The clenched fist
rocking back and forth says it all,
it is after all in your actions that it looks
terrifyingly like the Nazi salute, but that
surely is nothing new for the man
who married money and still has the gall
to claim thirty seven pounds for breakfast.
Many miles away,
in the shadow of the Welsh hills,
in the shadow of where dust once reigned,
a young man pumped his arm to salute
his one hundred runs,
a salute delivered with guile, promise
Having recently had the pleasure of a gift
bestowed upon me, Time, albeit for a solitary
obliging minute, I found that I was not content
in how I handled it, I gave myself Time, but I didn’t
give any of it away
as I should have done
with a smile,
a handshake that was denied me by one,
and even if I cursed under my breath
and the taste of craw and carrion ticks
that scuttle around at the back
of the throat, that delight in the act of living like
The blown out shell of the bus
on route past Euston Station
is quiet and still now, destroyed a second
time to wipe out the memories of the act of barbarism
that took life, that took lives
in the space of a single moment in time
and the London streets fell victim one by one.
The television screens, the minds of the ordinary
London folk were still reflecting on what
it meant to have the world watching
their city five years later,
the beauty of togetherness, of games played;
Naked she stood before me, her eyes glistening
with youthful Hispanic desire and the elegance
of her people wrapped in New York 77th Street silk
and I broke my heart as I knew I could not satisfy
that what was given freely.
I shuddered as the eleven thirty seven rays of sunshine
hit the window that hid the opulence that blinded
me temporarily to the disease that wanted to be shared
like a needle holding a myriad of confessions
and the straight jacket of conformity.
I thought I’d take a trip to see an old friend,
meet halfway and agree upon the same conclusion
that it had been far too long since we last spent
Time killing time
and the talk of old things between us,
that bound us and which into Middle Age
no longer mattered.
The distance between us was never that far
even after nearly three decades apart
and I reminded him of the blow
by blow replication that he did for me
of my then favourite album cover and wondered if he
Byron wouldn’t have stood a chance
if the world of his time had the mass media
exposure, constant Google up-load
and Facebook name and shame being urged upon
by the two a.m. giggle fit of the warm and instantly forgiven
rant telling like it is, and the recriminations of the following
morning text, you know what you called him girl?
He may have revelled for a while, more so than Percy,
in the hashtag-moustached hag, mad, bad and dangerous
to know, but would have been concerned
The tale of the credit card thief
is one that is hard to stomach,
not the person who finds themselves unable
to pay back what they have borrowed,
Time has a habit of making martyrs
out the most carefully sewn purses,
for the ones who push their refined snout
into the bin of inequality and declare
with the grace and attitude
that they are not getting their fair
share of the leftovers whilst hoarding
the banquet that would give a King a ruptured heart
and have his over gorged head removed
The atomic clock granted an extra second,
like some miserly, downcast and heartbroken Scrooge,
it offered no extra bonus,
such as a break from the brain
and the incessant noise of Time chipping away at our lives
with a tiny hammer, sculpting the grave before
we have had chance to crawl,
nor did it shove in a half day’s rest period in which Humanity
could look up at the stars and wonder why our feet
were firmly stuck in bronzing clay.
Instead it suggested to the scientists polishing its hardened shell
Hewi-Manod slips off her Ruby rings,
collected over time, given in earnest
in hopes of marriage proposal, no suitor
ever realising she was already with child
but not yet laden with drought and looks ahead
to the start of Dog Days and the spoils of war
that she will soon bring.
Whisper slowly, war is coming…
The blood courses through the two bodies with the eagerness
of a rattlesnake caught on drifting sands,
one eye on survival, one upon the gleaming future ahead
The man with the velvet collar
and the impressive skills on the piano
once sang a song for me
across the white crested waves
between the past
in the undiscovered Bronx
and my home in Bicester
and I could not help but be saved
I put a dime in the juke box
and I believed all what the Piano Man sang
about the ups and downs of a life well lived
and how at times the girl gets away
but if your fortunate enough