Once what moved in New York City,
I offer you to see, my lad.
I offer you up
to observe the flourish of excited youth
and play in what was up till recently
the waste ground of desire and poor human contact,
and yet it held magic, abiding spirit and conscious
unsurpassed, true beauty in a bubble.
I offer you my son
the chance to be an English man
abroad, to witness first hand
all that I saw, all that I loved
and all who took me by the hand
The tarnished anger in her eyes
never once betrayed the lack
of emotional pity that her voice
played tricks with;
that her brittle anger disguised
deep seated resentment for all things
that smiled.
The smile, confused and beautiful,
shrank her in wake
as she waged war, voluntarily despised
the tears of flowing radiance;
yet somewhere deep inside the smile
raised the flag of disarmament, of peaceful
solution, the smile would just not appear
in her presence, instead it would save
itself for someone empty of hatred.
The stone feathers barely ruffle
in the effigy to the fallen fowl
misled as the funny fatal flaw
in avian folklore recklessly finds
that the community that flocks together
far below them in the passageways,
the streets of the important town,
group together, finding friends like seagulls
perching, fiendishly watching, squalling
for the left over bits of fish dropped
from frowning Government semi-official,
offal like folk.
Ian D. Hall 2016
In what was once The Head of Steam,
the oldest friends stare at what was now
and smiled for having survived
the what could have been,
if she had said yes at seventeen
and the inevitable destruction
of youthful dreams,
for in the space that
was distanced by the sound
of Tuesday night shrill,
the feminine arsenal load of cheap wine
fuelled by the required by thunderous
glass and ear-splitting bitten down
eye, cross at the volume that such nights bring,
the two old friends know, that this moment,
I have bled
and no doubt will bleed again,
the only thing I am unsure of
is the reason why
and the moment Time decrees when.
I have bled and stopped the pain,
I have laughed it off
for that is what civilisation decrees,
that life doesn’t mind you suffering,
it just doesn’t want to see you
remonstrate, crawl into the skin
or take refuge
in the beautiful bosom
of Death, it’s not very gentlemanly after all.
I have gently kissed her, her silken skin,
The Pretty Things have been left behind
as the thin alluring Duke bids
them farewell, they are more than old enough
now to understand that nothing
lasts forever but that
does not stop the hurt they feel, the pain
they will remember, the beauty they will cherish; such Pretty Things.
Dedicated to David Bowie, a hero to all.
Ian D. Hall 2016.
The effects, the mementoes
you come across when
you have the moment in which to tidy
a desk. The half forgotten
trinket, lovingly embraced in the warm light
of day and sold by candlelight to the bidder
hiding in the draw.
I found something of you,
and for a while thought of happy
memories, of the laughter once
shared and the joy it brought us,
then I remembered with sadness
the argument over nothing,
your dogma beating my stubbornness
over the head with a thick
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