Emily should play,
hanging around not caring
about the damage she has done
or the boys on Cowley Road
who care
not about the mask
she uses to appear hard, to seem
aloof to the propositions of undying
love, her reality warped, treated
to a future not intended for her
when we used to cuddle her as she fell
asleep on the lap and her glasses
slowly sliding down her button created nose;
Emily should play,
the Cowley Road calls
and a hundred miles away
Midnight over Mellieha Bay,
new holiday apartments
dotting the once barren sands,
crumbling castles formed
from plastic dream
and two weeks of summer break.
I once caught a glimpse
of the fragmenting Sun
from under the ramparts
of the green umbrella and the screams
of afternoon drunk disciples
lounging erect in the burning shadow;
I blinked and looked out
across the flat sea,
ripples of ebbing life
exhausted by decaying time
and I fear the long trek
up the hill to Mellieha.
The sweat pours wistfully from your brow
and like many before you,
Thompson backflip, Coe eminence,
Ovett working class maverick, Wells
my hero at the age of nine, dipping head
on the line, Lyndon Davies grace in the air,
sand undisturbed, Sean Kerly, an honour
to have met before he won Gold,
David Wilkie years after he became an icon,
Steve Redgrave, Linford Christie, Matthew Pinsett,
ninety six disappointment, crushed memories,
weightless and unimpressed, my own failure
at the heart of it…
Kelly Holmes resurgent, beautiful, bold and a queen
I can’t seem to function these days
without the hot rush
of tea, without
the taste of inspiration
that fills the gut and sends
ideas spinning out of control
into a void in which
I pluck, grab and scramble
for a single notion.
Long dead
are the days when a beer,
a glassful of whisky
sipped at dawn, revolver shot
to the brain and imagination
crowded
would be the order of the day;
I miss that, I miss the insanity,
the belief that I could conquer all…
Your wedding invitation came today,
virginal white paper, stencilled
black type and a date
to put in the grey diary
that seemed oddly familiar, a date
which we would forever share,
a date which I guess you might never find
in a society that not so long ago
was so stupid that it could not
celebrate love between two people,
for fear of what love might mean.
I knew of your love at University
and overjoyed I am as I read
your invitation, to share
The moon, crater
crammed, swims into view
through the gap
in my beige curtains
and looks down upon me
with once innocent surprise,
yet I know that the man
in the moon is judging me,
that silently throughout
my forty five years
he has done nothing but give me
silent treatment, never encourage
or console when I am afraid;
it is cold and aloof
and creates shadows of
that are unfulfilled and hollow.
Ian D. Hall 2016
There is no make-up that hides
the face beneath the skin,
my smiling expression,
sincere at least,
hides the sadness that I cannot
otherwise contain.
You can hide yours with all the eye
shadow you want, all the powder
and ruby red
lipstick coating the snarl, but
it will only ever be varnish
on the surface; underneath
you will always be vain and obnoxious.
Ian D. Hall 2016
I cannot remember your name,
I am sorry.
I remember your face
every time I close my eyes, I
have never forgotten you
but I cannot remember your name.
I know the first time I met you,
I can recall with ease the first song
I heard in your company,
and if you were a woman
I can remember the first kiss we may
have shared, that we felt possessed in its safety;
I strain though to summon up the memory
of your name and for that,
Alan Wells
was a hero of mine when I was younger,
when I first realised
what the Olympics meant,
what it could inspire,
what it could be
if not allowed to be dominated
by politics and cheats
or death’s unfavourable hand;
the dip
of the head at the line,
something I loved.
Nearly forty years on,
past the excuse of the biggest cheat
of them all, an athlete that destroyed
my faith, past vainglorious,
past deception and onto spectacle,
onto breathing legend and admiration
Was it wrong to believe
for a short while
that I could recapture a moment
in time,
fleeting perhaps,
the small gesture
of alluded art that I so desperately
wanted to be part of.
That to dream of standing
before you, the lonely virginal
player, steeped in the allure
of the greasepaint and the single
short monologue
in which to make
an entrance with,
to make people sit up
and take notice of,
was that ever so wrong.
Into drastic middle age, early death has been defied