Now a barnyard savage
your head tattooed
in drunken Latin:
Illegitimi non carborundum

message done.
A clever thug
you have now
become.

Listen

Scan harsh seas, at breakfast, lunch
and tea, adjust my Sou’wester, yellow
in its circumstance, as yellow as can be.

I’d take quite seriously the lone man’s
approach to being. Perhaps keep a dog
to polish off corned beef hash, a parrot

To laugh with, or at. Perhaps I’d go mad
with the responsibility of mezzanine flooring,
of gearless pedestal turnings and of photo electric

cells sensing the daylight arriving, perhaps!
I’d leave just once that year, to collect fuel
from gnarled fingered fishermen, wise to

the capacity of break tanks and the like.
More to the point I’d maybe save some lives,
whilst reading endlessly.

Listen

Yet, no prosaic approaches for him
nor drunken sitting on knees, no pleads
“For a new Mrs” he’s left alone
To sup and tick, a regular guy/myth.

ferments; rendering silent the yapping kids and laughing
dogs, a point where a seagull’s screech can deafen.

It’s beyond the lug-holed vestiges, the seaweed-strewn
remnants. It’s beyond the Sally Mae; the barnacled boat

come ship come stranded dream.

It’s in a place between life and a tragic death you’d read
about in a local rag:

“Father and son drowned whilst digging for China”

It’s a point of reluctant return. From there, the factories
are cloud makers, the roof-tops; snowy mountain peaks.

It’s a place to revisit, with a sturdier spade.

Listen

Seagulls dotted here and there
like points on a map you may wish to visit.
This is my small world.

Ships upon the horizon, carrying their poison.
In sight, in mind, out of reach.

Two fortresses stand, as they’ve always stood, in defiance.
Hulking, rusting, tempting me always
the weather is their enemy now.

When people arrive, tranquillity dies,
so I observe them.

Old people with their complaints
their dogs and their memories,
Seated on the benches behind the wave break,
longing to be drowned by the youthful exuberance below.

Brash gaggles of families armed with seaside propaganda
ruin my view.

I’ll come back tonight, and the stars will write for me.

Listen

to the bra
black and ripped, on the floor,
beside the bed.

There was nature and there
was fun, this is art of the heart –
dead and gone, preserved, not for long.

I’ll miss you until the cows lay down
predicting rain,
after that, I’ll miss you again –

like trains should miss quaint drunks
on the line
but don’t.

I’ll miss you like a mole missing his
hole, flailing around
on hot concrete, blind, lost and useless.

I’ll miss you
until the pylons stop buzzing,
until the starlings fly when the electricity dies,

till blackout,
till infection,
till the end –

I’ll miss you
as well as I can.

I said – I preferred his moustache.

You said your first memory was of screaming:
Yowling, uttering your brutal stages of advance
dazed from the drop, finding your voice, or not;
Images flocking like birds of Assisi…

I said – The Rockford Files

You said what moved you was a child’s pale face.
A garden at night after a party, a wine glass
blood-red with cigarette debris, and a guy
no-one knows stroking a dog.

I said – I was that guy.

We ignored him, as you do, piled in
the back of his fur lined mobile.
As we shrunk in he said I regret to inform you
your eyes are outrageous, and your language unreal.

He never spoke again, as far as I know,
but I don’t know him so who’s to say?
He dropped us off where he thought we should go,
snatched our money, and drove silently away.

The night closed in like a paper bag, the air
crunching to the sound of our feeble escape.
I forgot my name, and cried about it, Woz said
It didn’t matter who I was anyway, my arms
grew longer to thank him, and Hendrix twelve
stringed along barbiturate way.

The Paisley moon came around too soon,
We just floated away.

Listen