A policeman with a gun
patrolling the perimeter
of the Bull Ring
whilst I watch on,
a deep furrowed look
on my face
and the steam from the tea
wrestling with the open air
opens the memory
of seeing such a thing in New York.
Policed by consent, yet bullets on British streets,
a tag line for the latest West End Show,
doesn’t have the same ring as
Bullets over Broadway,
isn’t as deadly, as yet,
as bullets over Baghdad
and inside I feel fear,
A different dog,
not scary, not out to bite me,
panted as if the world had been spinning
at a million miles an hour
and he had been close
enough to chase his tail,
playful enough to grin
and make my sister’s home
the point of existence,
to put a smile on my face.
I had forgot just what a dog
could bring to your soul,
in praise
even when for the 50th time
they stick their nose
in your crotch
and leave you the slobbery ball,
Do you remember your old Cup Final days,
the only live match all season,
that you could watch on the television,
instead of wall to wall
blanket coverage,
the pull out special in the pages
of your newspaper of choice,
the pencil drawings
and the managers looking on
with pride having achieved mortality
for a few weeks and the songs
from the terraces as the day grew closer,
the interviews on the bus
and the poet, always one,
coming up with a piece that
It’s not you…
I look in the mirror
each time I feel this darkness
descend, I know it’s not you
but the mirror
sneers and lies to me,
my reflection
haunted, incapable of compassion,
scorns and sniggers
whilst all the time never letting me go,
the mirror it seems
is the victor
in this battle, it knows
how to bring me down,
cashing in on the fact
that I must stare into the abyss
again and again, to lose sight of the dead and the forgotten
Was there anything you couldn’t do,
a second dad to me,
my father’s best friend
then
and now and for as long
as I breath
you are a hero,
decked out in Bournemouth
red and black, yet
we attended Southampton games together,
football of any colour,
our finest moment
off the field
was to sit together at Old Trafford,
your first visit, my first victory in Blue;
on the back of the Daily Mirror
when Monday came.
You stopped at our house on Manilla Road
It has been impossible to ignore,
the shouts of derision,
the media insanity and lacking balance,
of course the people of Mos Eisley spaceport
would have dearly loved
to vote in someone with integrity
like old Ben Kenobi
but he could not be trusted,
better stick with Lord Vader,
a comfortable pair of hands,
a firm tight grip
on the situation
and in the end
it’s not like we fall for the rhetoric,
we are decent citizens
and have no interest in the scum
The final step,
the heart pushing
beyond
the rib cage
and the icy breath
short stabbing
inhalation,
exhale, laboured
fighting,
screaming for air,
the lungs near
collapse now
join Hilary’s Step
in man’s decline,
a monster,
once tamed, now
breathing no more,
dead, gone, the folly
of climbing the mountain.
Ian D. Hall 2017
We lose our capacity
to remember the first time
when as a toddler, the groovy
cherub child with sparkling eyes
and father’s nose, when we became
the pain in the arse,
the ache in the side of our parents head
and the cause of arguments,
we forget the joy
of the first time we asked why?
We rebel, we glory in poking
a hole in the absolute,
we saturate our speech with this new found word
and not realising the implication
it will have on our lives,
I will put my life
in the hands of the sympathiser,
rather than the terrorist
at No 10.
Behind that closed black door,
sits the heart of Government
and stained and festering it is,
for terrorism needs no guns,
the terrorist requires
no bullet, bomb, just the press
in which to carry out the threat,
get old, we will kill you off,
become ill, we will kill you off,
lose yourself in the fog, we will kill you off,
become unproductive, uncared for,
It was always the phrase,
“How selfish”
that got me, for if
you have never stayed awake in the glow
of the Sun’s universal embers
fending off the dark,
fighting it with sword and will,
you will never know the relief
when you finally realise
that you were the one
who could unscrew
the lightbulb.
Ian D. Hall 2017