There – sip that whiskey-ish brunt
of wood-burning fires as suburbia
heats before boxy stoves/ I will be
shitting ichor – come morning/ Lift
a log to toss onto embers & know
there will be heat [one act’ll beget
another]/ With age we wish less &
still see more – looking away is no
way to live/ I miss my stove – I fed
it – I cleaned it out – it told me tale
after tale by naked flames at night
Tag: AGEING
Read Less Hardy
These laodicean daily moments
are not unusual – I listen less to
news – I have no faith – no lover
to worship [or mirror my ways] –
ignore me!
Fictions are a trough
at which I feed – snouting at her
cadaver – pig eats human body
& other headlines should not be
read before breakfast/ I loosen
my theories & slip into my book
Autumn Terms
My front door opens after
every blazered-bastard is
settled to school – best to
avoid slowly lumpen boys
& giggling girls – they will
gang up on us over-fifties
[we aren’t allowed to cuff
their ears or tell them that
as a kid I respected all my
elders] / Then all is normal
as a teacher refrains from
striking another fat fucker!
[connected twittens clear
& gentle folk take control]
Once More
I picked up two dozen shards
from a splintered bottle – pale
ale [or something equal] & laid
it in my open palm – too close
to my favourite vein for you? I
would not – although I think of
it – of course – you would too/
I loaded up one self-help book
Audible & untouchable – & laid
it in my head/ I played back a
song from Leonard – maudlin?
I miss opportunity & old love’s
filthy ways & indiscretions/ My
heaven has been dropped – a
beer bottle unstopped is mine
for now – sweet dreams do me
[whilst solitude quietly gnaws]
Inheritances
Christ – have you seen Mum’s arse?
Her lockdown cakes have gathered
round her lower half – Imagine that
hung on us? Dad’ll have a ball/He’s
got more bits to grab! He’ll be like a
pig in.. Is mine that big? Ha! not yet!
Yet? Bitch!/ I feel sorry for our girls –
I’m hoping it skips a generation/Ah!
Ours – or theirs?/Ours of course – &
you agree/You eatin’ those biscuits?
My Name Is?
I’ll never start with a title – I was just innominate
spawn [we’ll tag those delivered in a ward] & my
home birth – end of New Road – it was less label
& more unexpected – my fleet drop [’round four
o’clock] & then back to tea & cakes [once blood
& parts were mopped up by Aunty Betty] & my
youngest was born at home – in a birthing pool –
such ridiculousness – apes don’t float!/ & a rude
indignity for my eldest in a [Soviet-esque] ward
in Croydon/ That midwife’s slice was not love or
care – we were left alone [without a vade mecum
after her knife was wiped] Latin will still fail me
& [please God] do not steal my recalling names
until I’m ready to return [being labelled by a tag
will do for me there] – none will know my name
I have never known such
I have never known such loneliness
as this – I have my radio playing – a
streaming selection – my stomach’s
delicate lining was knifed [I sit alone
with my switched-on-kettle]/ This is
a cold space in which I live – & never
will I fill – with this one human form/
My broken parts rattle when shook/
I have never known such sadness – a
slippage of loose dunes [formless &
in motion] – forever – never settled in
this landscape/ I was a resolved rock
until pebbles were cast – a relentless
shower of fuck-ups & fucks [fuck off]
Weddings & Funerals
There will be weddings [& funerals]
I will not attend – because of word-
inversions to ease senseless greed/
See me counting out my money? I
am disposed towards vanity – but
not full-on [I’ll not fuck over such!]
I walk towards a sunrise – blinded
by ugly sights of burns [if you pull
back blisters & skin they’ll ooze to
a clear fluid – blood’ll follow later]
See – a splinter bursting from my
palm/ It was sunk a week before
whilst clearing a wilted flowerbed
that never took – some plants will
die rather than entertain us/ See –
it has left a scar – laid to fade – as
if a photo [or irked recall] of hated
families in hats & drunk on tables
& all will be gone/ I will wait for it –
a digging – here earth is exposed
& rich – we will attend committals
of tears & shaking hands [when &
if we can]/ They’ll speak of stuff in
low voices/ Please bury me quick
you make me sick – but nothing’ll
kill me now – death is that escape
I cherish/ See – my scar has faded
& my mind is now cleared/ Refrain
& do not consider that past or that
future that is never here [an analyst
advised me]/ I told that woman all
about those lies on sheets – paper
not silk/ See – we are too common
to know anything other than soaps
& slugs from bottles/ Your body is
not yours [less so after obsequies]
& other kinds of petite mort [we all
squirt if sliced – warm ichor & guts
will spill & our weddings will wither
without wine & kindness] – just like
a man I once knew – his dignity sat
him straight & sure [of his essence]
until he heard what she had denied
[he cried bent-doubled]/ No hint of
a gospel ever uttered [again] to him
in lost vows [or rum negotiations]/ I
walk under trees to avoid hard light
from high [my days are shortened]/
There was a compass in my shoes –
it knew magnetic north but nothing
more – I was about six – it was mine –
before it was dislodged – or stolen?
There will be weddings [& funerals]
I will not attend – because of words
Peninsulars
It is bare – a scuddy littoral
raked clean by rip tides/ In
low dunes I sleep [I’ll return
from faded holiday revisits –
just let me rest]/ Lost family
time was drugged by work –
hours of setting lines & light
to make other people glow/
Reserves’ll erode – by need
& a woman’s flaws – hunger
is best left underfed [a man
once told me] – & keep ’em
ropes tight whatever you do
he said as he dabbed pools
of blood off floorboards – &
she will never spill her own –
if her lies have fixed her eye
& made her price too high/ I
have a scientific calculator –
it’s no use if truth is illogical/
I will recount – but only when
coastal erosion has seen my
dignity safely returned to my
washed-at [worn] peninsular
That scent is thick
That scent is thick
of summer’s weep
of sweat under my
pits [slipped brims
will not offset fears
of skin cancer]/ My
plots to escape will
fail/ No tunnels yet
completed/ So – no
Tom-Dick-or-Harry
will save us/ A war
of words over heat
won’t win [fades to
a catastrophic era]
Your cars idle – A/C
cools you [fuck ‘em
all – we deserve it!]
& our PLAN B slips
from sweaty reach
Threads
I’ll pass my ageing neighbours
contained by solidified returns
off pensions & ISAs [all edging
away from brisk punts on stock
market wagers or gold’s allure]
What they hold will keep them
well off until slips & ‘quakes in
alien places cut those tenuous
connections [no more mirages]
Threads will quick-to dissevers
as traders hedge & new viruses
death-rattle their five bar gates
We Will Get Old
We will then rue
how much time
we dead-stared
at gripping light
at bright scrolls
& herded bleats
on social media
[how much time
we gave blind to
urges of friends –
apes never met]
Our trivial troop
isn’t pukka fidus
Achates/ Delete
is not an option/
Dead friend lists
will haunt us all –
we will get old &
never know who
is truly breathing
They’ll always revert to size-of-cock
They’ll always revert to size-of-cock
[& what-they-would-do-if-this-that]
as alcohol’s numbing repeats such –
this week’s cache of ex-wife cracks
& tall stories – from short-changed
men – they don’t hear anything – in
pubs they bawl out said-soliloquies
on deaf ears [‘cause no one listens]
except for offers of one more? [But
even then they are still dismissing]
They’ll wake to habitual headaches
I will move to Barbados
I will move to Barbados
& sip cold beers as light
winds tease me to sleep
in my hammock [as my
belly slops loudly – as if
drowning at sea’s leaks &
pumps do work] – not me
in a spin about breaks &
things – I will move there
soon & recite my poems
[as others voice elisions]
There My Second Home
I’ve found my second home
due west above Erriff’s coils
[north o’ Galway’s gut] – you
take a road over Glennacally
Bridge & find it up a sloping
track of cinder & stones – I’ll
not be lost with my hearth &
songs in poems – possibly by
poor connection – no WIFI in
Niflheim/ My days will drip &
drip with rains & mist sent on
from an Atlantic hater of men
& women – sideways delivery
of precipitation – there will be
no lurking from God’s tests &
no obligations to remain sane
in hell – County Mayo’s belly –
that wet underside – by Erriff
& her casts of salmon stories
[for me to reel]/ I’ll rewrite it
I know every bench in Uckfield
I know every bench in Uckfield
& its rigid offerings [too honest
in framing my sittings] but I’m
a blank study to sell as they put
latest prices on my head [Hey!
Have you heard? & other bets –
He is colour-by-numbers – He is
dot-to-dot – He is easily tricked
& Sudoku-fooled]/ Cruel prices
re-layer – homemade-caked – a
thick piling-up [of sharp psycho
stuff] – brown sugar [sweet-ish]
Do not pay for any hand-made
bakes – unwrapped & delicate –
until tasted – in each bite took –
wait – wait – for poison’s hooks
[I’m on every bench in Uckfield
& await one cook’s cut by knife]
Chefs in white smocks gather to
carry off starters/ Chef – yes – &
Yes Chef – too many – they spoil
stuff/ Three is a crowd – soured/
Throw brown sugar to quell – to
sweeten & stiffen resting places
where varnish is treacled across
giving timbers – my bench – here
I’ll sit – on sugar-wood [screwed
& washered to aid my recovery]
They rape ancient woodlands – a
seat is axed & my ill-rest is stolen
Where my stick is angled to prop
[& not fall] – for studies I have sat
to watch birds walk [a bare cook
at work – that rook with her gloss
of feathers] – our greedy gatherer
of sugared ingredients at my feet
& still we cannot speak of truths –
as if my self-portrait is too untrue
between my charcoal sweeps – in
each digging-at I spoke of snaps –
break of burnt stuff [of cooked art
& too much time given to studies]
All this is mine [my view – my type
of words – my phrase-pots]/ Don’t
[do not] try to know my hauls/ You
thick-set fools who’ll look too hard
for gold in barren seams/ Sit back
& wait – wait for fuller explanation
of meaning [of verse]/ Word-soup
is one view/ I will watch cars piss
up Brown’s Lane – speeding – fast
to homes – quick to conflict/ Here
remembrance for long-gone-dead
& others rested on empty benches
Letters of Resignation
I cannot move on
again – upheavals
of beds & boxes –
there’s part of me
unable to operate
& so I will give in –
soon/ Persistence
is my word but no
good will come of
it/ This is where I
admit my failings
& refute my verse
[my broken world]
A Nice Spot
Some’ll bait [little empathy –
spit indifferently & she did]/
I want to bed down [now] in
these woods & never get up
[but I fear my dog would not
sit still for long enough] – no
outdoor decomposition – rot
not yet – no decay in peace?
No choice? Please – a minute
spent between bared roots –
let me lie wet & cold – shake
to exposure’s severe hold [&
then dream of dew & no lies
to face] Her kiss dries on her
mother’s forked tongue – old
tarts pet under full moons &
blow sour breath – both ends
stink of decaying meat/ We’ll
return to addled quiet spots –
once affiances are corrupted
& there unearth a low place –
this hollow is ample for me –
don’t put down my loud dog
Elder Respect
Cloudy cordial – it was too soot
for my tongue – inbred-sweet &
all sugar-buzz – Grandma’s own
& she is an amazing woman [no
proof given] None ‘fess that she
should add in a splash of bitter-
truths/ I’d tie her up – then off to
a rest home near Kent [she was
born from French blood – Boton –
& would feel at ease in sight of
Calais] Aye – Grandma – fuck off
How I Am Doing
A red heart beats in my tall bin
it trots out subtle thud-a-thuds
[no one will die tonight]/ It is a
struggle to talk about ‘how I’m
doing‘ – I attend a playground-
bait of held-back & brave boys
don’t cry – hold it off – greeted
endings won’t happen – as that
[round battery] raps descants/
I had plucked it from my pup’s
toy & left it to wither [& expire]
I own a sixth
I own a sixth of this beech tree
but do not have deeds or titles
to prove which parts are mine/
My claim is now on its shifting
shadow – April is in overdrive –
& I will move as a minute hand
around our shared garden/ Sit
with me [but be prepared] – my
view turns more conservative
with passing days [now willing
to profit well off nature’s ways]
Please pass me a Daily Telegraph
Self-isolated
Every day I pace not one less
than ten thousand footsteps
[as documented on my Fitbit –
it syncs to my smartphone] / I
have no other duties – except
to write one poem & a charge
to entertain & pay for my four
kids [& to walk my small dog]
I feed myself & avoid excess –
but booze [& grass] shout out
alongside my bottled rattle of
my prescription timer app / I
keep myself clean / Domestic
chores tire me but now define
me – my work no longer does –
I used to be important [in love]
Also on Medium
Loneliness?
Is it that [noticeable] difference between [all of] our estimations of how our now life develops & our realised truths – confronted in our [day-to-day] attested life seen by one self? My loneliness materializes as a near-to hollow arousal & interior conversations alongside familiarities – without sex & kisses – to make me slide
from my oh-too-dreadful times I come to – after fearful dreams of her rousing weaves of scent – of that stuff been slept through It forms into a recall of my dark
night’s one act of creative work If it wasn’t for those sighs from my sleeping dog my loneliness would suggest – Never wake up
And if I could remain upright
And if I could remain upright –
as I do on this drop-down seat
with my bowels hanging open
& my dog slumped at my feet
[being of that post-crunch age
of never-offering-another-f*ck]
I would be so happy / And if it
was possible to never have to
wipe & so avoid pain’s leak of
tears – made by turning – then
it would be good to stay here
overnight & on waking rise to
warm water in my hot shower
to remove my air-dried faeces
Lunches in Netzer Sereni
Opposite me – at this table –
an elderly couple bend over
their equal servings to mine
[chicken & assorted salads]
We wear similar work shirts
Steel dishes chime cutlery’s
made scrapes & complaints
& return me – by breath – to
school time & a lunch hour –
cooled on a tray / There are
no records of my [misspent]
fretted lessons served there
[my certificates were defiled]
It is easy for me to retreat to
my childhood – to wait inline
Sat in this kibbutz dining hall
[playing too easily in history]
I diminish my grades – lo tov
E270120
Ich mach’ Feierabend
Me: I am calling it a day
Not a thing to offer out
loud – others will argue
against my final remark
with their ignorant talk
I will translate it – then
& fewer souls will spew
their complaints aloud
about this last decision
Me: Ich mach’ Feierabend
Happiness Levelled
We will promptly
re-settle at 7/10 –
after that burst of
short-term delight
within swift gains
of lottery prizes &
oh-fantastic fucks
We will drop from
our 10/10 heights
to an unstoppable
senescence – sins
& timings conspire
to keep us [almost]
at eight’s euphoria
But not any higher
This is our ranking
of [real] happiness
The Boxer
Into a sweating pit –
By Christ – it stinks –
I am sense-rammed
by fag-drags & heat
& rude spits of beery
shouts from those held
outside by smokers’ rules
Inside it is a narrowing
of elbowed glasses –
of tipping arrogance
Booze kisses of men & women
who – between love’s swigs –
turn their eyes up
to high screens & updates
on their long & short bets
on their Main man –
Seconds out – Round One
& not a place for me
& my Waitrose bags
Reading Lights
I have slipped into being
one who staves day wear
& who’ll settle to waking
up with Bacalov & books
in his sitting chair below
his reading light – within
reach is his worn remote
My grandfather tuned in
to waves @ distances on
a glowing horizon – other
places – medium & long –
measured in x-kilometres
We both return to voices
on another old continent
But no newspaper barrier
Perhaps a remit for print?
A walk to a newsagent &
my reason to get dressed –
before settling – it is easy
under my long diagnosed
excuse for ageing quickly
I don’t really know
I don’t really know
my reset rationale
could be one way
to try to & decode
such heaving fugs
of chronic thought
in my rented place
with no rowdy kids
in a silenced room
I will keep making
money & take time
& sit at my window
Outside is another
way of being there
& finding existence
Pottering will save
me from my ill-hell
Attend an Evening
Class & take up art
Renew one’s library
card & hang out in
Romance & Poetry
Or find Love online
It has struck me so
I don’t really know!
Timepieces were embedded
Timepieces were embedded
into ornaments – weighted –
& photos were braced in gilt
frames upon wooden desks
Now & then were contained
in mounted spaces – visible
and in turn – reached by keys
or invitations – to appreciate
all time now & that time then
A Window
Creased net curtains
with stocking details –
old man’s smoked glass –
a soiled two-way mirror
His fag-stubbed ashtray
brims high with butts
Half-read thrillers
sit sliced by bookmarks
Yesterday’s puzzle –
cold clues unsolved
Ink stains his skin –
a love deeply carved
She remains in him –
his beloved strife
He is now alone –
a Brighton still life
Por Volver
Hola – I’m Lucky – you may know me
Buenos Dias – I don’t understand
that played out Spanish soundtrack
I tune into every morning
for my barefoot Yoga exercises
My filter coffee steams like road tar
as it thickens and fixes in minutes –
as my scarred white lungs enjoy
a smoke set off by my lighter’s click –
Look – another pack’s easy stick
So – Listen – I’m lucky to survive
a first deadfall – a foolish indignation
At my age – about tortoise-ish –
things slow down too easily
like a ship – a Large Slow Target –
like that sprung clock of death
which will not stop ticking for me
Truth is – it’s all going away
It’s fucking tough being Lucky
But I ain’t a convoluted piece of shit
End of Shift
This is my digging hand
at those exhausted seams
turned dust to dust
in my late soundless hour
to prop whatever up –
perhaps underpinnings
beneath presses of kilonewtons
into compressed layers
All this darkness was once painted –
as if in tar –
by a Welshman’s guided tour
through an exhausted mine –
it saw my hard-hat lamp-dim
and my eyesight drop
to where my father’s coughed up
black blood stuck – fool’s gold
Other dead men stand
in a wall-mounted photograph –
to tell of them and others who went to dig
at that hand-bared stuff
I will sit alone – propped by this revisiting hour
as my recall waits for sleep
to take me from my tunnelling
E241019
Thanks to Helen Ivory @nellivory for suggestions via National Writing Centre @WritersCentre
Care of AstroTurf
I am to return
to my adopted small-town
of mischievous lies –
laid out unmarked –
landmines left for me
to put my weight upon
Until then a tardy parade
of rental days in Golden Cross –
in my contracted place
with easy-to-keep
plastic grass and off-street
parking
I will build a wooden porch
to sit upon – there to look back on
leases – my temporary places
from my bought viewpoint
above my adopted small-town
and there to lose sight
of other – older – agreements
left to other’s disabuse
with a sofa for my dog
and a hammock for me –
no need to put my burthen
on that small-town ground
Liggers
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
Brushed
Fabritius chained
his blushing goldfinch
in exacting dark brush strokes
His bird stares malevolently back
at us – perched – wing clipped
in abeyance – dried into a charm
as those wind chimes swing again
on an equally thin link chain
beyond a high wooden fence
where our slow and elderly live
in stacked rooms
They’ll perch there for a while
Golden
I lift up Leonard’s
microphone
He had kissed
this windscreen’s
black-eyed foam
His spittle curdles
from his song
I can tell he had sipped
on bourbon’s whore
Tell me Leonard
what
was that
golden chord?
Perfect Skin
This skin on my foot
is turning to cratered scales –
like that of F’s
re-homed grandpa –
with his octogenarian husk
flaking from
his bared feet and shins
as if he had been set adrift
on the sea and salt-burnt
That old combatant held court
in his Surrey nursing home
thirty five years ago
His layers of recalls and of dust –
his remnants in a rented room –
have long been hoovered up
Perfect –
perhaps there is hope for me yet
Uckfield Carnival
This floor is piss-sweated
as are those swilled bowls
at Cinque Ports in Uckfield –
more beer-strewn puddles
of splattered cock misses
across slipped wet tiles
Old men flatter too-tight birds
by sleight of words of fucking –
we old fuckers are cursed
Alterations
Their remote
houses of joy
have stood
for far too long
to be immune
to upgrading
With new comforts
they’ll shelter
those seeing
only such changes
and those only
seeing nothing
Allow alterations
over our lives
into our ways
and time of living
for later ones
to revere by eye
and they’ll agree
change is good
Like Bookends
In another waking moment
with five AM forcing light outside
my conscious breath found
an angel’s littered question
How many of my earliest
friends are still alive?
Coruscating queries – lit fears
address us slightly older men –
of loss of crowning thick hair
oh – and recent deaths of muckers
Bill baulked at Paul Simon’s song
of ‘old friends sat on a park bench like..’
I had one pal hang himself
and another fall from a height
whilst others have taken to tumours
and less humorous routes off
My hairline is still a low-set feature –
light verse on such matters suits me
Ageing is that earthing and digging
forcing us all to bend under groans
as we push on equal spade widths
on that same cost of soil to everyone
No dead human kept his riches for long
They will clear your grave of treasure
A wise Israeli once advised me
Do not make it your precious métier
to outlive everyone in your world
No one will be left
to be impressed – לילה טוב*
*Goodnight
Commandments
Discard anything
that gathers dust
Do not drink alone
Do not fall in love
Avoid shouting
at inanimate objects
Sleep early – sleep sober
Wake without regret
Eat what’s hard to make
not what’s easy to buy
Stand in others’ shoes
of every possible size
Lust is not ageing’s
last flung measure
Fix your moments
in longer pleasures
On Church Street
Shortly after closing time
outside my unknown church –
feeling a stone’s frore
off dead men and women
upright as chiselled recalls
and staring – all – in disbelief
at that zealous parish priest
who dolls up as a spectre
A welcome departure
from his-biking leathers?
Do you fancy a whole Sunday
of such wanton dressing-up?
But – note – none of that
purely Anglicised-God-stuff
No vertical iron pressings
No M&S slacks in ageing beige
I am not of that creamy dotage
marked heaven-ready
My dark walk is guided on
by each clack-clack-clack
of my tapped black stick –
no more standing as a stone
Satan will catch me
if I stay too long
British Aisles
Among slow movers in Waitrose –
who have all the time in the world
to hunt and gather tea time’s treat
to eat under sheltered rooflines –
there is a muttered dignity in aisles
These retirees place select items
in shallow trolleys as they stop-go
Unhurried in their emeritus ways
In its café even us – such younger ones –
adopt the hushed reverence of age
and put off less urgent ‘phone calls –
a church service is about to start
Then fluorescents flicker and douse
and our light snacks are in a dark place
But those old shoppers do not stop
because such an act would be surrender
And their jokes flare up about shillings
and no one’s fed the meters
Their only way out is by those steep stairs
because no one trusts those German lifts
Country Pub
Before this evening’s
swell of punters fill
empty wooden tables
we solemn few near-sober
slow pint daytime drinkers
take our lost afternoon
over equal measures
of flat beer and crisps
as that occasional hour hand
slogs around to grind out time
in this low muttering pub –
until intuition says Go now –
before those commuters
turn up to sip more bullshit
Stops
Another thirty-ish minutes of life
lost to indecisions
By my lethargy
By her rough mis-reckonings
of tightly wound watches
and bare clock faces
You will never get it back
Did I ever want it thrust upon me?
Did I ask for that rum half an hour?
You have no choice in time’s ways
That furled-up woman was also held –
stilled – by a sudden summer downpour –
without coats – they were anchored
as rainwater oozed into a tidal rush
down Crowborough’s shined tarmac
The butcher called out to them –
I’m taking the canopy down! A joke
I won’t buy pies from Him again
Under library clocks her heart stopped
for a few seconds – even her pulse –
and no breathing – nothing was working
But it was a mistake – merely a pause
Another thirty minutes of unaccounted
being alive will be inexpertly multiplied
becoming a whole day – a whole year
of slumbered nothingness
and then turned to sleep
once time is tamed by her old age
Closing Times
Now – be forever consigned
to coughed-up-banter nights
at your threadbare old boys’ club –
propped behind spewed pints
of pump-drawn gut-brown beer
Your bent still good arm lifts
three quids worth of bowel-stripper
Last orders
and so a knocking back of pints
from unequal paid down rounds
And then that hundred-yard stagger
off to your desolate place –
a much less enticing thought
than just one more pour of best
A background outdoor chat
leaves you stood stock still
Now shuffle once more
with your pocket of shrapnel –
to be put in that jar in your hall
Gifted, again..
Michael, Not Me
– Looking nice Michael,
been somewhere special?
– Funeral. In the bloody rain.
Two pints of bitter, froth flat,
stand alongside the boozers,
as they then chat about showers
just passed and bloody penguins.
One of them, not Michael,
has the look of Rupert Murdoch.
Pints are refilled, the urinal next –
it takes more visits these days.
– Michael, you dressed this well
last time you was wed.. hahaha.
Ceiling beams, once chiselled
by equally beery men,
prop the roof of the bar
and threaten the non-stooped:
the timbers are black-slapped in gloss,
they ooze a shine like a ship’s tar.
Old age brings advantages,
and shrinkages and breakages.
A handshake, another drinker,
greeting Michael, not Mike (too old,
not Mick, too straight)
all to the hubbub, ice-chink,
bandit-complaint and clink
of glass and bar. Michael smiles.
MIKE BELL | 10,000 Poems 