Category Archives: Poetry

The Party On The Beach (Or The Last Chance To Keep Walking West).

The roar of the Atlantic Ocean breaks in time with Ginsberg’s words

And the woman that I laid next to on the beach stretched

Her arms out absent-mindedly as far as they would go and

Casting a shadow on the seventeenth page, making me flick tiny particles of sand

over her in disgust.

Her friend, listening to one of my tapes that I had recorded in my bedroom

Before I skipped across the pond to meet you, remarked that the batteries were running

Out and she was bored of listening to the sound of the ‘tramp,

The Party On The Beach (Or The Last Chance To Keep Walking West). full post

(880 words, estimated 3:31 mins reading time)

The Party On 77th Street (Or When The Barmaid Knows You Best).

The party was in full swing as beer and whisky were downed as if the world was ending.

I happily drank more than most and sat in the corner, the internal haze of my time

Gazing back at me through frosted glass and my smile,

Permanently plastered on this English face, for a while stopped beaming.

The noise outside the Manhattan window, the cars driving down 77th Street, the people

On the sidewalk, cheering in humour, some shouting in pain

At the arguments that fuelled the city. The sound of a distant gunshot

The Party On 77th Street (Or When The Barmaid Knows You Best). full post

(844 words, estimated 3:23 mins reading time)

In No Man’s Land.

I squat and shiver here in a trench just yards from No-Man’s Land

In place of my brother

Who refused to fight for King

And country or for the comradeship.

He would have been proud to wear a white feather

But I got the better of his conscious and made him

Let me take his place, even though I was too young to fight.

Now I see No-Man’s Land and

Its squalor, filth and sound of death that fills my ears

As people die for a blade of grass no longer there,

In No Man’s Land. full post

(158 words, estimated 38 secs reading time)

The Serpent’s Defence For Eve.

The Serpent swallowed hard and looked Eve squarely in the eye,

“Do not worry oh first woman of many,

I may be tempting you with forbidden fruit

But they will soon forget your lust and realise

That Adam’s sin was greater

And how they shall talk and will not defend his honour

You will be blameless, they shall all whisper

Of how I corrupted him.

 

Ian D. Hall 2013

 

Permanent link to this post (73 words, estimated 18 secs reading time)

When The Albatross And Norfolk Met.

Castle Cornet stood proud in the afternoon Channel Island sun. The centuries old

And worn facade that had withstood civil hostilities in the household

The Emperor, the writing of Hugo as he gazed down enquiringly from his exile and to

Those whose heinous crimes and morally tattered flag that still live in the minds of Guernsey folk.

The walls shook and trembled at our first meeting where I asked you the time

As you walked, wandered past me, youthful hips wiggled and laughed.

A sly scenic smile upon your lips that were three months older than mine

When The Albatross And Norfolk Met. full post

(366 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

From A French Lover To The Cold And Aloof.

I tucked Kerouac into my back pocket, a set of pouches stitched together in jeans that already

Held thirty dollars in loose change, a bus ticket that was never checked

By the young black driver who just gave me a smile as he wished

Me a good evening and was amused when I answered back with an English accent.

A chocolate bar, half eaten, evidence of the journey I had taken to find you.

Kerouac groaned as he span in his grave to see his work becoming

Lost in the back of my trousers.

From A French Lover To The Cold And Aloof. full post

(531 words, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

A Blinking Red Eye

I always looked north, a force of habit I allowed myself

As I took shelter from the rain and driving incessant wind that hung over

The valley and clung like a finely woven tight spider’s web around my throat on the hill.

I never went to the other side of the town and looked south

Even though my oldest friend lived in that direction.

My heart was beyond the boundary of the city, a village in all but name

As the Cathedral grew even out of the densest mist coming off the rivers.

A Blinking Red Eye full post

(439 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Records Of Bicester.

One of the great seats of learning may have been a few short miles away.

An eternity on a bike but on clear Oxfordshire days the journey was the best.

Past Wendlebury, past Stella’s house, a journey I undertook many times back and forth.

Bicester in the winter felt desolate, days when all you wanted to do was go into town,

Down Sheep Street and look in the record shop, spend hours looking at one creative album sleeve

As the man behind the counter played the same music over and over again.

Records Of Bicester. full post

(749 words, estimated 3:0 mins reading time)

Kerouac Dreams.

I found peace in Ginsberg County without the aid of new patois and peyote to bring forth

Dreams.  No hard beer or soft women from the broken Morrison’s Hotel to keep words flowing,

All I was left with was the terms of a contract not yet signed. Kerouac yawned and smiled

With his teeth showing, baring at me across the table, daring me to join in some inspired anarchic

Game, a ritual, a joyful disease that saw leaflets dropped and new words learned.

Keep the flag flying high, the dream alive whilst offering me a full glass of dirty Bourbon.

Kerouac Dreams. full post

(695 words, estimated 2:47 mins reading time)

A Farewell To Drowning.

I have the familiarity of a journey

Yet to be taken, yet one step away from you and drive

Deeper into my Internal Haze. It is voyage,

A tumble through what remains of what is to come as

you go and start and star in a wonderful life…

I cannot hold on to you.

 I would rather drown a thousand times than let you throw me

A ring of comfort, a sign of help I badly want to hold because I know that in the end

I may well be then on higher ground away from the raging tempest

A Farewell To Drowning. full post

(268 words, estimated 1:04 mins reading time)