleman's brush back dash hair
trimmed in the kitchen adorned pink towel

always hanging on the door back washed
with dog blankets when the laughter
reached its peak it would cut at a swiping
hand brushing a dog from it's growling
reflection mirrors under the arm of settee

.....

 Still in Motion

reflected in the water the tree remains a tree
beneath the white cloak of insulating spring

phantom as mice not seen peripherally
the fawn comes to drink walking on ground
so heated so heated hot horse shoe hot
hoof on hoof burn slushed snow hoof

crackle bracken crumble break

tonight I will sleep in a barn converted
a bunkhouse on white sheets
my caked boots napping fat swollen

the drinking fawn a framed laps
licks up the mirror dabbled ripple
revertibrate the spine bud branches

.....

 Departed

she longs once more for the evening gent
top hatted in spatted of literary bent
of warm summer sunsets and picnics in kent
     as she waits for the nurse to come

for the carefree days for the strolls on the moor
for the suitable suitors who knocked at her door
when everything stopped at a quarter to four
     as she rings for the nurse to come

.....

 Fishing a' Dusk

phutter phutter phutter phutter

John follow the ribble o' the swan ascenden
from his vantage by the willer
rose dusk encolours the midden grey lake

the swan circle once
forlorn tha' call
afore
beaten a path to the other pit

the pouring o' tea is deafnen
a groan in his stomach echo
plop plip plop bob the float
as the sun's descend afire

on the moon the London train
beats rushes on rice
for clockbound folk

as bubbles rise pop rise pop
the surface bait is taken


.....


Third Party

Please ignore my age, my receding hair,
beneath these teeth I'm debonair;
take my hand and I'll take you there
on a dirty weekend in Brighton

Across this partition my love has grown
whilst settling insurance claims by phone:
if not Brighton - Nice or Rome
would be the place for us.

 You really are the sweetest thing
 I'll rent an MG, wear threads and bling
 and if the hotel has Karaoke I will not sing
 Sweet Caroline - a song I know you hate.

 Oh please Miss Munt ,Oh please Miss Munt
 I will not to rhyme your name with pudendum
 I know I am a terrible runt
 but I promise to change my underpants.

Your centre parting, the top of your head,
your glimpsed camisole lace, my lust has fed.
You, in your headset, I dream of in bed
whilst sleeping with my wife.

......

White Field Green Sheep

he's gone wandering again yon down by the river
she think fear knows when the dog come back
with lead and red collar but no four fingered hand

the special is up calming her down nodding
whilst them as nosey agree to casually look 'afar
as they brave twice daily rain on the school run

he's gone yon again wandering lost int' a river
of landmarks and place names and places and
oh it's too much to be here he parks on a bench

waiting the brass bronze river is the same yet yon
dog is gone thither daily rain remind him of mother
to get up school gates for help for Julian and tea

wandering lost again by the yon river bank gone
away in a fairy ring yonder away with the tide
over not yet until a face he half recall greets him

takes him by the arm to yon waiting white car
bids the uniformed children shush talks all the way
friendly everyday familiar until they got home

 

.....

 

 Above the Everyday

                                                                                                                             Exhaustion
                                                   gives            him          the             eyes
                                                      of         a                trapped   sparrow
                                                     as              he         asks      directions
I scratch my belly
like the ape I am
advise
he take the low path

                                             up here
                                                  my hurrying son
                                                     glows like the rain
                                                         as we share
                                                            biscuits
                                                               exchange landmarks
                                                                    solve deep questions
                                                                        like who casts the longest shadow

we watch them go
him in front
her with the map
and the attitude
                         following the lower path
                                                                 they recede
                                                                                   like sweet papers                                                                                                                                                                   on
                                                                                                                   spilt lemonade

                                                  legs                           thwack
                                                      the wind pulled grass
                                                    my hurrying son dances
                                         side                    on                          side
                                                               the track
                                                 everything he sees described
                                                  stone
                                                                                     view
                                                        sun cloudened sky 

 

......

 

 he had no arms
 no legs                ate with a long spoon
            drank like a trooper
and peed in a bag

he said he was lucky
not to have my disability
                                       i agreed 

 

.....

 

 Circus School
They had a unicyclist at school;
'made a hell of a mess of the skirting.

Lorraine's avoiding their Sandy;
on account of the Next sweatshirt.
'Don't make out you didn't see me.'
is passed in Chinese whispers,
up and back among the herd
moving daily to the nursery gate.

Love's young dream, he's not
right in the head - and no one
forgets her threat to show her kids
on Kyle - smile, always smile,
smile for the camera and the court -
SMILE! and the world laughs at you.

They had juggling lessons on Monday
to help them with the new maths.

And there she is, six months on;
in pole-dancing pumps and Boden.
The Lorelei of Back Butts Lane.
She's the one, she's the one, that's her
who bought the Bernados bargain;
and had to the cheek to flaunt it.

Butter wouldn't melt, though Sandy
spreads it, thin as the black bagged
castaways she gave Lorraine
in sympathremacy. 'Barkin',
'barkin', she wants to say, but
Brian's heart complaints stop her.

The kids are learning lion taming
in the canteen: bring your own snap.

 

.....

 

peace:)