I have no Pride, not in appearance.
For why take pride in being anything other
than clean and tidy-ish,
as long as my hair is clean,
as long as the clothes are ironed
and fit, no slight down
ward curve of the jeans falling
from their natural place,
but I shall wear no tie, I shall
not place a noose around my neck
and squirm and feel the tightness
of the knot as it cuts
deep into my throat.
I shall feel no Pride,
Never been the one for lust.
Love, now that’s a different prospect
altogether, for its patience is slow burning
and isn’t drowned in desire losing
its initial far thrown spark,
Chinese firework like, one big explosion
then nothing, the basic act
of the terminally pretty.
Love though confuses people, for
they think that if you say you love them,
their heads are turned, they believe
you have crossed the border into
infatuation, where as all you mean
is you love them, that lust is not on the agenda,
I have lost my way,
somewhere between here and there,
the signpost was deliberately shifted,
my objective clouded over
and when I look around me,
when I see the empty spaces
I feel the scream, primitive, course,
objectionable, intolerable, my hidden fear
of what is to come,
rise up and take control.
I plan ahead to confuse it,
it makes great sport, it fights harder
to wear me down but I am ready
and armed, equipped with sarcasm,
fortified by codeine and prepared
The roar of the crowd
under Goodison lights
sounds like local thunder,
as excitement grips this undervalued
part of Liverpool’s heritage,
the support of a team not remembered
in the karaoke bars of Japan,
or in the wild nights of the romantic
as they cling to a thought of red
glories past, under the beauty of
Shankly, under the watchful gaze
of Liverbird success.
The battle cry of opposition,
Blue Moon rings out, is as boisterous
as the words of sagely wisdom
Love Artuk’s stamp of approval catches the eye
in Ropewalk Square and shades into the oblivion
of graffiti of pleasant green,
down at heart blue and burnt brown
destruction on the lower level of the wall.
The uneven pavement, shrouded by the shadow
of Bold Street’s once Bohemian cool
and the grace of the Picturehouse,
thousands of films shown twice daily
extends its welcome as the steam
of coffee hiss drowns out
the fascinating talk of the Silver Screen surfers.
The five pillars of wisdom
sell their information cheaply
I dream of seeing the ice flows
of Niagara once more,
of seeing the reflection
of a youth long since departed
and the memory of a Wendy Burger,
wrapped against the cold wind
blowing down and across the chasm
of a separated land mass
and different train of thought.
I long to hear
the continuous sound
of nuclear explosive water
crashing eternally against
the rocks shaped by Time
below and the droplets of water,
rising off the pounding foam
and landing with daring precision
I chase my own whale
and watch with anxiety
as every quivering arrow
I throw to bring the behemoth down
just bounces off the barnacled skin,
not even a pierced mollusc
gets wrenched apart
from the scale of the task before me,
No Ahab, it’s not about obsession,
not like Ahab, I am no Ishmael
trapped in the belly of the beast,
I can walk away without the foul
taste upon my virginal tongue,
my fingers dry, the ink
of the leviathan
the only stain, oozing blue
The letter came from the Doctor,
stamped, addressed formally,
an oddness to the finality they were offering me,
welcoming me with open arms
to attend a special clinic
for those entering
the next demographic,
that of the adventure
of terrible middle age.
No longer to be considered a young man,
I’m now just a few years shy
of receiving a free gift
from Michael Parkinson.
I can be checked for diabetes,
having had myself tested every year,
to assess the risk of impending
I carried in the coal,
a small meagre amount
from the cold and ancient cobwebbed
behind fireplace
and with it, jumbled together
like a badly worded sentence,
some coins, mainly pennies
for that was all that was left
in a wallet bereft of Christmas joy,
a slice of half and half bread,
the wife’s choice, seeing as
bread makes me sick,
mangled to death,
not fit for the ducks
and some salt, processed and packaged
somewhere in the dusky lands
where midnight was still
Did you think that it was over,
that somehow the words had finally
stopped and left to become dormant…
to die like Ophelia, crushed by my own
sense of the dramatic?
Addiction is a friend of mine,
one that came in the form
of music, football, girls when I was a boy
then women
and the word
of flowing peace, lost
in an author’s creation,
in a poet’s lament
and the bitter
regret of a love denied me,
by a succession of people