Not like the usual ‘one year older’ place that feels the same
Where people (I did it too) like to joke
“So do you feel any older?”
And of course you don’t as the clock tick tocks and from one second to the next your age skips a number
But not this time
This time it has surely skipped a millienia
More
Somewhere where numbers mean nothing
Like being a newborn when everything is new
Everything is both what you expected and not what you expected at all
Because how can you expect this?
This time has no time attached
Madly treading water.
I am not fitted to this age
This half a century
I am no more prepared
I no more belong here than I belonged in youth
The gangly, stuttering, lip biting, jumper scrunching youth where I was in a constant state of one day I’ll grow into myself, I’ll know what to say to who about what and when and …
I did, I think, know this for a time
A minute perhaps
Once.
Madly treading water.
I stand at the reception desk of the local swimming pool
I stare at the piece of paper that tells me I can now go to the sessions called ‘Young At Heart’
I smile a horrified smile
I will the girl on reception to look up
To see me
To say
Sorry, this session is for 50 and over…
But I already know she’ll just scan my membership card
Smile her rictus grin
‘Thank you love’
She can’t see me
And neither can I.
Madly treading water.
31/01/2017
…
ROARING
Made up serpent/dragon thing by Billy Patch
I’m sitting, staring at rolling news,
The rolling responses to rolling news rolling along as social media first recoils and then strikes and re-strikes at ever-moving prey.
In my mind I picture it as a serpent of sorts – not a snake I’ve seen on a David Attenborough programme –
(Oh bloody hell David Attenborough, please don’t die,
Don’t leave us flailing,
I bet you’re not even on Twitter…
I wish you were sat here now, in the armchair next to me as I write,
Reading a newspaper – or a nature book…
– do you even read those? –
Or a novella… something comforting with the noise of the pages turning and my fingers on the keys the only sound…)
– but a made-up serpent,
Perhaps one of the many drawn by one of my sons over the years,
Given basic life and rattling off sounds that we think we recognize
But each sound dies before we can grasp any meaning
Any clarity
Quickly replaced by more and more sounds clashing and roaring and…
I sit here staring at my fingers tapping keys having no idea what word will come next having no idea why I’m writing and who will read it and who will care but I continue, thinking of serpents and noise and David Attenborough and-
Usually I can ‘take a view’ on stuff (an expression I inherited from my Gramps)
‘Take a view on it love, things move on so fast’ he used to say… in the days before social media and 24 hour news coverage, before shops opened 24/7, when actually nothing moved fast to me at all-
But Gramps was in his 70’s (as my own Dad is now, where does the time go?) so I’m assuming to him the world was whizzing round the way it does as you get older, as he sat in his armchair, smoking and reading the paper. Smoking indoors!
News rolling, social media (which I fully engage in) chattering endlessly making no sense, but who CARES?
Who wants sense?
Tears keep rolling down my face,
Not splashing onto my keyboard in any clichéd way, my keyboard isn’t below my eyes, I don’t want eye-strain…
Tears for those I don’t know, for Jo and Brendan Cox and her children (her children, bloody hell),
For all those who were just fucking having a nice time in a club in Orlando with friends and lovers and lovers in waiting,
And for fear of next Thursday,
Fear of being stuck in a country that is being run by lunatics which is sliding into a madness I have NO say in because my voice dies as soon as I speak, replaced by the ROARING…
So I can’t take a view on it.
Not today.
17th June 2016
…
First Day Off For A While.
My brain just fell out.
It’s on the table in front of me,
It’s beige,
I thought it would be madly technicoloured
A swarming little mass of primary coloured worms
Firing coloured sparks and secreting an oily puddleness,
But it’s not,
It’s beige and quite still and quite dry.
It must be someone else’s.
10/05/2016
…
breaking point (or: after reading one too many comments at the bottom of the internet when i wrote the top.)
Consumed as I am
Taken down and down
Again and again
Snagged on something diving faster than I ever could
Would ever want to
Struggling up
Gasping
Huge shuddering breaths
Gulping at air once empty
Now thick with dense brown
I can squeeze it through my fingers
(could)…
Grabbed
Plunged again
Caught fast,
Something jagged holds me under…
And – still for a moment –
My voice quietly pierces
‘Shall I just stay here?
It’s cool and navy blue
And so quiet’.
But no, the dense brown reaches down
And grabs my floating hair
(For a moment there
I fancied I could look like a mermaid
From above
To a passing fantasist
With an open mind)
Dragged to the surface to meet my mockers
Smiling like Bond villains,
Corners of mouths form little sneers
Stinking teeth too near
To my skin
Not letting them in
Not meeting their eyes
Trying to dive
Back down
Away from the dense brown
To the navy blue.
…
GREY/GRAY
Are grey and silver the same?
Or can you simply choose?
Is salt grey or silver?
Or does the grey/silver just look salty white when it’s with the pepper black?
Are you salt and sand if you’re a graying/silvering blonde one?
Are you caster sugar and cheap coffee powder if you’re a greying/silvering mousey one?
And is it grEy or grAy?
And can I choose white gold instead of silver?
And is it white gold?
Because it looks silver, or grey, or gray, or salty or sugary…
And shall I ‘GO’ it?
Go Silver?
Go Grey/Gray?
Go White?
Go Salt? (No one ever said that, I know),
And if I DO what do I become?
Old?
The same, but grey (or silver etc. you get the picture)…
Because I want the wrapping to reflect the present,
I want the tin to reflect the contents,
I want my fucking hair to tell the world what I still am –
(Except, like the rest of the human race I’m not entirely sure I know what that is)
And ‘you know you’re not alone’ is ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY a brilliant thing,
A human thing (like I said)…
Aging cats don’t mind the odd speck of grey,
Aging dogs don’t speculate on whether their coat reflects their innards,
Aging fish …..
Fish don’t have hair,
BUT IF THEY DID WOULD THEIR FAMOUSLY SHORT TERM MEMORY BE A BOON
Like a constant and comforting dementia.
And anyway, I don’t reckon fish age.
So where was I?
What am I saying?
Maybe my hair is thoroughly reflecting exactly who I am
Maybe it’s my innards that are wrong.
And maybe the grey silver sugar is something sprinkled onto our heads to say
‘I no longer have to give a flying fuck’.
Me and the fish.
(And yes I know there are more important things to worry about but if we let that stop us writing about humany stuff then there’ll be very little poetry and Pam Ayres wouldn’t be a household name.
In some households.)
03/06/2015
…
THE ONLY REASON I’M NOT PUNCHING ANYONE IS BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHO TO PUNCH.
If I see
One More INSPIR-fucking-ATIONAL Quote
On walls and feeds
Telling me what I NEED
I WILL PUNCH someone hard.
‘Only you are you!’
Shouted to the masses,
‘Share your unique love’
Emoted to the world,
‘Protect your exceptional self!’
Told to the crowds of dead-eyed unique, exceptional individuals,
‘See the bright new opportunity in each day’
Slipping off eyeballs as we click to see who’s clicking on our clicks.
Self-help dished out by faceless others,
Spilt there to help empty authors feel better about their special selves,
Checking Bitly for rising clicks
On freely given circular wisdom,
“We are each of us angels with only one wing. And we can only fly embracing each other”
Oh FUCK THE FUCK OFF.
(and yes, I will be checking Bitly to see how many people have read this.)
…
FIFA YOU THIEVING BASTARDS.
Fifa 15 for XBox 1
Are you really worth £54.99?
For that I could:
Fly to Rome and back
Twice.
Sponsor an animal somewhere
For it’s whole life, probably.
Take someone special out to dinner
(As long as they went easy on the wine).
Or buy a second hand pair of Muck Boots
Seemingly expensive but last a lifetime
Not like FUCKING FIFA 15.
(And yes I know the digital download is cheaper. But what the fuck IS THAT ALL ABOUT?)
19/12/2014
…
iPad vs Aye Typewriters.
(A poem inspired by the events of the last 24 hours in which I reach back to the rose tinted past and think about how progress isn’t progress at all. Sometimes.)
You can write off
Ye Olde Typewriters
If you like,
But I’ll tell you what…
All that Cloud floating
All them Portals portaling
All them Terabytes roaring
Can’t infallibly contain your preciousness
Because HashBloodyTag NOONEREALLYKNOWSHOWTHATSHITWORKS…
And when you lose something
It’s REALLY GONE…
POOF!
BUT…
The only way to delete your precious words
On Ye Olde Typewriter
Was with Tippex
Or chucking the actual paper
In the actual bin,
But either way
IT WAS STILL THERE!!
NOT LIKE MY FUCKING ONLINE APPLICATION FORM.
…
On the dangers of looking young from a distance….
I walked past my son’s school today.
I saw a young man walking towards me, 18 maybe, a non uniformed sixth former in any case.
I saw him clock me and I saw him look at me and I thought “Oh shit”
I look like a teenager from a distance…
I sped up, trying to close the distance between us to cut short his glancing assumptions, but the years were dragging me down (along with a bad back and sore thighs from climbing snowdon and life).
I felt crippled with concern that as he got close enough to see the 30 year age gap between us he’d crumble.
But he steadfastly just looked at me but not my face.
Each step aged me 10 years, 20, 50,
And as he drew closer I felt a telegram from the queen was only a pigeon step away.
He smoothed his 18 year old hair in a tiny, massive gesture.
I died a little more.
110.
He arrived inches from my wrinkles.
He threw me a look which froze on his smooth, smooth face.
I tried to express… nothing.
I saw him finally see my face
I saw him trying to express… nothing
And in doing so he said exactly what he was trying to hide.
1000.
…
Circular Idiocy
I’m writing this to force me to write
Not because I’m suffering from writers block
I don’t consider myself a writer just at the moment
So blockages aren’t a problem for me
I’m writing this because if I don’t
I’ll scream for lack of writing
For lack of creativity
For sitting staring at screens
For shoving numbers round a page
For writing synopses which never end
For hating everyone at the Edinburgh Fringe
Hashtag Fuck Off Basically.
I’m writing this to force me to watch
As letter by letter something unexpected
Forms on the blank sheet of ‘paper’
Doing an impression of creativity
Giving me something to look at
Putting black on white
Stopping the glare of hashtag What The Fuck have You Actually Achieved Other Than Half Formed Plans and Circular Idiocy
And a passable score in Skyforce?
Although that’s not to be sniffed at
And gathering stars is a mindless progress of sorts
And I’m increasingly fine with mindless progress.
And yes I know there’s no spaces in actual hashtags.
I’m writing this to show you that my world is all half formed plans and circular idiocy
Which doesn’t make me unhappy
But it does give me deep wrinkles.
# SoWhat?
…
WARMTH, FINALLY
Today was that day the sun finally shone in that March way,
The way that makes me find a place to park myself,
Facing south,
Close my prickling eyes and turn my albino sunflower face towards it,
Drinking it in,
Consuming its warmth,
Craven and foolish because I know (even in March)
These first rays WILL burn me,
But, wreckless –
The way I felt after the 5th unasked for (but later charged for) coloured vodka shot served on a aesthetically pleasing wooden platter in a pretentious bar in Islington some years ago (never again) –
I
Let
It
Happen –
Powerless,
Thirsty,
Loving it.
…
GET LOST LITTLE GOBLIN
(a friday poem for you. the end needs work…)
there’s a goblin of words
that sits in my brain
when I get the bus
he gets the train
when I run a bath
he jumps in the shower
I choose economy
he plumps for full power
he dances around me when I’m sitting quiet
when I start to slow cook
he starts to fry it (!)
but I’ve got him now
and shown him his place
he poked me in the eye
I punched him in the face.
Happy Friday!
25th Sept. 2013
…
A Mischief Smile
As I walked in the rain today
An elderly couple passed by
Hello he said
Hello I said
Who’s that? she said
Don’t know he said
Why say hello? she said
Don’t know he said
Well don’t she said
I won’t he said.
….
I looked back.
So did he.
We smiled a mischief smile.
Hello I mouthed
Hello he mouthed
She didn’t see
Her back looked cross
Tee hee.
…
A Thinly Disguised Metaphor About Stinking Drains
There has been a superfluidity of shite
running through my ears
trickling into my head
lodging in my brain
like bits of a roast dinner stuck in congealed fat
in the sink
(when I knew I should have put that weird plug that isn’t a plug in the hole
but even that was too much trouble)
So I washed up
and I poked stuff through the plughole
and stuff blocked the drain
as I sort of knew it would
(because it always fecking does)
and as I half heartedly poke at what was on my plate, then in my sink, now in my drain
letting my finger wiggle into the warm oozy fat
which contains pieces of what I lapped up only minutes before
I think
This is really, probably, quite disgusting in truth
and I try and picture the scene from an outsider’s point of view
an outsider that might stumble on the scene of me crouching by my gutter
poking the pork fat
(and not even hating it)
But instead I laugh out loud
at the stories we create in our heads
to justify our hilarious human moments
and wish upon wish you were here to see it.
And then I remember that this poem started as a metaphor
and ended with me on my knees poking stinking drains.
Que cera cera.
…
He Knows
The first time they stopped
She saw my face
Whilst he saw a pair of baggy balls
How rude
I thought
But I got over it
When you’re 200 years old
And a tree to boot
There’s no point
Getting pissed off
Holding grudges
Who knows? Who cares?
So what if someone thinks your chin is a pair of baggy testicles?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
He sees it now.
She can no longer look.
…
untitled.
so it turns out the seashell had no interest in the fish.
seems múm doesn’t always know best.
…
The Brixels
Today we made a band out of Lego
We called them The Brixels,
Although it was almost The Bricks,
But after 5 minutes of creative differences
We settled on The Brixels
With the proviso that Bricks would be
The name of their first album.
They have a drum kit-shaped eraser for
Their drum kit,
And a Lego mini-figure guitar
For their lead guitar,
And a hippy
For a drummer.
We thought their pretty Lego boy frontman was called
Steve.
Their manager is a nerd
With a tiny laptop
Who we think says
“Live fast, die young”
In a very geeky Lego voice.
Which made all of us laugh out loud.
In my day we had to use our imaginations when it came to Lego.
Their first song will be a cover of
Brick by Brick by the Arctic Monkey’s,
Or Build by the Housemartins,
Or I Need A Hero (Factory) by Bonnie Tyler.
They will then branch out and record an original track called
You Need to Lego, It’s Over…
(Feat. DJ Stud).
This made us laugh a lot too.
But not as much as the geek saying
“Live fast die young”.
They’ll probably be a YouTube hit.
You heard it here first.
…
You’re Like An Onion.
(I thought this picture would save you having to visualise the onion….)
You’re like an onion
He said,
Admittedly quite wrinkly and a bit flakey.
But multi-layered,
Unpredicatable…
He trailed off.
Are onions unpredictable then?
I said.
They can be love, yes…
They can be.
You’re like a turnip
I said.
Intriguing
He said,
Go on.
No
I said
That’s it.
…
endurance
My foot never wavers on the accelerator pedal
The tension is an exact science
The dial never moves
How does he do that?
It’s nothing now. I have mastered it. My right leg has grown accustomed to the demands.
A cacophony of car horns greet me as people pass, fingers and fists aloft
“Oi, Grandad!”
My wife sits, staring grimly ahead, pushing her right foot into the floor with increasing insistence
Go on, go mad, 31 miles an hour, it won’t kill you.
I know what you’re thinking
I say
And you’re wrong.
…
mediocrity.
It is easier to go back
than move on.
It is easier to retrace those steps
and deepen that familiar rut
so soft under foot
which whispers your favourite thoughts on a loop,
dispenses familiarity through the soles of your feet,
questions nothing,
gives an enigmatic ‘you’re fine’
and accepts the explanation of
‘it’s not you, it’s me’
as if to say
‘what else could it possibly be?’
Do you see those hard little nuggets of self-knowledge
that you’ve picked up on your well trodden journey?
You could stand still now,
liquefy them
and slowly inject them into the hollow you left,
if you like.
Remember how, when you left the safe place,
you didn’t really know if the hollow contained
nothing,
or everything?
So the syringe sighs down as you hope to fill this hollow with something like
purpose,
and
happiness
– let’s not forget the happiness –
exhaustively looked for
still yet to be claimed.
You hear a little voice
– a familiar little voice you know and think you love –
saying again and again,
‘I think it is already full,
I think something crept in whilst you left your well trodden path
and quietly stretched until it fitted.
I think it’s full”.
But instead you keep looking for the unknown in the known,
glorious technicoloured mediocrity,
safety,
smooth corners,
clean sheets,
rails that you can stay on,
facing forward.
My mum always told me that looking out the windows would make you travel sick,
So maybe we don’t even take the journey.
Maybe we stand at home in the drive
staring at the way forward,
or sit in the kitchen
eyeing the drive,
or lie in the bath
building a defence against the middle road
and locking ourselves in a symmetrical conservatory.
At least you can see out
if you keep the windows clean.
Peepo.
…
Life, The Universe, The Dolphin of Joy
A friend of mine is 42 today
He told me not to use the quote from the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
He said
“Don’t give me that fucking Universe shit”.
I didn’t like to tell him I haven’t got him anything yet
Let alone the fucking Universe.
But I’m going to get him something from the Early Learning Centre
Not because he’s in the Early Learning stage
Clearly
He’s 42
But because that’s the only place they sell
The Dolphin of Joy.
…
SHELL
1.
Iridescent shell
They smiled at one another
So happy, amazed at the wave of unimaginable treasure tumbling and pushing for prominence
Their hopes, dreams and mischief reflected back in the glittering surfaces
Their long slumbering desires whispered
“look what we found for you both”.
2.
Shining shell
He held her so close with his eyes
And spiralled round her heart
She touched his hand
Just to make sure he was real
And holding it, curled, happy in the deep, dark, quiet of him
Away from other clattering hands and chattering voices
She tasted the glittering salt on his tongue
As it found hers
Touching the absolute depths of her.
3.
My sweet, sweet shell
You have my heart –
She can hear the sea swell
As they try to pull apart –
I’m curled right here
Waiting for the tide
Stronger for knowing him
She loved him. We tried.
…
Recycling Day
Passing Number 40,
The dog stops to sniff at former piss on a wall so low as to render it completely pointless,
He cocks his creaking leg on the brown plastic box containing Number 40’s fortnightly empties,
Grants Whiskey, Mateus Rose, Aspirin…
The dog’s owner tries not to make snap judgements,
But she has.
Passing Number 42
The dog sniffs and quickly positions himself to splash the blue bag containing Number 42’s fortnightly paper and card,
National Geographic, A gas bill, A handwritten note…
The rarity of ink on cartridge paper (100gsm minimum – she’s a sucker for good stationary) slows her steps.
She pauses, tries to read the note without seeming obvious.
The dog stops again,
He’s always stopping to sniff,
To piss.
She feigns irritation, rolling her eyes to precisely no one, whilst reading the spidery writing which so clearly shouts “I am old”.
“Is it safe to plug my vibrator into the mains?”
Not quite the request for an extra pint of gold top she’d been expecting.
The dog strains at the choker. He never actually chokes.
She walks on, thinking.
Echo Falls, Sainsbury’s Basics Worcester Sauce.
Is it even possible to plug a vibrator into the mains?
Maybe in the olden days, when the spidery writing woman (she assumed it was a woman) was still young and perhaps had a stronger wrist –
The onset of osteoarthritis can only be a complete downer when it comes to unwieldy, repetitive, manual manoeuvres,
She muses.
When were the mains even invented?
She thinks.
Who the fuck was she writing to?
She wonders.
The dog sits suddenly and refuses to budge.
He does this a lot of late.
If he could write it would be very spidery indeed.
And his vibrator would be administered by the dog equivalent of the Victorian Doctor.
If such a thing exists.
She stares at the deaf pet. He studiously ignores her.
She retraces her steps and looks into the blue bag outside number 42 again.
“You see I only have a spare 13 amp fuse and the plug on my vibrator says 3 amp…”
The dog joins her. She gestures to him to SIT. She fancies she has taught him a crude form of Dog British Sign Language. She hasn’t. She pulls on his choker. Not choking. She holds him taut.
“… and I don’t want to electrocute myself whilst I’m almost ‘there’…”
Almost there?
She tries not to picture it… the owner of the spidery writing plugging herself into the mains, fizzing whilst on the vinegar strokes…
But she (like you) couldn’t help but see that unwelcome and vivid picture.
The dog strains and coughed up some yellow phlegm.
She smiled at his timing. Chiming with hers.
She drags the dog away, musing.
Butcher’s dog meat, Tesco’s baked beans, Tinned tomatoes. Not chopped, whole plum. Tricky in a sauce. Always too watery.
“I’ll just risk it”
She looks up at he house for clues.
The bedroom curtains were closed.
It was 11am.
The dog strained at the leash.
She smiled.
“What’s the worst that could happen”.
…
last chance (1)
the fish looked at her captor
the fisherman looked at his prize
I will only make you happy if you let me go
said the fish.
I will eat you
said the fisherman
deaf
enraptured by his catch.
…
the calamity of me
black eyes glitter,
tiny face turns away,
nestles in creamy flesh, no longer mine.
they are both lost to me
and who can say for how long?
people ask me on a daily basis,
are you besotted?
you must be besotted.
they bombard me,
i was besotted
instantly besotted
it’s natures way isn’t it?
nature… clever bastard.
i nod and smile,
i coo and push the pea in a pram
round and round to show
who’s the daddy,
to try and stop this tiny wrinkled
stranger
screaming at the calamity of me.
people stop me every other step,
they stare into what i believe to be the overpriced over complicated over fussy pram cum pushchair cum carseat cum highchair come paininthearse
he’s beautiful!
you must be so proud!
they tell me
my first born instantly stole my heart….
nothing was ever the same again.
i nod
and smile
and coo
and push the squally pea in a pram away,
sneaking little peeks,
thinking
it’s a baby…
wrinkly, red and screaming,
and I don’t know him
and he doesn’t want me
because I’m the wrong one.
i hear there’s hope,
i read that there will be a time when they both look up from their lactose infused two person party
and he will see me,
his eyes will no longer be black
but another colour more suited to ‘eyes’
– perhaps (i fervently hope) mucky brown like mine –
and he will see me
and smile
and i will fall in love with him.
i hear this.
in the meantime
i nod
i smile
i coo
and feel a terror unlike any other i can imagine.
…
where’s me cuppa?
waking late
lazy from love
mouth thick
thighs protesting
half heartedly
glad to be alive
she craves tea
and on hearing murmurs
creeps lower in the musty nest
sure
on this morning of all mornings
the tea will come to her
the bathroom door
caught between twenty draughts
groans and crumples shut
time and time again
the distant radio plays its bass line
time and time again
the murmurs stay as murmurs
but no murmur can ever present the tea to her
she narrows her uncleansed eyes
and shuffles up for air
squinting at the cloudy light
she hauls her heavy heavy limbs from the warmth
plunges feet into ancient, once fashionable, furry boots
and starts her shuffle
yeti-like
towards the heart of the house
murmuring to herself
“I’ll get me own sodding tea”
…
balloon
and when the last guest left
you left
and i took the balloons down
taking care not to drop the drawing pins on the floor
and i pierced each balloon
put the pinprick to my mouth
and breathed your breath into my mouth
because that was the last of you
…
RELAX!!!
Relax
You say
So I relax
Twitching with the effort of not doing all the things I could be doing whilst I’m relaxing
Stop looking at your phone
You say
So I stop looking at my phone
Unsure of what to do with my eyes
And my thumbs
So I look at my thumbs
And I notice they’ve grown older.
Stop frowning
You say
So I stop frowning
And I affect a slightly surprised look
Widening my eyes
Which gives me more wrinkles.
Try it.
Take a break
You say
So I take a break
And I write a poem about taking a break.
…
‘Should’ Ended A Millennia Ago.
There are times when you feel the need to reach out
To people who don’t know you at all
Connections you make because you can.
There’s a danger here.
This thing that most of us know –
Either because we’ve been told, or tell others –
‘You make your mind up about someone within the first 10 seconds”
And there are reasons for that.
Ancient survival
Mating possibilities
Friendship.
But what about when we can’t see each other?
What about when we read just their written words?
These scrolling rolls of 140 characters
With no visual cues?
Maybe a hasty but controlled twitpic
Where someone else did the first 10 seconds
First.
The world where we find our opinion of a stranger by touching on a profile picture
‘About’
Likes
Websites
Connections
Followers
Friends
RT’s
Answers to Facebook’s insistent chipping away at us with the
“How’re you feeling Lizi?”
(Did anything ever feel so insincere? And yet we feel compelled to answer sometimes)…
When we’re largely conditioned to say
“Fine”
Knowing if you tell the truth it’s a case of
Who cares?
WHO CARES?
Which takes me right back to where this started.
There are times when you feel the need to reach out
To people who don’t know you at all,
Connections you make because you can
Not because you should.
And actually –
You should.
…
I Was Wrong
Whilst out walking the dog this morning
I saw a woman sat, staring at her tv.
Get a life
I thought
It’s 9am.
Turns out it was a fishtank.
My misplaced
condescending
assumptive
smallmindedness
turned instantly to envy.
I went home
And turned on the tv.
…
There is The Question Of Sanity.
I create many worlds
some of my worlds will be lost
some will flourish.
I populate my worlds with people who come to me
some willing
some unwilling
some wooed
some beckoned
some told
some who just arrive unannounced
sometimes with a flourish
sometimes a whisper.
I try to look after these people
these people who populate my worlds
weaving threads of varying thickness between us
some may be in the wrong world
and may leave it for another
another of mine
or someone else’s completely.
I cannot look after them all
some may want to run
some are pushed
some just simply disappear hushed and un-noticed
(some re-appear hushed and un-noticed after a breath or two)
others shout in my face night after night
until I turn them down
or off.
Loathe as I am to lose the thread that binds us there is the question of sanity.
…
Guts
“Great minds think alike”,
This stranger said to me as we both dropped our bags of warm dog crap into the bin.
There was a flattened hedgehog by the bin
Proper flat
Stiff
Like a spikey oval plate.
She stood waiting for my reply.
She hadn’t seen the hedgehog.
“Um, yes”
I said
As I noticed the guts of the hedgehog
Sitting on the pavement nearby
Red and jelly-like
Having been somehow ejected from its body.
A shocking contrast
Poised, pink, wobbling
Like they had another life to start.
I started laughing.
The stranger half smiled and looked at me, quizzically
Head half-cocked
Like her too-small dog.
“Show some guts!”
I said,
“I did!”
Said the hedgehog (with me doing it’s tiny voice for it)…
“Look!”
I walked off, shaking with laughter.
The stranger looked after me
I imagine
Non-plussed
Whilst her too-small dog cocked his leg on my flattened friend.
Great minds.
…
1%
I don’t like Mondays mum…
Says my 11 year old.
There’s a song called that…
I tell him
…written by someone who really didn’t like Monday,
from the olden days.
I really don’t like Mondays…
Says my 11 year old, tears filling those blue eyes he has,
…right now.
I look at him,
I shut my eyes for a moment
What if you die whilst I’m at school mum?
He says,
Yes!
My 8 year old joins in,
I think that too. There’s a 1% chance that absolutely anything could happen to you whilst we’re at school…
My 11 year old nods, fresh tears falling,
…Or asleep.
Anything?
I ask.
They both nod, bereft, stood before me in freshly washed and carefully ironed school uniforms.
And I feel the weight of their need and happiness pressing into my eyeballs,
And I smile and say,
School. Go.
They do. They go.
And I stand, eyes full, looking at the place they just were.
1%.
Anything.
…
THAT SINKING FEELING
Wee done,
She shook out the last few drops (no loo roll),
She stepped out of the cubicle and stared around, looking for familiar white sinks and smeared mirrors.
But there was none.
Her eyes fell on a row of large alien letterboxes
Just sitting there, in the wall
Just below chest height,
Black mouthed,
Silent.
She glanced around,
She was alone,
No alibi.
No witness.
She approached the alien mouthpiece slowly,
Head held back a bit,
Eyes darting, checking the exits,
Ready for flight.
She could see a label, stuck to the metal,
It said:
Soaps, washes and dries.
What could it mean?
Soaps
Washes
And
Dries.
Infathomable.
She crept closer, head slowly thrusting forward until her eyes were level with the alien opening.
Soaps, washes and dries.
Feeling braver, she allowed her head to enter the black hole
Twisting her face to glance up
Looking for clues
Soaps, washes and dries.
Nothing happened.
Nothing at all.
She withdrew, shaking her head in bemusement
And, taking one last look
She left.
Soaps, washes anddries.
Outside, in the blinding light
He was waiting:
“Aren’t they just amazing?!”
“What are?”
“Aren’t they just so clever?!”
“What is?”
“It just does it all for you!”
“What does?”
“The sink!
You just pop your hands in –
It’s automatic –
First soap then water then warm air
It’s so simple!”
…
“Isn’t it clever?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t know how to work it,
I just stood there and put my head in.”
He laughed. So much.
“I’ll have the last laugh when an alien delivers a letter”
She thought.
Soaps, washes and dries.
…
Idiot.
How can you feel something one moment and then
Nothing whatsoever
The next?
She asked him.
Well imagine this
He said.
You stub your toe,
It hurts like fuck,
And then it doesn’t.
It’s not the same.
It’s the same.
It’s not.
It is.
It’s exactly the same.
Exactly.
She went very quiet,
For quite a long time.
Too long.
He thought she must be thinking.
Do you get it?
He asked quietly.
Of course I ‘get it’
She said.
I’m not an idiot.
Debatable,
He thought.
And I wasn’t thinking,
She said
When?
He said.
Just then
She said-
You thought wrong.
She went quiet
Again.
He left before either of them could break the silence.
She watched him go.
Idiot.
265 solar masses.
she’s stopped.
she can’t imagine ever going again.
she’s mastered perpetual motion
but she now lies, leaden,
laughing in its busy face,
not that it’s noticed
too busy.
she weighs as much as the earth tonight,
or possibly even R136a1,
a star which, at an estimated 265 solar masses, is so massive that it burns its hydrogen fast enough to be considered middle-aged at about a million years old…
(just saying…)
she knows how it feels.
actually she doesn’t
not really.
she’s just a woman.
and this is possibly old news now.
what with the universe expanding at such a phenomenal rate
and her impending early night
(which no one thought they’d see in a million years)-
nothing is as it seems.
so anyway,
she’s stopped.
and no one can quite believe it.
…
because we can and we always could
we will move the immovable
as we will prove the unprovable
give us a length and depth of time
that is now so rare
give us a moment of real contemplation
if you dare
give us room to breathe
and open space to plan
and we will move your immovable
because
we
can.
…
A Guest Is Best
a guest is always best
‘if we’re not his property he can’t get angry’
the little one said.
‘it’s better when he’s a visitor.
a guest is always best’.
he smiled at his accidental poetry.
‘so promise me he’ll only ever visit,
never stay,
‘cos that way
i’ll always get away
with murder’.
…
Fish
if I were a fish
horizons would mean nothing to me
waves would come and go
i’d take a deep breath and dive deep
again and again
if I were a fish
the bottom of the sea would be much like the top
low fish would look up at my disappearing form
high fish would look down
i would neither know the difference
nor would I care
if I were a fish.
…
here. not here.
absorption to apathy
in an instant
something captured
held down
a perfect mouse under a perfect paw
thrashing and squeaking
squeezed
for sport.
he had no appetite
for mouse
just the pleasure
of playing.
…
lacewing
tonight i found a lacewing on my loo roll
and in my efforts to protect it i tore off less than I normally would
because it was so close to the edge
and a little later
as i was cleaning my teeth
i looked over and it had gone
and i remembered it could fly
and i smiled at the ludicrous lengths we go to
to protect those we hardly know
when they can fly away
as soon as we turn our heads.
…
ode to chardonnay
Ahh Chardonnay…
You are, admittedly, a bit unfashionable now,
but you remain undeniably delicious
nevertheless.
You slip down like a big girl’s cordial,
dangerously easy.
You look like urine
granted,
but there’s something about you
which still whispers,
ooo, nice.
…
finding the plot.
he settled
pushing aching limbs into unfamiliar mattress
number 4 in as many days.
he imagined peace
he thought of dancing
whilst his eyes
stared at the page
too white
just the words dancing
thoughts not thinking
just sinking
into the puddle
partnering the plot
of unwanted stories
offering wanted respite
from circular madness.
yes
round and round they go
just questions upon questions
tumbling
forward rolling
vaulting
skilled yet falling
just out of reach.
he knows peace will come
one way or another
but for tonight
some one else’s story will do.
…
sixth sense or no sense at all.
for my sixth sense
i choose adventure
the thought of sitting still in stagnating security
fills me with as much horror and panic
as
(thinks)
free falling through a cyclone
no, not that
it fills me with as much horror and panic
as
um
as…
(thinks)
NOT free falling through a cyclone
(should, in fact, the opportunity ever arise)
that has to be better than stillness
still water stagnates
and standing still hurts my knees
after a bit.
…
a split second changes everything
it didn’t matter that there was no history
all was present
like the speck before the big bang
the density
the weight
the completely compacted everything
was there
for the taking.
…
vignette.
stood, stone still,
you sense the freedom,
the space to breathe.
you stretch, limbs so long, so languid, the tips unfurl and travel ever outwards
beyond blurred edges,
a carefully chosen special effect.
you
feel the tremors come back to you,
wondering what unfocussed fun you are having,
whilst here,
in the sharp centre,
immobile,
there can be none.
…
enid 4
I feel awake to you 24 hours a day
stepping lightly through this gentle wreckage
frozen in this moment
an eternal pause
what is this?
where is my mind?
where is my sense?
and you
laughing
just out of reach
disappear from view.
…
we needn’t have worried
she stretched her legs in front of her
feeling the gathering vibrations of the oncoming train on the ancient track
beneath her.
muscles groaned, bones shifted
we needn’t have worried.
people surged for the oncoming train
but she knew it was too fast,
pushing too much air
pulsing through the morning
hammering a path.
people stepped back
hair whipping against cheeks
fringes standing on end
wigs, no doubt, slipping.
but the train flew by
oblivious to their need.
we needn’t have worried
she smiled.
people muttered, groaned, swore
angry at plans thwarted,
turning to assumed complicit strangers
“fucking train”
the expletive hung in the air
shocking in a way it never is indoors with friends.
she sat watching
trying to work out exactly how the world had shifted
and precisely how much.
people’s faces were beginning to relax again
eyes repeatedly returning to the information board
the ‘fuck man’ looking lost,
torn off
like it had all happened too fast,
was all over too quickly
and yet nothing had actually begun.
we needn’t have worried
she was surprised at how warm she felt
sitting on the iron seat
people wrapped up, chins down,
making a show of their chilly discomfort,
but she was – coal fired –
banked up,
confident the warmth would last as long as she tended to it.
people were calling other people
telling them
we’ll be late
it’s a joke
a disgrace
fucking train
no information
total nightmare
it’s a disaster
fucking train
fucking train
fucking train
the words fell around her
finished fireworks reigning down,
she saw the contorted faces
hands pressing phones to ears
a disaster?
no
not that.
a gift of time
to sit
warmed by the still-present moments of him
contemplating
re-captured fragments
pressing on her eyes
her fingers
her belly
her thighs
lips pulsing
skin buzzing
pressing against the restraint of her clothes wrapping newly-flowered body
in clean cotton
and pungent wool.
(how can a body flower so fast?
like time-lapse photography, taking the breath away
-perhaps perfectly preserved all this time. just waiting…)
we needn’t have worried.
she stretches her legs,
flexes muscles tight
smiling at the tension
as the next train sends its grumbling rumble down the line.
this one
she knows
is the one.
no-one else moves
wary of looking foolish,
but the train glides into the station
stealthy
beautiful
and slowly relaxing its gigantic metal muscular frame
Poetry
50
So I sit here on the other side of the fence
A strange place it feels to me
Not like the usual ‘one year older’ place that feels the same
Where people (I did it too) like to joke
“So do you feel any older?”
And of course you don’t as the clock tick tocks and from one second to the next your age skips a number
But not this time
This time it has surely skipped a millienia
More
Somewhere where numbers mean nothing
Like being a newborn when everything is new
Everything is both what you expected and not what you expected at all
Because how can you expect this?
This time has no time attached
Madly treading water.
I am not fitted to this age
This half a century
I am no more prepared
I no more belong here than I belonged in youth
The gangly, stuttering, lip biting, jumper scrunching youth where I was in a constant state of one day I’ll grow into myself, I’ll know what to say to who about what and when and …
I did, I think, know this for a time
A minute perhaps
Once.
Madly treading water.
I stand at the reception desk of the local swimming pool
I stare at the piece of paper that tells me I can now go to the sessions called ‘Young At Heart’
I smile a horrified smile
I will the girl on reception to look up
To see me
To say
Sorry, this session is for 50 and over…
But I already know she’ll just scan my membership card
Smile her rictus grin
‘Thank you love’
She can’t see me
And neither can I.
Madly treading water.
31/01/2017
…
ROARING
Made up serpent/dragon thing by Billy Patch
I’m sitting, staring at rolling news,
The rolling responses to rolling news rolling along as social media first recoils and then strikes and re-strikes at ever-moving prey.
In my mind I picture it as a serpent of sorts – not a snake I’ve seen on a David Attenborough programme –
(Oh bloody hell David Attenborough, please don’t die,
Don’t leave us flailing,
I bet you’re not even on Twitter…
I wish you were sat here now, in the armchair next to me as I write,
Reading a newspaper – or a nature book…
– do you even read those? –
Or a novella… something comforting with the noise of the pages turning and my fingers on the keys the only sound…)
– but a made-up serpent,
Perhaps one of the many drawn by one of my sons over the years,
Given basic life and rattling off sounds that we think we recognize
But each sound dies before we can grasp any meaning
Any clarity
Quickly replaced by more and more sounds clashing and roaring and…
I sit here staring at my fingers tapping keys having no idea what word will come next having no idea why I’m writing and who will read it and who will care but I continue, thinking of serpents and noise and David Attenborough and-
Usually I can ‘take a view’ on stuff (an expression I inherited from my Gramps)
‘Take a view on it love, things move on so fast’ he used to say… in the days before social media and 24 hour news coverage, before shops opened 24/7, when actually nothing moved fast to me at all-
But Gramps was in his 70’s (as my own Dad is now, where does the time go?) so I’m assuming to him the world was whizzing round the way it does as you get older, as he sat in his armchair, smoking and reading the paper. Smoking indoors!
News rolling, social media (which I fully engage in) chattering endlessly making no sense, but who CARES?
Who wants sense?
Tears keep rolling down my face,
Not splashing onto my keyboard in any clichéd way, my keyboard isn’t below my eyes, I don’t want eye-strain…
Tears for those I don’t know, for Jo and Brendan Cox and her children (her children, bloody hell),
For all those who were just fucking having a nice time in a club in Orlando with friends and lovers and lovers in waiting,
And for fear of next Thursday,
Fear of being stuck in a country that is being run by lunatics which is sliding into a madness I have NO say in because my voice dies as soon as I speak, replaced by the ROARING…
So I can’t take a view on it.
Not today.
17th June 2016
…
First Day Off For A While.
My brain just fell out.
It’s on the table in front of me,
It’s beige,
I thought it would be madly technicoloured
A swarming little mass of primary coloured worms
Firing coloured sparks and secreting an oily puddleness,
But it’s not,
It’s beige and quite still and quite dry.
It must be someone else’s.
10/05/2016
…
breaking point (or: after reading one too many comments at the bottom of the internet when i wrote the top.)
Consumed as I am
Taken down and down
Again and again
Snagged on something diving faster than I ever could
Would ever want to
Struggling up
Gasping
Huge shuddering breaths
Gulping at air once empty
Now thick with dense brown
I can squeeze it through my fingers
(could)…
Grabbed
Plunged again
Caught fast,
Something jagged holds me under…
And – still for a moment –
My voice quietly pierces
‘Shall I just stay here?
It’s cool and navy blue
And so quiet’.
But no, the dense brown reaches down
And grabs my floating hair
(For a moment there
I fancied I could look like a mermaid
From above
To a passing fantasist
With an open mind)
Dragged to the surface to meet my mockers
Smiling like Bond villains,
Corners of mouths form little sneers
Stinking teeth too near
To my skin
Not letting them in
Not meeting their eyes
Trying to dive
Back down
Away from the dense brown
To the navy blue.
…
GREY/GRAY
Are grey and silver the same?
Or can you simply choose?
Is salt grey or silver?
Or does the grey/silver just look salty white when it’s with the pepper black?
Are you salt and sand if you’re a graying/silvering blonde one?
Are you caster sugar and cheap coffee powder if you’re a greying/silvering mousey one?
And is it grEy or grAy?
And can I choose white gold instead of silver?
And is it white gold?
Because it looks silver, or grey, or gray, or salty or sugary…
And shall I ‘GO’ it?
Go Silver?
Go Grey/Gray?
Go White?
Go Salt? (No one ever said that, I know),
And if I DO what do I become?
Old?
The same, but grey (or silver etc. you get the picture)…
Because I want the wrapping to reflect the present,
I want the tin to reflect the contents,
I want my fucking hair to tell the world what I still am –
(Except, like the rest of the human race I’m not entirely sure I know what that is)
And ‘you know you’re not alone’ is ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY a brilliant thing,
A human thing (like I said)…
Aging cats don’t mind the odd speck of grey,
Aging dogs don’t speculate on whether their coat reflects their innards,
Aging fish …..
Fish don’t have hair,
BUT IF THEY DID WOULD THEIR FAMOUSLY SHORT TERM MEMORY BE A BOON
Like a constant and comforting dementia.
And anyway, I don’t reckon fish age.
So where was I?
What am I saying?
Maybe my hair is thoroughly reflecting exactly who I am
Maybe it’s my innards that are wrong.
And maybe the grey silver sugar is something sprinkled onto our heads to say
‘I no longer have to give a flying fuck’.
Me and the fish.
(And yes I know there are more important things to worry about but if we let that stop us writing about humany stuff then there’ll be very little poetry and Pam Ayres wouldn’t be a household name.
In some households.)
03/06/2015
…
THE ONLY REASON I’M NOT PUNCHING ANYONE IS BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHO TO PUNCH.
If I see
One More INSPIR-fucking-ATIONAL Quote
On walls and feeds
Telling me what I NEED
I WILL PUNCH someone hard.
‘Only you are you!’
Shouted to the masses,
‘Share your unique love’
Emoted to the world,
‘Protect your exceptional self!’
Told to the crowds of dead-eyed unique, exceptional individuals,
‘See the bright new opportunity in each day’
Slipping off eyeballs as we click to see who’s clicking on our clicks.
Self-help dished out by faceless others,
Spilt there to help empty authors feel better about their special selves,
Checking Bitly for rising clicks
On freely given circular wisdom,
“We are each of us angels with only one wing. And we can only fly embracing each other”
Oh FUCK THE FUCK OFF.
(and yes, I will be checking Bitly to see how many people have read this.)
…
FIFA YOU THIEVING BASTARDS.
Fifa 15 for XBox 1
Are you really worth £54.99?
For that I could:
Fly to Rome and back
Twice.
Sponsor an animal somewhere
For it’s whole life, probably.
Take someone special out to dinner
(As long as they went easy on the wine).
Or buy a second hand pair of Muck Boots
Seemingly expensive but last a lifetime
Not like FUCKING FIFA 15.
(And yes I know the digital download is cheaper. But what the fuck IS THAT ALL ABOUT?)
19/12/2014
…
iPad vs Aye Typewriters.
(A poem inspired by the events of the last 24 hours in which I reach back to the rose tinted past and think about how progress isn’t progress at all. Sometimes.)
You can write off
Ye Olde Typewriters
If you like,
But I’ll tell you what…
All that Cloud floating
All them Portals portaling
All them Terabytes roaring
Can’t infallibly contain your preciousness
Because HashBloodyTag NOONEREALLYKNOWSHOWTHATSHITWORKS…
And when you lose something
It’s REALLY GONE…
POOF!
BUT…
The only way to delete your precious words
On Ye Olde Typewriter
Was with Tippex
Or chucking the actual paper
In the actual bin,
But either way
IT WAS STILL THERE!!
NOT LIKE MY FUCKING ONLINE APPLICATION FORM.
…
On the dangers of looking young from a distance….
I walked past my son’s school today.
I saw a young man walking towards me, 18 maybe, a non uniformed sixth former in any case.
I saw him clock me and I saw him look at me and I thought
“Oh shit”
I look like a teenager from a distance…
I sped up, trying to close the distance between us to cut short his glancing assumptions, but the years were dragging me down (along with a bad back and sore thighs from climbing snowdon and life).
I felt crippled with concern that as he got close enough to see the 30 year age gap between us he’d crumble.
But he steadfastly just looked at me but not my face.
Each step aged me 10 years, 20, 50,
And as he drew closer I felt a telegram from the queen was only a pigeon step away.
He smoothed his 18 year old hair in a tiny, massive gesture.
I died a little more.
110.
He arrived inches from my wrinkles.
He threw me a look which froze on his smooth, smooth face.
I tried to express… nothing.
I saw him finally see my face
I saw him trying to express… nothing
And in doing so he said exactly what he was trying to hide.
1000.
…
Circular Idiocy
I’m writing this to force me to write
Not because I’m suffering from writers block
I don’t consider myself a writer just at the moment
So blockages aren’t a problem for me
I’m writing this because if I don’t
I’ll scream for lack of writing
For lack of creativity
For sitting staring at screens
For shoving numbers round a page
For writing synopses which never end
For hating everyone at the Edinburgh Fringe
Hashtag Fuck Off Basically.
I’m writing this to force me to watch
As letter by letter something unexpected
Forms on the blank sheet of ‘paper’
Doing an impression of creativity
Giving me something to look at
Putting black on white
Stopping the glare of hashtag What The Fuck have You Actually Achieved Other Than Half Formed Plans and Circular Idiocy
And a passable score in Skyforce?
Although that’s not to be sniffed at
And gathering stars is a mindless progress of sorts
And I’m increasingly fine with mindless progress.
And yes I know there’s no spaces in actual hashtags.
I’m writing this to show you that my world is all half formed plans and circular idiocy
Which doesn’t make me unhappy
But it does give me deep wrinkles.
# SoWhat?
…
WARMTH, FINALLY
Today was that day the sun finally shone in that March way,
The way that makes me find a place to park myself,
Facing south,
Close my prickling eyes and turn my albino sunflower face towards it,
Drinking it in,
Consuming its warmth,
Craven and foolish because I know (even in March)
These first rays WILL burn me,
But, wreckless –
The way I felt after the 5th unasked for (but later charged for) coloured vodka shot served on a aesthetically pleasing wooden platter in a pretentious bar in Islington some years ago (never again) –
I
Let
It
Happen –
Powerless,
Thirsty,
Loving it.
…
GET LOST LITTLE GOBLIN
(a friday poem for you. the end needs work…)
there’s a goblin of words
that sits in my brain
when I get the bus
he gets the train
when I run a bath
he jumps in the shower
I choose economy
he plumps for full power
he dances around me when I’m sitting quiet
when I start to slow cook
he starts to fry it (!)
but I’ve got him now
and shown him his place
he poked me in the eye
I punched him in the face.
Happy Friday!
25th Sept. 2013
…
A Mischief Smile
As I walked in the rain today
An elderly couple passed by
Hello he said
Hello I said
Who’s that? she said
Don’t know he said
Why say hello? she said
Don’t know he said
Well don’t she said
I won’t he said.
….
I looked back.
So did he.
We smiled a mischief smile.
Hello I mouthed
Hello he mouthed
She didn’t see
Her back looked cross
Tee hee.
…
A Thinly Disguised Metaphor About Stinking Drains
There has been a superfluidity of shite
running through my ears
trickling into my head
lodging in my brain
like bits of a roast dinner stuck in congealed fat
in the sink
(when I knew I should have put that weird plug that isn’t a plug in the hole
but even that was too much trouble)
So I washed up
and I poked stuff through the plughole
and stuff blocked the drain
as I sort of knew it would
(because it always fecking does)
and as I half heartedly poke at what was on my plate, then in my sink, now in my drain
letting my finger wiggle into the warm oozy fat
which contains pieces of what I lapped up only minutes before
I think
This is really, probably, quite disgusting in truth
and I try and picture the scene from an outsider’s point of view
an outsider that might stumble on the scene of me crouching by my gutter
poking the pork fat
(and not even hating it)
But instead I laugh out loud
at the stories we create in our heads
to justify our hilarious human moments
and wish upon wish you were here to see it.
And then I remember that this poem started as a metaphor
and ended with me on my knees poking stinking drains.
Que cera cera.
…
He Knows
The first time they stopped
She saw my face
Whilst he saw a pair of baggy balls
How rude
I thought
But I got over it
When you’re 200 years old
And a tree to boot
There’s no point
Getting pissed off
Holding grudges
Who knows? Who cares?
So what if someone thinks your chin is a pair of baggy testicles?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
He sees it now.
She can no longer look.
…
untitled.
so it turns out the seashell had no interest in the fish.
seems múm doesn’t always know best.
…
The Brixels
Today we made a band out of Lego
We called them The Brixels,
Although it was almost The Bricks,
But after 5 minutes of creative differences
We settled on The Brixels
With the proviso that Bricks would be
The name of their first album.
They have a drum kit-shaped eraser for
Their drum kit,
And a Lego mini-figure guitar
For their lead guitar,
And a hippy
For a drummer.
We thought their pretty Lego boy frontman was called
Steve.
Their manager is a nerd
With a tiny laptop
Who we think says
“Live fast, die young”
In a very geeky Lego voice.
Which made all of us laugh out loud.
In my day we had to use our imaginations when it came to Lego.
Their first song will be a cover of
Brick by Brick by the Arctic Monkey’s,
Or Build by the Housemartins,
Or I Need A Hero (Factory) by Bonnie Tyler.
They will then branch out and record an original track called
You Need to Lego, It’s Over…
(Feat. DJ Stud).
This made us laugh a lot too.
But not as much as the geek saying
“Live fast die young”.
They’ll probably be a YouTube hit.
You heard it here first.
…
You’re Like An Onion.
(I thought this picture would save you having to visualise the onion….)
You’re like an onion
He said,
Admittedly quite wrinkly and a bit flakey.
But multi-layered,
Unpredicatable…
He trailed off.
Are onions unpredictable then?
I said.
They can be love, yes…
They can be.
You’re like a turnip
I said.
Intriguing
He said,
Go on.
No
I said
That’s it.
…
endurance
My foot never wavers on the accelerator pedal
The tension is an exact science
The dial never moves
How does he do that?
It’s nothing now. I have mastered it. My right leg has grown accustomed to the demands.
A cacophony of car horns greet me as people pass, fingers and fists aloft
“Oi, Grandad!”
My wife sits, staring grimly ahead, pushing her right foot into the floor with increasing insistence
Go on, go mad, 31 miles an hour, it won’t kill you.
I know what you’re thinking
I say
And you’re wrong.
…
mediocrity.
It is easier to go back
than move on.
It is easier to retrace those steps
and deepen that familiar rut
so soft under foot
which whispers your favourite thoughts on a loop,
dispenses familiarity through the soles of your feet,
questions nothing,
gives an enigmatic ‘you’re fine’
and accepts the explanation of
‘it’s not you, it’s me’
as if to say
‘what else could it possibly be?’
Do you see those hard little nuggets of self-knowledge
that you’ve picked up on your well trodden journey?
You could stand still now,
liquefy them
and slowly inject them into the hollow you left,
if you like.
Remember how, when you left the safe place,
you didn’t really know if the hollow contained
nothing,
or everything?
So the syringe sighs down as you hope to fill this hollow with something like
purpose,
and
happiness
– let’s not forget the happiness –
exhaustively looked for
still yet to be claimed.
You hear a little voice
– a familiar little voice you know and think you love –
saying again and again,
‘I think it is already full,
I think something crept in whilst you left your well trodden path
and quietly stretched until it fitted.
I think it’s full”.
But instead you keep looking for the unknown in the known,
glorious technicoloured mediocrity,
safety,
smooth corners,
clean sheets,
rails that you can stay on,
facing forward.
My mum always told me that looking out the windows would make you travel sick,
So maybe we don’t even take the journey.
Maybe we stand at home in the drive
staring at the way forward,
or sit in the kitchen
eyeing the drive,
or lie in the bath
building a defence against the middle road
and locking ourselves in a symmetrical conservatory.
At least you can see out
if you keep the windows clean.
Peepo.
…
Life, The Universe, The Dolphin of Joy
A friend of mine is 42 today
He told me not to use the quote from the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
He said
“Don’t give me that fucking Universe shit”.
I didn’t like to tell him I haven’t got him anything yet
Let alone the fucking Universe.
But I’m going to get him something from the Early Learning Centre
Not because he’s in the Early Learning stage
Clearly
He’s 42
But because that’s the only place they sell
The Dolphin of Joy.
…
SHELL
1.
Iridescent shell
They smiled at one another
So happy, amazed at the wave of unimaginable treasure tumbling and pushing for prominence
Their hopes, dreams and mischief reflected back in the glittering surfaces
Their long slumbering desires whispered
“look what we found for you both”.
2.
Shining shell
He held her so close with his eyes
And spiralled round her heart
She touched his hand
Just to make sure he was real
And holding it, curled, happy in the deep, dark, quiet of him
Away from other clattering hands and chattering voices
She tasted the glittering salt on his tongue
As it found hers
Touching the absolute depths of her.
3.
My sweet, sweet shell
You have my heart –
She can hear the sea swell
As they try to pull apart –
I’m curled right here
Waiting for the tide
Stronger for knowing him
She loved him. We tried.
…
Recycling Day
Passing Number 40,
The dog stops to sniff at former piss on a wall so low as to render it completely pointless,
He cocks his creaking leg on the brown plastic box containing Number 40’s fortnightly empties,
Grants Whiskey, Mateus Rose, Aspirin…
The dog’s owner tries not to make snap judgements,
But she has.
Passing Number 42
The dog sniffs and quickly positions himself to splash the blue bag containing Number 42’s fortnightly paper and card,
National Geographic, A gas bill, A handwritten note…
The rarity of ink on cartridge paper (100gsm minimum – she’s a sucker for good stationary) slows her steps.
She pauses, tries to read the note without seeming obvious.
The dog stops again,
He’s always stopping to sniff,
To piss.
She feigns irritation, rolling her eyes to precisely no one, whilst reading the spidery writing which so clearly shouts “I am old”.
“Is it safe to plug my vibrator into the mains?”
Not quite the request for an extra pint of gold top she’d been expecting.
The dog strains at the choker. He never actually chokes.
She walks on, thinking.
Echo Falls, Sainsbury’s Basics Worcester Sauce.
Is it even possible to plug a vibrator into the mains?
Maybe in the olden days, when the spidery writing woman (she assumed it was a woman) was still young and perhaps had a stronger wrist –
The onset of osteoarthritis can only be a complete downer when it comes to unwieldy, repetitive, manual manoeuvres,
She muses.
When were the mains even invented?
She thinks.
Who the fuck was she writing to?
She wonders.
The dog sits suddenly and refuses to budge.
He does this a lot of late.
If he could write it would be very spidery indeed.
And his vibrator would be administered by the dog equivalent of the Victorian Doctor.
If such a thing exists.
She stares at the deaf pet. He studiously ignores her.
She retraces her steps and looks into the blue bag outside number 42 again.
“You see I only have a spare 13 amp fuse and the plug on my vibrator says 3 amp…”
The dog joins her. She gestures to him to SIT. She fancies she has taught him a crude form of Dog British Sign Language. She hasn’t. She pulls on his choker. Not choking. She holds him taut.
“… and I don’t want to electrocute myself whilst I’m almost ‘there’…”
Almost there?
She tries not to picture it… the owner of the spidery writing plugging herself into the mains, fizzing whilst on the vinegar strokes…
But she (like you) couldn’t help but see that unwelcome and vivid picture.
The dog strains and coughed up some yellow phlegm.
She smiled at his timing. Chiming with hers.
She drags the dog away, musing.
Butcher’s dog meat, Tesco’s baked beans, Tinned tomatoes. Not chopped, whole plum. Tricky in a sauce. Always too watery.
“I’ll just risk it”
She looks up at he house for clues.
The bedroom curtains were closed.
It was 11am.
The dog strained at the leash.
She smiled.
“What’s the worst that could happen”.
…
last chance (1)
the fish looked at her captor
the fisherman looked at his prize
I will only make you happy if you let me go
said the fish.
I will eat you
said the fisherman
deaf
enraptured by his catch.
…
the calamity of me
black eyes glitter,
tiny face turns away,
nestles in creamy flesh, no longer mine.
they are both lost to me
and who can say for how long?
people ask me on a daily basis,
are you besotted?
you must be besotted.
they bombard me,
i was besotted
instantly besotted
it’s natures way isn’t it?
nature… clever bastard.
i nod and smile,
i coo and push the pea in a pram
round and round to show
who’s the daddy,
to try and stop this tiny wrinkled
stranger
screaming at the calamity of me.
people stop me every other step,
they stare into what i believe to be the overpriced over complicated over fussy pram cum pushchair cum carseat cum highchair come paininthearse
he’s beautiful!
you must be so proud!
they tell me
my first born instantly stole my heart….
nothing was ever the same again.
i nod
and smile
and coo
and push the squally pea in a pram away,
sneaking little peeks,
thinking
it’s a baby…
wrinkly, red and screaming,
and I don’t know him
and he doesn’t want me
because I’m the wrong one.
i hear there’s hope,
i read that there will be a time when they both look up from their lactose infused two person party
and he will see me,
his eyes will no longer be black
but another colour more suited to ‘eyes’
– perhaps (i fervently hope) mucky brown like mine –
and he will see me
and smile
and i will fall in love with him.
i hear this.
in the meantime
i nod
i smile
i coo
and feel a terror unlike any other i can imagine.
…
where’s me cuppa?
waking late
lazy from love
mouth thick
thighs protesting
half heartedly
glad to be alive
she craves tea
and on hearing murmurs
creeps lower in the musty nest
sure
on this morning of all mornings
the tea will come to her
the bathroom door
caught between twenty draughts
groans and crumples shut
time and time again
the distant radio plays its bass line
time and time again
the murmurs stay as murmurs
but no murmur can ever present the tea to her
she narrows her uncleansed eyes
and shuffles up for air
squinting at the cloudy light
she hauls her heavy heavy limbs from the warmth
plunges feet into ancient, once fashionable, furry boots
and starts her shuffle
yeti-like
towards the heart of the house
murmuring to herself
“I’ll get me own sodding tea”
…
balloon
and when the last guest left
you left
and i took the balloons down
taking care not to drop the drawing pins on the floor
and i pierced each balloon
put the pinprick to my mouth
and breathed your breath into my mouth
because that was the last of you
…
RELAX!!!
Relax
You say
So I relax
Twitching with the effort of not doing all the things I could be doing whilst I’m relaxing
Stop looking at your phone
You say
So I stop looking at my phone
Unsure of what to do with my eyes
And my thumbs
So I look at my thumbs
And I notice they’ve grown older.
Stop frowning
You say
So I stop frowning
And I affect a slightly surprised look
Widening my eyes
Which gives me more wrinkles.
Try it.
Take a break
You say
So I take a break
And I write a poem about taking a break.
…
‘Should’ Ended A Millennia Ago.
There are times when you feel the need to reach out
To people who don’t know you at all
Connections you make because you can.
There’s a danger here.
This thing that most of us know –
Either because we’ve been told, or tell others –
‘You make your mind up about someone within the first 10 seconds”
And there are reasons for that.
Ancient survival
Mating possibilities
Friendship.
But what about when we can’t see each other?
What about when we read just their written words?
These scrolling rolls of 140 characters
With no visual cues?
Maybe a hasty but controlled twitpic
Where someone else did the first 10 seconds
First.
The world where we find our opinion of a stranger by touching on a profile picture
‘About’
Likes
Websites
Connections
Followers
Friends
RT’s
Answers to Facebook’s insistent chipping away at us with the
“How’re you feeling Lizi?”
(Did anything ever feel so insincere? And yet we feel compelled to answer sometimes)…
When we’re largely conditioned to say
“Fine”
Knowing if you tell the truth it’s a case of
Who cares?
WHO CARES?
Which takes me right back to where this started.
There are times when you feel the need to reach out
To people who don’t know you at all,
Connections you make because you can
Not because you should.
And actually –
You should.
…
I Was Wrong
Whilst out walking the dog this morning
I saw a woman sat, staring at her tv.
Get a life
I thought
It’s 9am.
Turns out it was a fishtank.
My misplaced
condescending
assumptive
smallmindedness
turned instantly to envy.
I went home
And turned on the tv.
…
There is The Question Of Sanity.
I create many worlds
some of my worlds will be lost
some will flourish.
I populate my worlds with people who come to me
some willing
some unwilling
some wooed
some beckoned
some told
some who just arrive unannounced
sometimes with a flourish
sometimes a whisper.
I try to look after these people
these people who populate my worlds
weaving threads of varying thickness between us
some may be in the wrong world
and may leave it for another
another of mine
or someone else’s completely.
I cannot look after them all
some may want to run
some are pushed
some just simply disappear hushed and un-noticed
(some re-appear hushed and un-noticed after a breath or two)
others shout in my face night after night
until I turn them down
or off.
Loathe as I am to lose the thread that binds us there is the question of sanity.
…
Guts
“Great minds think alike”,
This stranger said to me as we both dropped our bags of warm dog crap into the bin.
There was a flattened hedgehog by the bin
Proper flat
Stiff
Like a spikey oval plate.
She stood waiting for my reply.
She hadn’t seen the hedgehog.
“Um, yes”
I said
As I noticed the guts of the hedgehog
Sitting on the pavement nearby
Red and jelly-like
Having been somehow ejected from its body.
A shocking contrast
Poised, pink, wobbling
Like they had another life to start.
I started laughing.
The stranger half smiled and looked at me, quizzically
Head half-cocked
Like her too-small dog.
“Show some guts!”
I said,
“I did!”
Said the hedgehog (with me doing it’s tiny voice for it)…
“Look!”
I walked off, shaking with laughter.
The stranger looked after me
I imagine
Non-plussed
Whilst her too-small dog cocked his leg on my flattened friend.
Great minds.
…
1%
I don’t like Mondays mum…
Says my 11 year old.
There’s a song called that…
I tell him
…written by someone who really didn’t like Monday,
from the olden days.
I really don’t like Mondays…
Says my 11 year old, tears filling those blue eyes he has,
…right now.
I look at him,
I shut my eyes for a moment
What if you die whilst I’m at school mum?
He says,
Yes!
My 8 year old joins in,
I think that too. There’s a 1% chance that absolutely anything could happen to you whilst we’re at school…
My 11 year old nods, fresh tears falling,
…Or asleep.
Anything?
I ask.
They both nod, bereft, stood before me in freshly washed and carefully ironed school uniforms.
And I feel the weight of their need and happiness pressing into my eyeballs,
And I smile and say,
School. Go.
They do. They go.
And I stand, eyes full, looking at the place they just were.
1%.
Anything.
…
THAT SINKING FEELING
Wee done,
She shook out the last few drops (no loo roll),
She stepped out of the cubicle and stared around, looking for familiar white sinks and smeared mirrors.
But there was none.
Her eyes fell on a row of large alien letterboxes
Just sitting there, in the wall
Just below chest height,
Black mouthed,
Silent.
She glanced around,
She was alone,
No alibi.
No witness.
She approached the alien mouthpiece slowly,
Head held back a bit,
Eyes darting, checking the exits,
Ready for flight.
She could see a label, stuck to the metal,
It said:
Soaps, washes and dries.
What could it mean?
Soaps
Washes
And
Dries.
Infathomable.
She crept closer, head slowly thrusting forward until her eyes were level with the alien opening.
Soaps, washes and dries.
Feeling braver, she allowed her head to enter the black hole
Twisting her face to glance up
Looking for clues
Soaps, washes and dries.
Nothing happened.
Nothing at all.
She withdrew, shaking her head in bemusement
And, taking one last look
She left.
Soaps, washes anddries.
Outside, in the blinding light
He was waiting:
“Aren’t they just amazing?!”
“What are?”
“Aren’t they just so clever?!”
“What is?”
“It just does it all for you!”
“What does?”
“The sink!
You just pop your hands in –
It’s automatic –
First soap then water then warm air
It’s so simple!”
…
“Isn’t it clever?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t know how to work it,
I just stood there and put my head in.”
He laughed. So much.
“I’ll have the last laugh when an alien delivers a letter”
She thought.
Soaps, washes and dries.
…
Idiot.
How can you feel something one moment and then
Nothing whatsoever
The next?
She asked him.
Well imagine this
He said.
You stub your toe,
It hurts like fuck,
And then it doesn’t.
It’s not the same.
It’s the same.
It’s not.
It is.
It’s exactly the same.
Exactly.
She went very quiet,
For quite a long time.
Too long.
He thought she must be thinking.
Do you get it?
He asked quietly.
Of course I ‘get it’
She said.
I’m not an idiot.
Debatable,
He thought.
And I wasn’t thinking,
She said
When?
He said.
Just then
She said-
You thought wrong.
She went quiet
Again.
He left before either of them could break the silence.
She watched him go.
Idiot.
265 solar masses.
she’s stopped.
she can’t imagine ever going again.
she’s mastered perpetual motion
but she now lies, leaden,
laughing in its busy face,
not that it’s noticed
too busy.
she weighs as much as the earth tonight,
or possibly even R136a1,
a star which, at an estimated 265 solar masses, is so massive that it burns its hydrogen fast enough to be considered middle-aged at about a million years old…
(just saying…)
she knows how it feels.
actually she doesn’t
not really.
she’s just a woman.
and this is possibly old news now.
what with the universe expanding at such a phenomenal rate
and her impending early night
(which no one thought they’d see in a million years)-
nothing is as it seems.
so anyway,
she’s stopped.
and no one can quite believe it.
…
because we can and we always could
we will move the immovable
as we will prove the unprovable
give us a length and depth of time
that is now so rare
give us a moment of real contemplation
if you dare
give us room to breathe
and open space to plan
and we will move your immovable
because
we
can.
…
A Guest Is Best
a guest is always best
‘if we’re not his property he can’t get angry’
the little one said.
‘it’s better when he’s a visitor.
a guest is always best’.
he smiled at his accidental poetry.
‘so promise me he’ll only ever visit,
never stay,
‘cos that way
i’ll always get away
with murder’.
…
Fish
if I were a fish
horizons would mean nothing to me
waves would come and go
i’d take a deep breath and dive deep
again and again
if I were a fish
the bottom of the sea would be much like the top
low fish would look up at my disappearing form
high fish would look down
i would neither know the difference
nor would I care
if I were a fish.
…
here. not here.
absorption to apathy
in an instant
something captured
held down
a perfect mouse under a perfect paw
thrashing and squeaking
squeezed
for sport.
he had no appetite
for mouse
just the pleasure
of playing.
…
lacewing
tonight i found a lacewing on my loo roll
and in my efforts to protect it i tore off less than I normally would
because it was so close to the edge
and a little later
as i was cleaning my teeth
i looked over and it had gone
and i remembered it could fly
and i smiled at the ludicrous lengths we go to
to protect those we hardly know
when they can fly away
as soon as we turn our heads.
…
ode to chardonnay
Ahh Chardonnay…
You are, admittedly, a bit unfashionable now,
but you remain undeniably delicious
nevertheless.
You slip down like a big girl’s cordial,
dangerously easy.
You look like urine
granted,
but there’s something about you
which still whispers,
ooo, nice.
…
finding the plot.
he settled
pushing aching limbs into unfamiliar mattress
number 4 in as many days.
he imagined peace
he thought of dancing
whilst his eyes
stared at the page
too white
just the words dancing
thoughts not thinking
just sinking
into the puddle
partnering the plot
of unwanted stories
offering wanted respite
from circular madness.
yes
round and round they go
just questions upon questions
tumbling
forward rolling
vaulting
skilled yet falling
just out of reach.
he knows peace will come
one way or another
but for tonight
some one else’s story will do.
…
sixth sense or no sense at all.
for my sixth sense
i choose adventure
the thought of sitting still in stagnating security
fills me with as much horror and panic
as
(thinks)
free falling through a cyclone
no, not that
it fills me with as much horror and panic
as
um
as…
(thinks)
NOT free falling through a cyclone
(should, in fact, the opportunity ever arise)
that has to be better than stillness
still water stagnates
and standing still hurts my knees
after a bit.
…
a split second changes everything
it didn’t matter that there was no history
all was present
like the speck before the big bang
the density
the weight
the completely compacted everything
was there
for the taking.
…
vignette.
stood, stone still,
you sense the freedom,
the space to breathe.
you stretch, limbs so long, so languid, the tips unfurl and travel ever outwards
beyond blurred edges,
a carefully chosen special effect.
you
feel the tremors come back to you,
wondering what unfocussed fun you are having,
whilst here,
in the sharp centre,
immobile,
there can be none.
…
enid 4
I feel awake to you 24 hours a day
stepping lightly through this gentle wreckage
frozen in this moment
an eternal pause
what is this?
where is my mind?
where is my sense?
and you
laughing
just out of reach
disappear from view.
…
we needn’t have worried
she stretched her legs in front of her
feeling the gathering vibrations of the oncoming train on the ancient track
beneath her.
muscles groaned, bones shifted
we needn’t have worried.
people surged for the oncoming train
but she knew it was too fast,
pushing too much air
pulsing through the morning
hammering a path.
people stepped back
hair whipping against cheeks
fringes standing on end
wigs, no doubt, slipping.
but the train flew by
oblivious to their need.
we needn’t have worried
she smiled.
people muttered, groaned, swore
angry at plans thwarted,
turning to assumed complicit strangers
“fucking train”
the expletive hung in the air
shocking in a way it never is indoors with friends.
she sat watching
trying to work out exactly how the world had shifted
and precisely how much.
people’s faces were beginning to relax again
eyes repeatedly returning to the information board
the ‘fuck man’ looking lost,
torn off
like it had all happened too fast,
was all over too quickly
and yet nothing had actually begun.
we needn’t have worried
she was surprised at how warm she felt
sitting on the iron seat
people wrapped up, chins down,
making a show of their chilly discomfort,
but she was – coal fired –
banked up,
confident the warmth would last as long as she tended to it.
people were calling other people
telling them
we’ll be late
it’s a joke
a disgrace
fucking train
no information
total nightmare
it’s a disaster
fucking train
fucking train
fucking train
the words fell around her
finished fireworks reigning down,
she saw the contorted faces
hands pressing phones to ears
a disaster?
no
not that.
a gift of time
to sit
warmed by the still-present moments of him
contemplating
re-captured fragments
pressing on her eyes
her fingers
her belly
her thighs
lips pulsing
skin buzzing
pressing against the restraint of her clothes wrapping newly-flowered body
in clean cotton
and pungent wool.
(how can a body flower so fast?
like time-lapse photography, taking the breath away
-perhaps perfectly preserved all this time. just waiting…)
we needn’t have worried.
she stretches her legs,
flexes muscles tight
smiling at the tension
as the next train sends its grumbling rumble down the line.
this one
she knows
is the one.
no-one else moves
wary of looking foolish,
but the train glides into the station
stealthy
beautiful
and slowly relaxing its gigantic metal muscular frame
it gently shudders to a halt
and holds itself there,
a dubstep deep bass throbbing continuously.
it has stopped
just for her.
people step back
hair whipping cheeks
fringes standing on end
wigs, no doubt, slipping.
she meets their eyes,
every one of them,
and she steps aboard
mindful of the gap,
leaving this frozen chaos behind,
and the heavy, heavy door slides shut
with a huge whispered sigh
deeply content.
she smiles at you
and you smile back.
we needn’t have worried.
…
insane
I
read
something today
that made me laugh out loud.
It was in a comedian’s autobiography.
It made me remember another comedian.
One night with another comedian.
It said that if you wear more
than two badges
You’re a
nutter.
Hell Yeah!
This
made me smile
knowing that the moment
you pinned that third badge onto me
I had saved you from one sort of craziness, only
to offer another temporary insanity. James
Brown shrieked in the background,
your hands shook a little
as I remember.
I swayed
alot
…