I hit upon a theory one warm night in mid-June,
just a simple thought but one
that nagged at me all through the next day,
one that I wish I could have had years ago
and saved me from a lot of bother
as I chased after women
when I was younger.
The theory, I must impart this to my boys,
unless they grow up as men to whom the carrot,
the sprout and the Quorn appeal,
is that if when round the women’s house
The thunder growls with the offer of temptation to
the old enchanteress Witch of Searesbyrig and the flash of
lightning seals the loaded deal as yet another limp weary
traveller, half drowned by the talasmatic Nadder, dogged by Time,
fully disciplined and near dead from his direct action and exhaustive days
flight and fight against a foe of fury unseen,
seeks his way, seeking shelter from the strange energies
that such a storm springs up from Satan’s well.
Such words of welcome to the weary and wilting man
On the day that Christopher Lee died,
the world of Nightmares seemed less important
and as I struggled in my usual, haphazard way to fall asleep
I started counting teeth, the times I had seen
The Hammer House of Horror films helping
in this regard.
My father, upright, upstanding, noble of heart,
hated me watching Grange Hill, the non realism, or perhaps
the frightening truth of 1970s education in the heart
of the country at stake, enough to know
that it was a not a television programme for a boy
Nature smiles at the irony
that is on display in the side step of land
that acted as the border between the heathen
appreciation and the Godly interloper. The whisper
that has seen the branches of green rise up
and mushroom their canopy of shade
over the entire wall and threatens to engulf
and convert the minds of all
who live down St. Andrews Road into saluting
the wonder
of environmental progress as the battle for hearts and minds
is out of control.
It won’t last of course,
I smile,
though I am no villain,
flawed and complicated, problematic and absurd yes,
but no villain am I.
I smile
because the alternative is to scream,
to take the point of existence out of the illogical equation
and drown it, submerge it, threaten
to immerse it under so much sea water
that the pain will stop
after a while
and the easy breathe of innocence, so sweet,
will fill my lungs with joy.
I smile
because the alternative is
It is the whisper of uncertainty that growls
softly next to my ear and throws punches that strike
between my ribcage and pummels the heart
over and over again. The shouts of derision
of the fear and loathing in the back of my mind,
whispering slowly, the crescendo damning with faint praise
and the suffering of the crested rejection never far behind
the swell of the tsunami breaking itself apart
on the polystyrene rock of my thoughts;
the erosion of Time left ever scared on my scared
and fractious mind.
I find myself more drawn to the past
than I have found myself in decades.
The rose coloured telescope pinpointing with
alarming accuracy what I already knew
but was too deaf, to blind and stupid
to understand what could have been
if I’d had the courage to stay and not move
on once more.
The past, the illusion of fine weather days,
of fresh country air filling my lungs
and cleansing the stuffy headed inoculation
first given to me in a needle fit to burst
The darkness of the night crowds in
and I’m left alone with grinning spectres
plaguing my twilight hours and my uncomfortable state
of mind, fragile, insistent, running so fast
that smoke billows out and only one idea in a million
sees the dawn and breathes deeply
at surviving
another unseen, obscure dusk.
I want to scream, so drawn to the darkness
that envelopes me, that barely a whisper of mortal love
for the shadows and the fog crosses my cracked open mouth
and the declaration of irresistible devotion
It is almost as if scientists have discovered
a new subsection of Humanity
that never appeared in the growing pains
of the species between ape and man.
The new hailing stone of enlightenment
and information which comes our way via the mass
media in which the modern discovery was made
suggests that this scientific breathing wonder
that eats, sleeps, makes love and has the capacity
for great artistic endeavour
they found
crossing the seas in search of life
should not exist
and yet as they die in their hundreds,
It was a small gesture of friendship
in which she decided to put into a clear shot glass
that was once filled to the brim, slightly on edge,
with the taste of Old Balvenie and which now
housed two small remnants of pavement grown
flowers, one opened and with its petals drooping
as it reflects the sunlight;
the other closed, frightened, lost and alone
as it remembers what it was to be a wall flower.
The taste of ozone hits the Waterloo and Crosby air
and the flowers take different paths,