To live and die by numbers,
to be at the mercy of numerical opinion
and the percentage point,
to infer that all is lost upon the raising brow
of the integer and downcast digit,
is surely only adding up
to the fact that we have lost control
of humanity, our human intelligence eroded
by quantity rather than time;
to live and die by the second, to pack things in
to the day rather than be ruled by one to ten,
to live in the moment for as long as possible, stretching it out
Mongrel,
or mixed heritage
invader blood in my heart
conquered and crushed,
victor and heroic warlords
on the battlefield,
the result of taken or ceded
I am a mongrel,
I have no true country
only safe land from water,
only safe land from war,
the grandchild of an immigrant
the grandchild of Cornwall,
potent mix dating back centuries
and now you want me to hate
you want me to condemn
that even my own blood borne out of pillage
and deceit and war and conquered lands,
Today I am uncomfortable
in my own knotted skin,
I don’t know how to react
to the stimuli of life, the poison
I drink in, that I want
to swallow by the lungful, the sea
that I wish to drown in as I sweat,
at the prospect of another day
excusing ghosts of their past,
whilst still condemning myself
to death everyday.
Ian D. Hall 2016
Life, love and understanding
in the inviting alleyways that stem
out of every pore of real London,
teeming London, rank
and file, true blessed, authentic
and crowded
and congested
and swarming heartbeat London,
where Underground darkness
bathes in existence and light…
I love your streets and the historic new,
the passion in the frank,
beer crashing, dimpled glasses, London Pride,
that swallows in the smoke
and the grated conversation
over dying trades; reminding
me of New York but poorer but no less sincere.
My guardian angel
never wanted the job
in the first place, she not only sighed
and whinged, placed her hoof down
with a firm angelic paw
but she gave God the finger when she
said with strictness in her voice
“Someone has to do
and I am afraid
it is down to you.”
The saintly finger risen from its paw
has followed me everywhere
and the guardian has often tied my shoes
together, pushed me down the stairs
and then made sure I landed
It has to be said for there is no way
to hide it,
you make me feel invisible, imaginary,
that when you close your eyes at night
or look away at the rain in a far off county,
to you I have become the person you once
dreamed of, slowly dissipating into thin
noxious air, gassed and slumped over
for your amusement and only then do
you poke me in the eye via a spiky bark-less
tree limb, poke me in the guts and praise
the gods that I am still; invisible
The flame will only ever become a trail
of brief whispered smoke
if you extinguish it yourself, when others
try to put the wick out, all that happens
is after they have gone and busted your balls
for not using the electric light at your command
that the match, red faced but saluting
the moment in readiness as it turns to sulphur,
strikes back against the grain,
and lights the candle once more,
sparks life, albeit closeted and in a world of
writhing shadows upon the green backed walls,
Every time, not just occasionally, but
every time I hear of a senseless death
at the hands of a lunatic,
the ones who believe they are
an avenging angel of death, of retribution,
of dark black clad mindfilled with hate
reckoning bathed in their own
self righteous haze,
I think of you.
It is bad enough you haunt my dreams
that I dare not sleep at times
because I know you will
come to me like a lover scorned,
Poe like finger shaking as the rotted corpse
At Bristol Temple Meads Station,
a place I had known well
since the days of travelling, sideswiped
by having my soul
trapped between south and middle of the road
middle of decisions of going back and forth
on rails, on tracks, keeping on track…
I set out to conquer a new world
with the help of Michael Palin standing
directly behind me as the August
sun sapped my strength.
My father, the man who got me into
the beautiful game along with a man
James rolled his eyes inside the Fly
as we pulled down our glasses,
just a notch, enough to make the sentence
that passed round the table
to loud cheers
as football fans took
great delight in the opening goal,
to live and breathe in the land of innuendo.
The girl in ginger had long passed
off to another pub and we were left,
bereft upon the sea of groovy insinuation
and tied to the mundane,
until James, his wonderful
malapropisms and habit of ordering rum