There was almost no better day
than that in which I told the old sailor,
some called traitor
to the flag, some called much worse,
and that’s not for me to remark upon,
to get the fuck out of my pub,
his brand of high seas, glassy eyed leering debate
was not wanted in amongst the beer
and the stains in which he passed his greasy
fingers between the glasses ready to be cleaned,
washed and scrubbed as he waited with
a vile lop sided grin for me to shake
The first memory I retain,
not the ones handed down to me in black and white,
of going missing as my mother and nan
were shopping in Abingdon
and after going spare and wondering
how they were going to break the news
to my father, only to find me
giggling away to myself in the coal shed
that joined the house, having apparently walked
home alone…
…the memory I have that still hurts in my mind,
that has seared so much into the very fabric
War is in the air but for now the year is content
to stretch out is tentacles
and feel the Northern sun warm the soul
and the days to become ones of bliss,
of harvesting the rewards
of bounty and the food
that will sustain the people under
Weodmonath’s care.
The gladiolus bloom everywhere
she looks and her charm, tempered by
anger of Solmanath’s revenge like fury
on her previous troubled psyche, is still…
Deep in the heart of her bosom though
In black and white
she let the steam from her coffee
rise above the page boy haircut,
dance for the shortest
time around her eyes,
deep, beautiful, the sparkling seduction
of a desert song at dusk
and let the sigh of ages push
the coffee to its farthest shore
and the small bubbles of indifference
pass in their wake
like small tug boats caught in an
ocean storm.
I see her in monochrome,
the shadow of the day
falling over her face, the small wisps of hair
Unlike Robert the Bruce,
I feel no sense of accomplishment when watching the industry
of the spider as it spins its fine silken dance at the bottom
edge of my library window.
I sit there watching it recreate the try
and try again routine in the vain hope of catching the elusive
as each morning I brush away the web
but never seeing the many fold truth of its endeavours.
I am not inspired by its work,
quite the opposite, for I feel it puts me to shame
I can feel the beat of a what could be a great dance move begin
as the vibrations start
and despite what the Beach Boys proclaimed in
they are not good,
in fact for the Time they nestle in my bones,
and spread out across the landscape,
the battle ground with flags and basecamps
bombarding my body,
the juddering, static charge of small tactical grenades
going off deep inside me but with the added,
sheer galling bonus of that it only affects those
who see me weeping on the bed,
The troops on the ground on British streets
are there solely to protect us,
so the rhetoric goes
and the decision to have armed forces
supplied by an outside firm
is to save the taxpayer the expense of one solitary
Pound being used for what is effectively
Marshall Law, a crack down on the Militant extremists
in our midst.
Our protection, if it was for our protection,
If it was indeed to keep us safe,
to be able to wrap our arms in comfort and joy
The Philadelphian Liberty Bell rang out silently
that the British are coming,
not in order to subdue or to raise terror
and burn down the White House, to smoke
out the tender uprising,
what would be the point when if I had lived
through such times I would have been in Boston
saving the tea but pointing out that coffee
would have been more of a statement
of future intent,
no
the bell rang out for a freedom of my own making
and I allowed my friend, my Philadelphia counsel
We spin through history
barely scraping the sides with our bitten,
skin wrecked
fingernails, barely clinging on to the future
and never once allowing
ourselves to make more than the simplest
footprint into the course, dusty sand that Time
plays in.
Yet I briefly touched Time once
as we all should, and as St. Agnes stood
motionless
I carefully traced the ripple of the destruction
running down her spine, the tsunami like waves
that Time and the Fat Man with his cigar
I am always in therapy,
the trouble is I am my own private physician
who prescribes too much medication
in the form of dropped words, social
exclusion and my own valueless fears
for which cannot be bought
for they have become too priceless.
The University taught me to analyse
the words of others and when I read them now
I wonder how much sub-text goes on
between the sheets, and then I pour scorn
like a never ending jug of milk
from the near sucked off teat