Bunch of stuff

Here's a bunch of poems written fairly recently ... villanelles, sestinas and what have you, isolation blues and this and that ...

LEAVINGS

The games we quit unfinished hang bereft

In air unused, of late, to morning calm.

Stripped mattresses which cling to last night’s dreams

Are slow to shed the indents we have left

of hurried sleeps we’d wished we didn’t need.

A shaft of dust dissects the grief-struck room

We have deserted, hoovered soon enough,

Becoming just as quick a place to arrive

And settle in, a home from home to whom

We have bequeathed this palace of tall deeds.

The leavings felt, always, like final hymns

Sung with portentous hush, like spirits lost

To aging, broken bonds of hallowed trust

As each adventure left our worn-out limbs

And all we had was sunburn and cut knees.

I’d wish I’d never left that holiday,

And that one, till the next and greater one.

Each leaving took a part of me; again.

And that last dream? – just this, a brief delay.

No leaving yet. I hate the leaving. Please.

FELLOWS

They learnt, those boys, the rare and cursed power

of solidarity. They sang a song

of bloodshed gone, with locked and loaded arms.

The trumpet’s notes bounced heavy on the ground,

the full moon stamped approval on the pond -

a fellowship those boys would never shake.

They prayed for peace, but sought new hands to shake

and share the grace of this new superpower

they’d found and felt unbound by at the pond.

Their voices filled out concert halls, their song

raised rooves and burrowed deep into new ground

uncovered by the strength in their young arms.

They stored false memories of shouldered arms

that sent out rounds which made great mountains shake.

Each day, they pledged anew to break fresh ground

Still wholly giddy with the growing power

unshackled by a simple moonlight song

they’d sung one night stood round a summer pond.

They sang, and felt the very stones respond –

they sang, they preached, they stretched out sinewed arms

for a reply. They’d learnt their wall of song

could drive a rising coup to bend and shake.

They’d learnt, that heady night, they had the power

to grind dissenting voices to the ground.

They built their forts on freshly hallowed ground

and set at each one’s centre such a pond

as first had echoed their communal power.

A trumpet set the rhythm of their arms

striking the earth. And if they heard it shake

they drowned the noise out with their lasting song.

But though each night still sounded out their song,

their warships, one then one more, ran aground.

No longer could they still the great Earth’s shake,

the angry sun first lowered, then drained their pond.

The muscles weakened in their aging arms,

They raged but could not summon back their power.

We gather for a song around the pond,

place on the ground our instruments and arms.

Our voices shake. It’s gone, our only power.

THERE’S A MAN, DRESSED IN BLACK, AT THE GATE

The man in black’s still standing at the gate.

You warned us he’d be there and he’s still there.

The demon you compelled us to create

was not identified until too late.

So many still can’t walk past the place where

the man in black’s still standing at the gate.

A doctrine of god’s love has turned to hate -

there’s not one with forgiveness left to spare

the demon you compelled us to create.

Oh, you, you’ve had your reckoning, your fate

is, of itself, agreeable and fair.

The man in black’s still standing at the gate,

though, waiting for the ones you’d separate

and celebrate, and order not to share

the demon you compelled us to create.

The narrative you’d nervelessly dictate

will never free the ones you did ensnare.

The man in black’s still standing at the gate -

the demon you compelled us to create.

THE INFORMATION DESK

Blues run the game, we run the blues,

you choose the winners that we choose.

We’re guns they’ve hired, we’re guns that fire,

we’re singer, song, we’re lie and liar.

You won’t believe the rules we bent,

we can’t believe how well it went -

Kenya to Henley, you the many,

we the few who spend the penny.

Push an angle, juke the stats,

shift the blame to Jews or bats

or Chinese markets if you’ll wear it.

Here’s our story if you’ll share it.

We’re the modern dogs of war

plotting what you’re fighting for,

armed with bar charts, dressed to kill,

Chartering flights to Brazzaville.

Take the price and name the gift,

shame to cast and blame to shift.

Twist it, shout it, risk it, flout it,

take the truth and double-doubt it.

Find the target, probe their weak spot;

It’s a Muslim/Catholic/Sikh plot.

It’s the Poles or It’s the Turks,

Just take turns, whatever works.

Any challenge, bug or virus,

Any thug or king can hire us,

Plutocrat or billionaire or

Or oligarch, we just don’t care.

We protect what we admire -

Money, power, brazen liar,

Bloodshed is beneath our station -

We supply the information.

NOW DISTANCE HAS A WAY

They’d never held so tight as in the space

split open by the shrinking then the bang.

 They loved each lost and freshly lonely face

 Their shaking fingers did not dare to trace,

They prayed with pride and sorrow for that gang

They’d never held so tight as in the space

split open by each escalating case.

Of romance and of fellowship they sang

 They loved each lost and freshly lonely face,

wrote paeans to pariahs, granted grace

to every man they’d happily have hanged.

They’d never held so tight as in the space

that shrunk, as each soft soul, confined to base

cried daily tears for bells that never rang.

They loved each lost and newly lonely face

they clasped in distant, desperate embrace.

Each broken heart, each joy, each pain, each pang

They never held so tight as in the space.

They loved each lost and newly lonely face.

HUNGRY THIEVES

The hungry thieves of Hunter Road

Are hiding out at home

Like frightened wolves without a prey,

Without a swamp to roam.

Now death is in the open air

The practised thief breathes scared,

The thief breathes heavy, hard, he shrinks

at every dark night shared.

The motorways lie stunned and plucked

Like running tracks at night.

Just military parties sent

With no clear foe to fight.

The lonely hearts of Kentish men

Go out to men of Kent.

They sigh “I’m sorry, distant friend,

Relent, I beg, relent”.

The soldiers shoot at seagulls stood

In taunting high disdain.

The stranded soldiers cough and cry

And shoot and miss and again.

The hungry and the hopeful buy

What time they can afford.

Each stoic house holds steady till

Disorder is restored.

KINDNESS

I’d thought I would be kind this time, outwith

St Pancras in a winter storm,

Approached, as usual, supplicated there,

Her kind eyes guarded, trained smile warm.

I’d said I would be kind next time I was

Approached this winter, ‘David you

Were kind without a qualm when you were young.

Whenever you think that you outgrew

It or it outgrew you … it didn’t. You

Know kindness doesn’t age or fade’.

And yet, I was not kind this time, again,

I grimaced, shrugged, at once betrayed

My better self, her proffered pride. Perhaps

I am no longer a kind man,

Perhaps I’ve made all the excuses one

Unkind and heartless human can.

THE MISSIONARY

It took me weeks to get those lanterns lit,

Reliant on candles and a helpful moon,

Still callow, still too prideful to admit

I wouldn’t know a pendulum from a pit

I couldn’t tell a werewolf from loon,

It took me weeks to get those lanterns lit.

I’m not sure if I ever learnt to fit

my best endeavours between daybreak and noon,

Still callow, still too prideful to admit

I didn’t have the knowhow, wits or kit

To make a brass neck from a silver spoon …

It took me weeks to get those lanterns lit,

For heaven’s sake, that was the simple bit

For any but a buttoned-up buffoon,

Still callow, still too prideful to admit

He’d landed his young self in some ancient shit.

I tried to change the world, I tried too soon …

It took me weeks to get those lanterns lit,

Still callow, still too prideful to admit.

WHISPERS

The whispers in the walls remained unheard

Until that warmest winter ever known.

“Some creature trapped within, perhaps a bird

By unkind sun from hibernation stirred,

Its plans upset, its steady senses thrown”.

The whispers in the walls remained unheard,

For all those years - the thought had not occurred

that one day he might no longer be alone.

“Some creature trapped within, perhaps a bird

Is begging from the cell where it’s interred

By pride and panic, while, within his own,

The whispers in the walls remained unheard

So long, his sturdy selfhood never erred

Nor longed his kingdom to be overthrown.

Some creature trapped within, perhaps a bird

Is calling quietly, strongly, just one word

“Atone”. He will not. Yet, it comes; “Atone”.

The whispers in the walls remain unheard.

Some creature trapped within … perhaps a bird.

LOVE AND DECAY

Love vies with decay.

Wins today.

But time chose its side

Before love arose.

If time could choose

Again,

who knows

If it would change its mind.

But it can’t, my loves,

It can’t.

Today love wins.

Decay abides.

ONE NIGHT AT A PRIVATE MEMBER’S CLUB

It’s my night to be included, to feel blessed

As I tell the girl with clipboard I’m a guest.

I’ve been signed in, for a favour, by a friend

Of a colleague who had bonhomie to spend.

No one knows me, though some smile and think they do,

I remind them of two players from Man U.

My host tells me that I’ll love this lively crowd,

but the laughter’s just a decibel too loud -

Makes you nervous, all this casual getting seen,

All these grown men trying to act like they’re nineteen,

Oh so carefree yet unfairly blessed and cursed

By a fanbase that had gathered then dispersed.

On the rooftop, in a group hug, there’s the cast

Of a kid’s show better consigned to the past -

One gets lairy, goes too often to the loo,

Takes offense at not being ushered past the queue.

Just past midnight, he’ll be forcibly removed

By the former frontman of Love City Groove …

There are cocktails, there are bottles of Czech beer

Made of plastic. So much glass breaks, so we hear

From the barman – he’s a dancer, so he says,

Not like Nureyev or Travolta, more like Bez.

It’s a fiver for a Budvar, what a joke –

But that’s half the price of one Jim Beam and Coke.

Deals are making, lines are breaking, faces glow

With the price of what they know and who they know.

Struggling actors in discussion on the stairs

With their future benefactors unawares –

It’s the long game, it’s the glam life, it’s the grind,

Taking every chance to hustle they can find.

It’s just cool to have a place where I’ve some peace

says the rock star with the girl who’s not his niece.

He’s been coming since before his friend was born

(that’s before his formal warning for child porn).

It’s a prison, it’s a schism, fatal fame -

In the club, though, it’s so cool, we’re all the same.

THE CUCKOLD

I loved the boy, the matchless one,

With all my broken heart.

I loved that boy, though I admit

Not from the very start.

My name is in the shaded notes

Of every book you’ll read -

The great emasculated ghost

Your lifeblood did not need.

The tale cost me a winter’s worth

Of comfort, work and joy.

I spent my lifetime catching up

With someone else’s boy.

I lived in fear for you, my dear,

Relinquished peace for grace

My prize was the indifferent tilt

Of your anointed face.

Consigned to my own time while those

I loved live on and on.

My own line drifted off unknown,

and my life’s work … long gone.

The lover in the background, I

Was needed for an ass

And all the pangs of jealousy

A good man can amass.

The cuckold in the half-light, was

I taken for a fool?

The greatest story’s good for you,

My friends. To me, it’s cruel.