I am looking forward to tomorrow,
I might meet up with someone
who likes spending time with me, but then
the questions start rummaging in my head,
scattering thoughts and wild demons,
of just what do I do if I cannot apologise enough,
that they take exception to smiling
in my direction, if they cannot contain
the dread of being in my company;
or if I should say one thing wrong,
compared to the hundred topics
of bile and consumerism they dictate,
that they will sneer and kick me
It is an act of patriotism
it is decreed
to stand during your national anthem
before a film goes on
in your local cinema
as the National Anthem plays out.
I know people who used to stand
as the British National Anthem
played on the television
as close down for the night commenced,
they would be erect
as they thought of the Queen
last thing at night
and the Government backed signal
to turn off
and go to bed came;
A huge part of me is thankful
we don’t have that nonsense now…
Ian D. Hall 2016
Starry-eyed
She pounced in my direction
and in a loud commanding,
masterful voice that betrayed in its heart
a sense of innocence and wanting
desperately to please
She proclaimed,
“Oh Ian,
you were right, I have just finished
watching the first episode of Doctor Who;
isn’t it just so fabulous?”
Cheered by this revelation
I asked her if she enjoyed William Hartnell’s performance.
Clearly confused, her face screwed up,
contorted and thoughtful in her puzzlement,
she replied after much deliberation,
“Was he one of the monsters?”
The Satsuma is starting to go green,
untouched it has gone sour, the sweetness
sucked dry and stale,
I really wanted to taste this Orange fruit
but unlike the plums it held no thought
of ripeness in my mind;
the Christmas stocking,
oversized woollen sock
held many a delight, the Corgi toy car,
a cracker bound in small explosive,
yet every year the Satsuma would poke
its way out of the top of the stocking
and go mouldy before my eyes, even on the coldest
Christmas Day.
Like a bomb,
encased in skin,
I just want to self-destruct,
pushing myself
to the limit of simmering pressure,
I want to explode
and be a second sun
on the horizon
at Dawn…
you disarm me
only with your smile.
Ian D. Hall 2016
If it should end, let it end now,
stop dragging it out,
stop feeding the worm in the mind,
for today I discovered futility
and it is a word that I cannot abide.
Wasted years, never in search of riches
and to those I may have hurt, unknowingly
or their perception of what I said,
I apologised more than once if you deserved it,
but blow me down
if you think I am going to kneel
and take your crap forever, infinity was long enough.
I never had flu till I had turned 45,
not true flu, I had woken early one morning
whilst I was back packing through rural Normandy
with my head resting in a
dirty storm formed puddle
and I know I probably looked awful for about a week
and the thoughts of unfulfilled dreams
of making peace in my time across the Channel
brought to a premature and early end.
Now every week I seem to be fighting back infection,
the assault on the body, the throat, the eyes,
A Blue balloon,
attached to fraying string, the sky
the limit
in its desire to see
the world for what it truly is,
held only by childish fingers,
white with tightness,
grim determination upon the glowing face;
like that balloon
I yearn to look down
upon
the shit storm
we have created
and I will pull away from the fingers that bind me
and sail into the sky
before
I inevitably
Pop.
Ian D. Hall 2016
Even dishevelled, even in the dog hairs
I find myself covered in, I keep up appearances,
no tie round my neck, will not die by the noose,
no shirt, starched, small black hairs
weaved in and out of the thread, small pin pricks,
unseen but there all over my skin, scatter cushioned,
just pins, not needles, tattoos aside,
I have never felt the need for such barbaric squander,
yet my head is permanently a mess,
I am sinking
further each time, the jack boots in the country stir
To deny the written word,
to seek to erase words
that might offend
is as criminal
as the act in which they were used
to demonise in the first place;
not only in Virginia it seems
can a word see a book banned
from being taught
but why stop there, lets place a prohibition
upon all literature,
all words,
give them a life sentence
for in the beginning
was the word
and now that word
is mute.
Ian D. Hall 2016