My Poetry: Introduced as an Old Friend

Introduced as an Old Friend

---

We kissed, a wet kiss,
The last time we met
Our lips parting each others
With practiced ease
Outside a nightclub
Neither of us wanted to go in.

You pulled me away
From your friends
As I flirted with my hands
Though it had been months
And we'd both soothed our heartbreak
In other people's beds.

I only remembered it later,
After you'd introduced me
To your two girls
And the man pushing the pram
As an old friend;
We spoke of people and
Places who'd crossed our paths
Avoided all the parts
Best left to the past.

It was twelve years ago, you said
But for a second it felt
Like yesterday since you led me
Upstairs in a student house
Before we spent two years
Swimming in circles
Till you got bored and
I got fat as I mourned.

We kissed last time we met,
On the right cheek,
When we said goodbye again
As I wished you the very best
This time meaning every word.

My Poetry: These foreign fields

These foreign fields

---

These foreign fields,
Where my Granddad once
Marched behind tanks
Rifle butt under
Regulation starched armpit,
Turned green to muddy red
With caterpillar tread and shot.
Where death was
A by-product of survival.

Beneath flat skies,
As grey as a December Sunday,
An army of farmers
Hid village wives and daughters
From foreign men,
Each with sorrow in his hands
Or on his brow,
Preparing to greet their fate.
Where my Granddad met death
For the first time, as he
Refused sons the right
To become grandfathers.

Now in nursing home fatigues
He remembers what
The booze and Alzheimer's
Has not stolen,
The old gang: Mick, Patrick and Ernie
Boys left in that field,
Who just months before call up
Were tilling wheat fields,
Now lost beneath bricks and mortar,
Where they turned mud to green
With plough and tractor tread.
Soon he will meet death
For the final time,
When he goes to that foreign land
And the old gang are united once more.

My Poetry: Wildflowers II

Wildflowers II

---

For Alice Denny

I do not know,
and please, do not say
what other poison rained down
upon the Wildflowers
the day the sun was lost
behind dull tongues
which spat sharp
scything words
to cut them down
where they stood.

Before that day,
before naivety was butchered
by barbed word,
I'd never met anyone whose
fragile shell was stronger
for the cracks,
whose shell was the lesser
part of the sum of their whole.
Someone for who
the war still raged
to be equal in the eyes
of those who only saw
big hands and a throat
with the kiss of Adam upon it.
Someone who fought back
as those ignorant of beauty
squashed stem and petal
under jack boot attitude
to repress Wildflower's bloom.

But we all know your heart
is stronger than fear
all seen you stood naked,
clothed only in vulnerability;
seen you retell your world
in poetic verse
with ink black words
writ big in tears across the night;
seen crowds soak them up
then applaud your bravery
as you held their attention,
while your red flower dress
kept them guessing,
because you are more complex
than poetry and fashion
or a simple word.

*This is a poem about people who are marginalised and oppressed, but who still stand up and refuse to be terrorised or kept down, people who stand proud and say 'This is who I am'.*

My Poetry: This Is Home

This is home,
where memories lie in dark niche
of lampless streets
older than the birch trees
under which we spoke
of our first kiss 
then played video games
into the night until we hit 
last base guided by cheap cider
and sleepovers of our teens
became reserved for girls.

This is home,
Where hedges I saw planted
are now head high,
hiding houses now home
to unfamiliar faces 
lined up in front of a TV 
throwing iridescent shapes 
onto muted midnight street
where silent foxes skulk
and we all pretend Monday
will never come.

This is home
where the big skies of youth
have four more stars 
looking down upon us
since I watched them
glaze over in smoky teenage haze
then later smudge with tears
so I raise the glass
a little higher tonight
in memory of those
who are eternal now.

This is home
where new faces are introduced
as old friends by friends
in pubs where our father's
fathers beat their way 
through weekend pub rounds
till Monday’s bruised knuckles
returned to building sites.
Where we now spend nights
mopping up whiskey to
escape everything the beer fails 
to silence, in company of people
whose roots have not yet took hold
in expanding village. 

This is home,
where we learnt that love 
not obsession rules the heart 
as the metallic summer sun
rose and fell with the leaves,
where green turned to golden brown
as we sat with stoned smiles
trying to outrun ghosts
of our childhood
but we all fell like Icarus,
and as we watched our youth 
race away in the rear view mirror
of old age we learnt
we could never completely leave 
our memories and tears behind.

This is home,
where memories lie in dark niche
of my lampless heart.

NB this is the sister poem to 'Docking' which you can read here if you wish: [url]http://www.thepoetryforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=57460[/url] Both poems are about the Norfolk village I grew up in

My Poetry: Wildflowers

Wildflowers

---

They have dug up the garden
Where now shall those Wildflowers
Of our city bloom
And how will they now grow
Old with us and wilt
Within the arc of the sun
Under rainbow skies.

They stole a solitary corner of beauty
From where beauty hides
In the shadow of sky risers
Where piss snakes from dark corners
Where people hide in niches
Where roses and hyacinths
Only bloom on inked arms of hipsters
And poppies arrive in ten pound
Bouquets, drawing blood red tears
From the skin of the thin pale poets.

Now the Wildflowers are gone
We’ve one less way to find beauty
In tower block cemetary
To know nature's subtle cause
Behind the mourning eyes
Of those haunted empty beds
Which wait for life in silence,
Who know beauty is transient,
And so never chase the sun.

They have taken the garden.
Removed it from our reach,
Now how can we

teach the youth
That a tooth for a tooth is the same
As leaving hickies on a virgins neck
Like laughing at the freaks
Falling sideways down the street
As pretending life will call
After screwing you again.

They have dug up the garden
Where the wild flowers grew
The ancient worm licked soil
Which gave life to society's edge,
And fed them from its breast
Must not stay barren
Must one day return
Resurrected from concrete tome
For when they are in bloom
We are all wildflowers.

My Poetry: Carnival Ducks

Carnival Ducks

---

Lined up like carnival ducks
stalled blank faces
with old rucksacks and plastic bags
on precinct meeting place.

A hundred holy shoes lined up
along a bench,
each corner of each mouth
turned to the floor

listening to the one with
a bottle of cheap blues
and bad news on her breath
recite her lines as if she were
a leading player in a Beckett play.

They all prey for something
to soften the day, her words work
while they wait for time to pass away
like a loved pet.

An acoustic busker jams
another nineties hit;
a child dances, unaware
of everything except the music,
his parents aware of everything,
but the music.

I sit on the bench
eating a pre-packaged cheese sandwich
as i read the poster
on the theatre wall opposite.

Art mirrors life,
tragedy and humour
are married, unfaithful lovers
in this carnival town, i think,

we are either shooting
or are the game,
but never both.

 

 

My Poetry: Chocolate Cake

I bought you three cakes
all different types,
peddled those sugary wedges
across the city when demons
had you chained to your bed.

Bought you cake
because I wanted to make you feel
like I cared you got better,
because I felt helpless
to do anything else.

It was the last time I saw you.

That summer afternoon
when all the things that didn't matter
sat outside your window
baking in the afternoon heat.

The white cardboard boxes
looked like coffins
laid out on your blue cotton sheets
which turned to metal
under your touch,

you reached out
with a fork for the chocolate cake,
ate it like a sinner
consumes a last minute pardon,

you didn't speak again
after whispering a thank you,
until I left, I never knew
if it's sweet medicine healed,
I only hoped.