There is an upside to having suffered with nightmares
all my life, the terror that has had me screaming out
at four in the morning as the feeling of cramp
sets in and the heart jolts me awake in some antique form
of Hypnic Jerk and the pain is compounded
by the
sweat of salted tears that kiss my lips and
run down past my nose,
gliding as if on a mountain range,
a single skier running over every pore but
with no tricks up its sleeve.
The ghost sits waiting patiently till I am half way
to a paradise of exhausted slumber before it somehow
manages to turn the radio over to medium wave.
The sound of the crisp digital broadcast suddenly lost,
abandoned into the vaporous ether like wisps of smoke
drifting out to sea and drowned out by the sound of Nelson’s drum
beating slowly as it recognises that some part of the country
is about to drown. Not my part surely as I wake with groggy eyes
puffed up and swollen from the ghostly attack on my right
On the day I met Shaun Goater, I realised I had met
a living legend of Blue persuasion,
one who ranked with Colin Bell, Peter Barnes,
Uve Rossler, Asa Hartford and Bert Trautmann
as the hand I wanted to shake for being themselves
when placing the blue shirt above all in the name of the Kippax
and the beauty in despair of being an exiled Citizen.
From the first game away at Birmingham City,
a bus journey from Selly Park, from where soon
a picture of Joe Corrigan would look down
The view from up here is magnificent, the possibilities endless
but it has to be beyond memorable to catch everyone’s eye
and make them sigh inwardly with a rush
of pleasure that they may have seen a piece of you
as they go on their way past the noise of seagulls
as they flap in God-like unison looking for the worms on the very bottom
where you actually reside and breath.
As they climb back down the stairs and every so often pause
to see how the view looks from a different perspective,
I cannot feel my pulse under the skin
and my breathing
at times too erratic, too shallow,
unkempt
and barely noticeable, only captured in the smoked over
glass as the whisper of exhalation or in the stagnated
overthrow of winter’s icy breath
that makes me want to remember images
of my childhood with a chocolate cigarette, two fingers
up to the corner of my mouth as if I
was recreating a scene
from a film noir
and I was the gumshoe solving
my own imminent demise.
A spider may be considered to be more disturbing by some
but your eyes betray the coldness of a killer
as they scan the room and your head barely pivots
upon the neck, no twitching of muscle visible
as the glare of insanity relaxes briefly
sensing no immediate threat to the game.
I see across the room and I watch with morbid
fascination and discern no sweat line even in the mouldering heat
and realise that inside of you, it must be awash, the agitation
of the Charles Manson like persona, the matted hair
I didn’t care where the shooting stars fell
as I watched them travel the night sky,
jet packed, pre-historic revolutionary travellers
falling to ground in chunks, bombarding the Earth,
causing small dimples to pock-mark the scared green land,
for all I cared about was the dimples in your cheeks
as they rose higher and turned sacred red
as you watched in girlish anticipation
for another to wish your life upon.
We lay atop the roof of your Volkswagan, your baby,
yellow crusted, old cans and bottles rattling
“It’s different”, she said to me, her eyes blazing
with the ferocity of one caught in the act of shielding
her pupils against the sudden rush of sunlight
that had crept over the green lush hill
full of potential and the intoxicating aroma
of diverse flowers flowing on the wings of Apollo,
not a rose in sight to pour scorn over.
“It’s as if the dance we had is the same,
the tune vaguely familiar and interesting, but the steps,
the ones we learned together, have now been altered.”
I let the flames devour the past today
whilst keeping each memory intact for future use.
I let an explosion of tight yellows and blues spread
and search for more fuel, more wasted ways to say
that the muse of words have been completely abused
and now they lay fried and buried, the words are dead.
I once hung upon them and revered them to show growth,
the patient delivery of a lead-lined pencil, the Time between Time
and the slow mark of a pact, the most solemn of oaths;
How will it feel to see you again?
Part of me is terrified, not of you, but
of the memories you will bring to town
and lay at my door mat as you knock repeatedly,
Time your ally as you surprise me with a giant
version of pass the parcel, my layers since leaving you
regretfully, in some cases with genuine tears of affection,
stripped back, the me of now, just a school boy in bigger
trousers, longer hair, still angry at the world;
regressing through Time until the music
stops.