…And there is no room in the world for the sentimental.
No earthly place in which to stack the memories
upon high, layer upon layer like bricks laid out
on a spring morning in which to build an annexe.
Move on, like a fluttering unfeeling butterfly
already in the sights of the patient entomologist,
letting go of the nightly moth in his paw like grip
and ready to pin you down.
I will not but be sentimental, to be romantic,
certainly emotional and perhaps at times flowing
There is a shelter in the park that acted as a goal,
the football aimed squarely at whoever was unfortunate enough
to act as the keeper, imagining they were Peter Shilton, Ray Clemence
or in my case the great Gordon Banks or even
Bert Trautman.
Not that I often went in goal, I didn’t like diving
on to bare concrete and seeing my T-shirt
ripped to shreds in a strange, weird way of portraying machismo.
I made allowances when some of the girls that we knew
We might not ask you to go to war in a foreign field,
however in the hundred years since the flower of youth
died needlessly and with great pain, we have lied
to you over and over again, and I for one as an old man apologise
for what the world has done to you.
This flowering youth, every generation’s future bright young things,
constantly lied to, not just here but the world over,
until they become the embodiment of the lie to sell
on again and keep the splintered, creaking wheel
Isn’t it bad enough that I get told to think reverentially of you?
That by some magical decree of someone’s simple x, my life
is indebted to a system that is morally corrupt
and yet you now say I should mourn for one just as bad,
if not worse.
If I had been a turkey and voted for Christmas’ past
I could understand being placed into an oven and forced
to sweat, over and over as the thought of the carving knife plunged,
steel tipped into my breast…
The tornado of sweating souls slowly catches their collective breath,
but only for the briefest of polite respites, for the pulse
is gaining speed and the heart rate quickens in time
with the drum stick, the judge’s gavel, taking issue
with the ones at the side of the pit, ready to hit-out
but too scared to throw themselves into the whirlwind.
The Mosh, once in, never released, never to be forgotten,
never to disclose that what happens in the sweating bounce
stays in the sweating, feverish, testosterone fuelled dance.
There must come
a time in everybody’s life when they are hit
by the dawning realisation
that they never have been, and never will be,
the go to fantasy figure
in someone else’s dreams.
The dark brooding hero who pulls his off- white trilby down
over his eyes, who can blow smoke out his nose
like a fire breathing dragon pumping merrily away
as a thousand workers shovel Welsh coal into its lungs, and all the time
cause the damsel in distress to flutter her eye lids,
Every generation believes it be the last greatest one that will walk the Earth.
The final ones to shoulder the standard before a shadow falls on Empire
and weeds start to grow beneath humanity’s feet,
and weave their way silently to the fatted necks
slung low by the weight of unrealistic expectation.
We are kept in check by the ghosts of grandparents and their memories,
we understand the mistakes they made, the unexpected dances
they waltzed on generation’s passed and the now forgotten graves
that sit row upon row like stone guards awaiting a presidential cavalcade
Sometimes your most hated enemy, the person
who makes you sick the most,
the one you would trust with absolute certainty
to piss you off more than any other…
is the one that will hold your hand at the end.
For years they stuck the knife in whenever possible
and dismissed your name with the ease of a
camel drawing breath or the ferocity of a kitten
with aspirations and desires to be a lion in charge of a pack…
and yet they will mop your burning brow as you slip away.
…For all I crave to do is scream.
For going beyond that means drowning
and I’m too good at that, I can do it in any monochrome dream
and achieve the burnt sensation of the nettled sting.
…But one day I will forget to breathe
at the vital moment and swallow air that they provide
so willingly for my testament and my will to leave
to choose my own side.
As I pull myself down and allow the sea to rush into my lungs
I want to leave you in charge,
The Pantomime Dame wipes off his make-up
in an exaggerated style
and smiles broadly, but with a hint of exhaustion
disguised by heady amusement
in his sparkling brown eyes, at the saxophonist
who has played him in on stage and in time for forty nights,
excluding the supposed festive delight filled days,
on the run.
The saxophonist for his part only has eyes for the principal boy
who has been the hero
for many a confused child, who asks their mother,
but never their father,