Don't mind me...
I'm just putting some poems together for my trip to the
Beehive tonight....
...
prologue
I know this place
I know those flowers and these fields
and the stinging whip of goose grass
on naked legs
I know this sky
so clear and boundless
or so it seems
skulking beneath the infinity of blackness
but this place is not now
it is but a memory
that comes on like kerb
on a bike with no brakes
lever pulled back to the rubber grip
eyes on stalks for the impact
I lie before and after
in this place I know better than your face
and for ten minutes
I stare
or perhaps it is ten lifetimes
or perhaps I stare not all
for the things I see
are like the novels unwritten
in the blind fury of a dice roll
they rattle
so vivid at each turning
but cone out
purely by chance
come to the road
come to the road
come to the lane
and follow the path
see the sun shining
so blinding white
welcome
it's beautiful when the music stops
when you hear in your soul the conversation
without the cross-fed weeding lines
of idiots
in contemplation
'do you love me'
'do you think I'm cool'
'I'll drink this to excess'
'I'm a total moron'
'oh think me cool'
no
NO
'
hell is other people'
satre said
and I've been stoned so long
to know that he was right -
- and deeply
- deeply -
deeply deeply incorrect
for the hell they bring
is not the punishment of demons
or the torment of hope
but the callous disregard
of unconformed conformity
in a world of liars
and so I lie here
in that place that place
- that ever was known to me -
beyond the carping voices
beyond the lovers
and the snide remarks of the fool
to watch the sky the sky
interlinking in it's passing
ever changing
ever moving
never defined
by rules of conduct
or the minimum wage of propriety
for here
for here
for there if we try it
is the freedom
of rejection
that path we know but never take
in which we all are kings
and queens
- for let us not forget the petty worries of women -
and there
for there
is that whiteness of the sun
beyond the road
beyond the lane
in that second of staring too brightly
in which we grasp blindly
like a sea-sick sailor
on a first voyage
forgetting that the ignorance lies in our youth
and in the fear of courage
and wisdom is that balance
of infallible falling beneath our dreams
when our throat has stretched beyond words
welcome
...
back eye
today my youngest son climbed a tree
using all his might balance and strength
standing amid the highest boughs
he reached out his arms
crying '
look at me'
a girl in his class told him to '
stop showing off'
for he had climbed higher than she
and I thought of pentheus
- that most stupid of men -
who failed to see
that aside from tampons
and wiping their arse backwards
there is no mystery
misogyny misogny
they've all got misogny
for we can't climb the tree
let us cut him down
and old dionysus
laughed
that poor old pentheus
had never seen his sister in the bath
and learned that pipes that pass piss
are little more than a whores kiss
assuming the whore will kiss at all
for her body may well be on call
but her soul is somewhere else
had he never seen a hen party
dressed as nuns or naughty nurses
tottering on heals too high
handbags clutched against the thigh
leery as any idiot man
clutching a lager can
on the first train of the morning
so I called my son down
from that tree
to teach myself the lesson
that men might climb
from time to time
but they must never question
...
dogma of the holocaust
and as I speak I feel the guilt
not for what I have to say
but for stating it in this way
that contradicts all gone before
to place the human within war
with all it's grimy soil and silt
lapsed greatness of the will
idealised in the urge to kill
and purify some ancient myth
of faux science merged with
liberal ideals of the perfect man
the polite state in which we can
discuss the higher things
on which our spirit on gilded wings
soars above the banal of wit
the kitsch reality of our shit
....
you have to be fair
you forget - in those stories in which you were the hero -
how much of childhood is spent following and not leading -
how often it was you standing by the drinking fountain
watching others run laughing - in a time out
or the wasted time spent trying to be friends
with your friends - and the compromises -
that as an adult are unacceptable - because -
well just because you've got better things to do
than worry about the opinions of people who don't matter -
and you want to say - because it's the reality -
it doesn't matter - you did 127 sums on friday
and nobody has ever done more - and I'm so proud of you
but you see the sadness - and try and cuddle it out -
and remember those times when socially awkward
you ran in the perfect direction that would win the game
but tasted the unfairness of those who would not be tigged
...
thirty years
I am reminded of why I take pictures of flowers
with each intrusive click of the camera
the sky has a hungry air - ribbed white clouds -
above an unusual stillness in centenary square
there are professionals circling
looking for the money shot of a woman crying
and one man consciously edges out of my pictures
despite my consciously not edging him in
what looks exchange are thin as the upper atmosphere
equilibrium rushing to fill a vacuum
...
two more nights
I recognize the stars by their familiar position
but not the flowers in the neat border
I'm sure they have names and at a stab
I could hazard guesses
in overly accented english
while walking in the market square
we passed an estate agent's window
and as one does
we idled over pictures and imagined
not the reality of moving
but ideas of wafting sheets on a summer breeze
or the comforting low thrum
of a slowly turning ceiling fan
the oil of our meal is stained with saffron
we sip our wine
and watch the three legged mongrel
unconsciously mimic the fishing boat
drawing closer to the quay
...
magic
twice nightly
- three time at weekends -
they die
in pealing laughter
- bow to the paltry applause -
in seaside cabaret
it doesn't help
that the false bottom of the cage
gets stuck
so he never knows if the dove is gone
when he pulls the cape
nor that wanda
- real name beryl -
has got ideas of spring in rhyl
and fallen in love with a bouncer
called errol
who doesn't like the cut of her cloth
it really isn't right
for a magicians assistant not to show a bit of leg
but errol will not have it
and stopped her getting sawn in half
which mainly leaves the cards
they'll not get booked again
the manager has told them so
but twice nightly
thrice at weekends
they play the trooper in a seaside magic show
....
just in passing
women always have tales
of lost children
not the normal of the monthly
passing
but of specific
which of course
are terrific
in their everyday
how much laughter
the world has lost
for little cost or care
just a few cells
and a snatch of blood
never there
....
mocking the sane
I was following auden down through the washshed
he with the eye of a hawk
to visit the infirm
and wheel around death
when out of the blue
nine thirty seven arrives
and he kicks me in the groin
and laughs
and cries
'hallelujah I free'
to say what want
and rhyme when I want
and not when I want
it all rather reminded me of when I had tea
with socrates
and he put down the boy
- or rather pushed him away -
and said
'my dear do take cream
for today I am free from the restraints of the mad'
of course down at the sauna
where the righteous stew
in whine and bitter juices
this freedom was condemned
they pulled on their black shorts
marched up and down
tying their knicker samples to a flagpole of liberty
gussets flapping
the aspidistra must fly
...
the faintest of things
on a day of heartbreaking sunshine
you sip coffee on the terrace
of the cafe by the lake
her bell attracts you
as the bicycle wheels to a stop
and she leaps off giggling
her blue sailor dress
of navy blue
her white ankle socks
she leans on the fence
arching like a birch
in a rainbow
looking backwards
to the path where her friends
peddle closer
it is then you see
that look of disdainful
disappointment
as she looks down
to the blue bicyle
leant on a post
intrigued you
question within yourself
if she knows
the thinnest of clouds
casts the faintest of shadows
as the friends pass
and she cries out
remounts
and is gone
you sip your coffee
and watch children
fish for water-boatman
on the lake
...
behind the hedge
he lives in the house on the corner
behind the hedge
and something has happened
of which nothing is said
and he sits in the verge
and dangles his legs
at the oncoming traffic
making them swerve
at school he's in trouble
detention again
he copies lab rules
ignoring the pain
of that thing left unsaid
which happened
in the neat house
on the corner
- behind the hedge
of course they try talking
to find what's unsaid
they prize and they pry
inside his head
he has told them before
the cause of distress
but his simple home truths
fail to impress
he's up on the roof
dangling legs - over the gutter -
he threatens to jump
and now he's excluded
and sits in the verge
his legs in the road
making cars swerve
with dancing cow parsley
daisies and sedge
and the house on the corner
behind the hedge
...
The Blue Book
