POETRY WRITTEN ON A PHONE
I read of the theft
of a golden reliquary
which held the dead heart
of Anne of Brittany
They stole the Queen’s case
from the Dobrée museum
The bold theft of this viscus
raised local opprobrium
The measure of its value
isn’t in its gold plate
Now they ask of the Knave
to bring it back complete
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/15/queens-heart-gold-stolen-french-museum/amp/
After beating
the brick shit
out of this tired
last-leg house
I met my ghost-set wife
on the steep stairs
of lost-love’s slough
but we did not embrace
because new rules say
we will not touch
less so each day
I step out to an evening’s aura
to West Park’s dark-cut recovery
of trim lawn-strimmed flora
now sliced to a fragrant enquiry
and I reply to a text’s posit:
Have they helped you..
to a conclusion?
Which my stepdaughter
kneads and beats
in a knuckled-down confusion
I give her my finite answer
(as I do to each upset offspring)
I need to move out.. to be kind to..
but each one keeps on asking..
Then I thrashed my clicked walking stick
amongst the white-sat flowers
and then I cracked it on the red bricks
of this house of sucked-off hours
That was a beer-warmed evening
underlined by an obese burger
I avoid my return to the house
which echoes to a party of kids
and the small dog’s commands
In the kebab shop they cooked
just for me
as the Turkish news feed rolled
and on my phone Syria choked
Again
in Elizabeth Gardens
I am all alone
with my paper-wrapped chips
and a skulked fat black cat
whilst varied kids wander past
so pissed off with a nameless one
followed by a lad who spits
on to the well-fucked tarmac
And the ever-question hangs
Was I such a teenage-shit?
We all spat out many things
The bin’s basket welcomed me
That glossy plastic greeting
into which I tossed
the greasy chip wrapper
Nothing else smiles so much tonight
It’s always your quick precedent
You will be angry with me
It makes me to be a monster
A cruel judge of misfortunes
Is it said to put me in my place
And I succumb to an absolution
with my assurances of serenity
to douse your flagged fuck up
and to hide my furthered frustrations
In our comedy of errors
I played the lead role
as the foil to your fool
my cruel lines were doled
This device was the prompt
which whispered off stage
The fixed words recited
because that was our play
They appeared on my phone
in a series of texts
those photos of photos
you unearthed in a drawer
of our kids fifteen years before
we announced this ending
I wanted to steal those times
which chemistry had made
in the development of them
into glossy
but now cracking captures
My childhood remains
in one school photograph
alongside my brothers
one dead
one not talking
And in one other print I keep
of my father
holding me upright on a pony
His hand (for once) holding on to me
I drag my wooden ride
to where the water lies
to that lowest of tides
before the tsunami’s rise
I rowed the swift Thames
with blistered palms
and calves of dark blood
where the runners harmed
We swam with the current
avoiding the crafts
in that summer of love
in which I held the shaft
Nothing has changed
as I push out this skiff
Nothing will alter
I have nothing to give
We will discuss disconnections
such things we must trust
in this poker face card place
of our marriage discourse
We will flip expectations
like a shark wrists the deck
We will turn the dealt hand held
counting down to slow death
Our marriage is skewered
on the spun-turned spit
here both parts are scorched
now the heat has ripped
Our future fixes divide
to avoid offspring hurt
No one to blame
as the pain turns to burn
The weekend recolours
into the red wine stain
inside my rip run gut
she takes me to sleep
under these weighty dreams
They vainly organise
all the light
into a Looking Glass
that hyper-realism of repose
in which I now struggle
as I do in the day’s slow death
of this reducing disease
For SJB Thank you
The forced rise behind gorse
drops to mud trick dips and turns
quick to take us out of sight
until the dogs return at pace
in bramble-wrapped coats
They failed to catch rabbits
A bench waits upon my warmth
as the walk meets itself halfway
For five minutes the dogs are missing
Our fear of sheep
and a double barrelled farmer
drops
unsighted
with their bounding return
All the time our heads spin
with driven thoughts
earlier said
of where this walk will take us
I touched your arm
and said something
which neither of us heard
Division of everything
can be undertaken
only of that with worth
it comes down to shutting
off the reversible
or taking the nearest horse
as Hobson would say
My son parachutes
into a zone
I think
as his mate chats
from another place
and they exchange advice
It is another vernacular
‘Let’s go greasy’ is agreed
Talk of killing and guns
is no different to my games
over Easter fortnight
forty-five years ago
when our cold war was
a whispered fear
and our battles were real
making bruises and blood
off loaded pebbles and sticks
A cut up credit card
does not remove a debt
or explain missed payments
in these days of scores
It was shown as proof
that the imbalance
had been addressed
I saw him emasculated
his balls in your hand
that white-edged flesh
like sliced up fish
But the smell will remain
in your palm
no matter how scrubbed
of plastic and cuts
We are drunk-slumped
drugged by red wine
and the wide screen
into the L-shaped sofa
that and the sequential playback
of episodes long ago watched
It is a life now rewound
made so unstoppable
by a misplaced remote
Time no longer exists
for us
the once-tuned
to watersheds and news
played only on the hour
We don’t pace ourselves
with the TV breaks
Instead it’s consumed
in bibulous retakes