If I could shut my eyes on this
and find instant quietus
which does not wake a hate
for my final choice
I would take to such sleep
The Jam
Forty years ago
today
I knew boys who swapped
Tangerine Dream records
and others who spat punk
A comprehensive education
in a scrag end Surrey town
of smoke-rattled bike sheds
of wrong trousers and collars
of part formed love and loss
We all knew the girl who gave it
to the intelligent thug
she cried in maths and the bogs
Sex education still has no use
The Tin Roof
The tin top cottages
should be haunted
but the only ghost
is Hoogstraten’s
That man ripped the roof
off one propped home
and the adjoining one
was then left for him
Now stand the brick twins
with no tiles or grace
torn for Hoogstraten
and his resting place
No Dance
We had no dance record
no undulated score
to offer a vinyl track
to our lost time
of lookings-back
The dog lies untouched
her stroke mislaid
like a forgot chorus
of a heightened itch
I broke the news
at O-one hundred
with shipping news
and ‘Sailng By’
and your phone died
a battery death
as if
we could recharge
On Luxford
The old boys’ bench
affords a wide view
of Luxford Fields
of trees to the north
Here is my basecamp
on the ascent
over difficult terrain
of root split tarmac
Dog walkers and kid strollers
criss-cross the scuff
taking turns to shout
and to chase
Behind me shoppers steer
between tight spaces
which revs and white lines
take for three to ten hours
Two boys on bikes gob
and then dare each other
on their brakeless machines
to ride the Tesco steps
The View
The future stares
like my fifth child
her shortened view
no more beguiled
The paths of priests
churn to mud
robes scabbed to black
in souring blood
Love is fouled
left to burn
her spin
her shaft
is now
slow-worn
The High Street slopes
to rain-washed grey
which I take
now
adante
My coffee is
as her warm flesh
the taste
last kissed
of latte breaths
BST
British Summertime
day one
as seen from this flint field
high above the Winterbourne’s
estate dictated course
above the rush of the bypass
that continuos inland tide
Here I listen for the reduced birds
as seagulls are distance summoned
by the hip-jiggered tractor’s
turn of furrow
You have walked on
with me left here
above this valley landscape
with an extra hour of light
as if the clocks had stopped
Head Down
I could never dance
so no loss there
as my left foot curls
over trod floorboards
Dammed tears are held
as the pain plays games
and each dog walk
is a walk of shame
Incrementals
It has been a month
of slightness and shifts
which can be described as
‘incremental deterioration’
in my overall condition
pain and rigidity are my bedfellows
and lovers
those bitches who snap
and squeeze at me in measure
it takes a toll on others
I know
my masked face shares
such small messages
Lunchtime News
The silence around the house
is perforated by the radio pips
as I switch on the hour’s news
and then my loneliness grows
as the reported world enters
and my scale of things is shown
to have such insignificance
my existence is low
states and men of action
do not hide from endeavors
but I do
Mother’s Day
Our youngest watched
as his present was pulled
from the naively-wrapped package
knowing that this year he had done well
because his mother’s face mirrored his
more than on every other mother’s day
that had passed
this year
The Laughing Fish
A late Friday lunch
of stale crisps and ale
Sorry the kitchen shut
2.30 today
Our dog tugs for crumbs
under the table
as lunchers and drunkards
pay for their pleasure
You are moored by the lead
so I get my second pint
a tall glass of ale
which will make things right
Gravity
Gravity is not my friend
we are growing apart
but for her odd-chanced offerings
when she stops things rolling
I would gladly move from her weight
to overhead
in orbit
My lapses to shuffles
and rigidity then lost in space
But she will not let me go
Slap
My father had thinning hair
and ever thinning teeth
and a quick temper
no fists
once a slap
when my year older brother
sliced the bathroom sponge
with Dad’s shaving blades
There had been general punishment
until us boys
the muted quatrain
then gave up the culprit
A loud slap
once
which never healed the sponge
Sleep
Sleep you are
my sweet-lipped whore
my head-bound fuck
but temporal