By late afternoon
I felt it might snow.
The crisp chill air
that breathed silently in Central Park
became sullen
as the
drop in temperature caused
a fed-up call girl
to smirk at me
and turn a cold shoulder
at my faded glory park bench
companion and I.
Studiously ignoring each other,
he in the middle
of humming a tune, repeatedly to
himself
as random messages and inspiration
were pulled from the ether
He was sure that the Government would support him,
He expected no less
as a taxpayer, albeit one
who paid with other’s cash
when they weren’t paying attention.
But how surprised was our Jo
when the Westminster circus
told him that his job
was no longer viable,
he would have to retrain,
to change direction.
As he felt the three-day growth
of hair on his cheeks, and the curry
he had with the boys
from a rival firm,
There are others,
I am sure,
That if I put my mind to it, if
I allowed myself to put under
and
Have my mind probed,
Mined of coal, the hope of diamonds
Springing
Eternal, I would dismiss them,
For my first memory is
One of exclusion,
Watching a blank-faced nursery school teacher
Explain to my despairing
Mother that they had no room
For a boy
Like me.
Ian D. Hall 2020
A comfortable prison, I have all
I have in two rooms, staring
back at me, pulling me in
to different worlds
and dreams, an art filled life
but one
that I fear returning from.
For the jungles that tigers
roam and stalk
their prey at night
and the Martians
crashing into the common
near Woking Station,
holds less alarm and sense
of trepidation
than knowing I am a prisoner
of my own making.
too institutionalised
Take me to the landfill
and leave me there
to be torn apart by the razor
sharp beak of the seagulls;
savagely squawking as they fight
for the morsels
and the remains of sweetmeats.
Place me on a pyre
of my efforts and strike a match
underneath the kindling
doused in petrol and regret,
and leave me to burn
as my body melts away
to smoke
and the black circles drifting
in the wind….
With government
and bankers
pushing the agenda,
as a benefit,
of a cashless society…
Can it now be
truly said
that
money is no object.
Ian D. Hall 2020
We have re-named the days of the week
in our house, to more reflect the times
we have become accustomed to experiencing.
The months as well, have undergone change,
but instead of March to
whenever, they have been designated
as before this crap went down, the first upward
curve has become when we chose to be stoic,
and anytime since is now, I can’t remember, was it last
week, or back when June was actually a thing.
The moments between the hour are reserved
Ignore poetry
at your peril,
even a teenage crush
that rips your heart apart
as you find meaning
to your tears and anguish
can be found to be more beneficial
once explored in any shapely
form and luscious lips worth kissing
will do more for your soul
than feigning interest
in the rights of a triangle
tilted on its side….Ignore poetry
and when hoping to court
your love with words,
think back to the sentence
Could you have imagined
as In-laws looked on
at the Warwickshire lad who
swept the nurse off her feet,
what fifty years would bring.
A half century on, time has been
and what a time it was,
from a still black and white photograph
as family joined, a celebration
that has been at sea and the comfort
of dry land, did you imagine
ever
that the life you have shared
would have been
before playing Cribbage
Wearing the outside
in these days, my Grandfather
would have raised
an eyebrow at the lack of formality
even behind the closed
green and yellow door,
brill creamed silver hair, combed
in, neatly presented,
even out of uniform,
he stood tall.
These days
in, are fraught
behind the closed doors
we have shut
tight, stopping short of hammering
wood across the entrance,
confining ourselves
to the odd peek