Being a matriarch
was propounded as her
Greatest-ever-role
in their first draft
of an online obituary
Mourners hovered
and affixed false posts
marking up an ever-altering
wiki
Her kids had been suckled
under a tarnished scent
and they never lost their
fear of men
We were not taught
how to erase –
how best to rub out –
how to remove errors –
instead – we were told to
Put a line through it
Those eye-ruled
mistakes –
our slight aberrations
in our cobbled
curriculum
They were honest flaws
Being seen to fail
won gold stars
against your name
on that constant chart
of
stuck rewards
Now we suffer
others’ comments –
sickly – green-ish –
spilt on social media
We are ink-stained
No dabs of blotting paper
Those mob-mindful
leaders –
your haters –
your righteous orators
have raised
their volume to that
once of The Left
They mop up swathes
of disaffected souls
in insolent heartlands
by underhand sales
of hope on Amazon
Post to Facebook your prizes
And Left-Wing resentments
seem to threaten more
than resolve
as old moderations are now
spoken of as if weaknesses
in politics – else whipped
Extreme measures
are needed
Politics is now a
vomiting disease
Their work is a helix
of holding patterns
A vexed blackhead on
a narrowing radar
Making no sense
to us
Look across its eyes
at your broken reflection
Pass over its light speed
of thinking centrifuges
Be left behind
on our side of thought
We are not quick enough
to read their flight plans
We are fixed lives –
we are their filth givers
My medication-taking
app’s notification rattles
as if shattered bones
pummeled in a bag –
like marbles shook
in school uniform pockets
to test competitors’ nerves –
as sudden as foul complaints
in response to
an unexpected doorbell –
it hits out – shattering at
a kid-tipped glass of panics –
like a parent’s blunt trill
of oft-repeated commands –
and it is a wake-up-to-me alarm –
sometimes fresh maracas in year six –
and then its repeat is more equal
to all of that mentioned before
You will allow yourself
to re-settle
into old comforts
on his threadbare sofa
and then enter into
a layered removal
from this other man
full of arguments –
from a disagreeable
who lives uneasily
by designing trip hazards
and elephant traps
In that room air will double
beyond that level
required for meditation
and a balanced life
Find a neutral buoyancy
by letting your lungs
half-fill with his kisses
Do not sink to him
I contemplate
setting it all to
Off
(even my
rum scuttle of thoughts
from toils)
By cutting connections
to swealing news
on my device
By undoing clicks
to remove agitation
and find a hermitage –
perhaps a bolted
space
with my tumbler locks
We cannot blunt their knives
We cannot nullify politicians
of any kind –
they who
make us into banshees
and howl monkeys
When that switch
is flicked
you will not hear me
He dropped in and
shifted everything –
not my furniture
more of a loosening –
a reformation of views
without drugs or booze
as dark coffees cooled
in talk’s elbow space
How could my place
be left untouched
by his too-close-to-truth?
Revelations etcetera
Into that swear grip
and stench of spittings
and leftover breath
from their last collapse
into a hot huddle
of balms and rub downs
as each scrummed
body locks into an orgy
of one sexness
It was too easy to accidentally
stand stock still in Blondie’s
unlocked dressing room
at a fleapit corporate gig –
their’s – another £100,000
act – should-be-has-beens –
but always being better than me
by dint of being so old cool
and untouched by rushes
of lame fame-struck stuff
off us eighties peak-teen kids
Now dull mums and dads
we recall a loucheness
on Top-of-the-bloody-Pops
We ached for sex – not knowing
their’s was breathless lip-syncs
We predated MTV’s tape heads
and VHS and widths of Betamax
I saw her standing – she turned around –
Debbie’s lips still blew my mind
