Nothing Changes

“Even the apostles were tent-makers
..They had to live just the way we do”
Sylvia Plath – The Bell Jar

My mother insisted No one’s happy –
everyone is miserable [back in 1982]
when life unnerved us teenage boys
[fearing obligations] But we couldn’t
stop thinking about sex & of getting
off with assuring girls – Go ugly early
was our pre-drinks motto / But I fell
in love with Fiona Malyan / She was
beyond my grip – my roughneckness
glowed / Then I tempted Marguerite
Donlon [her stage name] – but I wept
in a call box – She is not wanting you
was quiet advice from her gossiping
friend / So between lust & fucks with
several women & men [& rolling from
dirty beds] my ability to grip at things
rescinded & my mother’s insight rung
again – too now true / Rien ne change


Also on Medium

Our Arraignments

Sometimes she lies unknown
without a weathered headstone –
his fingerprints have been struck off
in rages ‘gainst Mytholmroyd’s son

Ted was – just once – Daniel Hearing
not yet un-spelt by strangers’ chisels –
no – they remove his Hughes adjunct
as if they are pummelling his smug face

And did he sever her crown of braids
in some overt – rash – cut and grab?
Was her estate of words – not enough?
Complaint never kept the Laureate at bay

At an unkept distance – from the graveyard –
there the old stench – a sharp stink of fox
still lingers above the farms and streets –
The rest is posthumousas was once said