Lacking a desert, he wandered
on Blackheath for 40 days
and 40 nights before being
arrested by two pharisees
in a panda car. ‘Father,
forgive them,’ he said.
And father, a door-to-door
used toupée salesman from Lewisham
did.
Cousin Fiona
Cousin Fiona
from near the top drawer
is a blueblood donor
and Kensington bore.
A moderate showjumper
plain and weakwilled
Cousin Fiona
is never fulfilled.
For what she wants
but will never admit
is a man to take her by the bit.
Someone to
jog with
snog with
look in her eyes
canter
banter
romanticize
Someone to
lead her
to pastures new
someone to
share her
pony-made-for-two.
And Fiona sleeps in a saddlesoaped room
and dreams of a pinstripe-jodhpured groom
and crop in hand, she gallops into moonlit gymkhanas
to ride gentleshod over her sinning nude
sinewed broncoing buck
giddyup giddyup giddy up up up.
And Fiona weeps after her lonely ride
always the bridle, never the bride.
Big Arth
Big Arth from Penarth
was a forward and a half.
Though built like a peninsula
with muscles like pink slagheaps
and a face like a cheese grater
he was as graceful and fast
as a greased cheetah.
A giraffe in the lineout
a rhino in the pack
he never passed forward
when he should’ve passed back
and once in possession
slaalomed his way
through the opposition.
And delicate?
Once for a lark
at Cardiff Arms Park
Big Arth
converted a softboiled egg
from the halfway line.
No doubt about it,
he was one of the best players in the second team.
Accrington Stan
A more talented footballer
Never ran on a pitch
Than Accrington Stan
Who might have been rich.
He could pass a ball
He could score a goal
(But he couldn’t pass a betting-shop
So now he’s on the dole).
The Hon. Nicholas Frayn
The Hon. Nicholas Frayn
who threw the javelin
would always travelin
a chauffeur-driven plane.
He somewhat lacked a chin
but always threw to win
and was notoriously vain.
He used only monogrammed javelins
sapphire-tipped and silver-plated
and was rated good enough to win his blue.
One day at a meeting in Crewe
he tripped and ran himself through
and though bleeding profusely
from a wound in his side
carried on gamely to finish next to last.
Then died.
Aunty Ann
Aunty Ann
an anti-angler
would dangle a
dead herring
on the end of a line.
A warning sign
to fishes
that man could be
vicious.
Not a popular figure
among the coarse
fishing crowd
she was found floating
one morning
in the river near Stroud.
At the memorial service
in an underwater church
the mourners were grayling
chub and perch,
salmon, pike and trout
who prayed, wet-eyed
then drifted out
to witness above
a heavenly banquet.
De profundis one by one
Temptation proved too great
Like angels falling into the sun
they rose, and took the bait.
Uncle Leo
Uncle Leo’s sole ambition
was to be a liontamer
so he enrolled for classes at nightschool
and practised at home on his wife.
Aunt Elsa at first had reservations
but having once acquired
a taste for raw meat and the lash
she came on by leaps and bounds.
And after only 6 months
Uncle Leo announced with some pride
that his wife had opened her mouth
and he’d put his head inside.
One afternoon, however
while he was changing the sawdust
in the bathroom, Aunt Elsa escaped
mauled 2 boy scouts and a traffic warden
before being captured by the RSPCA.
Now a tamed Uncle Leo, give him his due
visits her daily at Regent’s Park Zoo.
Uncle Len
Uncle Len
a redundant gamekeeper
strangled cuckoos.
He didn’t give a f—whose
c—oos
he strangled
as long as he silenced
as many as he could.
Last March in Bluebell Wood
while reaching for the season’s
first feathered victim
he fell forty feet
broke his neck
and screaming,
unwittingly heralded spring.
Elmer Hoover
Elmer Hoover
on vac from
Vancouver
went fishing
off the Pier Head.
He caught 2 dead rats
dysentery
and a shoal of slimywhite balloonthings
which he brought home in a jamjar.
‘Mersey cod,’ we told him.
So he took the biggest
back to Canada.
Had it stuffed, mounted,
and displayed over the fireplace
in his trophy room.
‘But you shudda seen
the one that got away,’
he would say.
Nonplussing his buddies.
Uncle Jed
Uncle Jed
Durham bred
raced pigeons
for money.
He died
a poor man
however
as the pigeons
were invariably
too quick for him.
Cousin Daisy
Cousin Daisy’s
favourite sport
was standing
on streetcorners.
She contracted
with ease
a funny disease.
Notwithstanding.
Cousin Nell
Cousin Nell
married a frogman
in the hope
that one day
he would turn into
a handsome prince.
Instead he turned into
a sewage pipe
near Gravesend
and was never seen again.
Footy Poem
I’m an ordinary feller six days of the week
But Saturday turn into a football freak.
I’m a schizofanatic, sad but it’s true
One half of me’s red, and the other half’s blue.
I can’t make me mind up which team to support
Whether to lean to starboard or port
I’d be bisexual if I had time for sex
Cos it’s G
oodison one week and Anfield the next.
But the worst time of all is Derby day
One half of me’s at home and the other’s away
So I get down there early in me usual place
With me rainbow scarf and me two-tone face.
And I’m shouting for Liverpool, the Reds can’t lose
‘Come on de Everton’ – ‘Gerrin dere Blues’
‘Use yer winger’ – ‘Worra puddin’
‘King of der Kop’ – All of a sudden – Wop!
‘Goal!’ – ‘Offside!’
And after the match as I walk back alone
It’s argue, argue all the way home
Some nights when I’m drunk I’ve even let fly
An given meself a poke in the eye.
But in front of the fire watchin’ ‘Match of the Day’
Tired but happy, I look at it this way:
Part of me’s lost and part of me’s won
I’ve had twice the heartaches – but I’ve had twice the fun.
Is My Team Playing
(after A. E. Housman)
Is my team playing
That I used to cheer
Each Saturday on the terrace
Before I transferred here?
Aye the lads still battle
They go from strength to strength
Won the FA Cup
Since you were laid at length.
Is factory still closed
With pickets at the gate?
Would I could lend a hand
Ere I felt the hand of Fate.
No things are back to normal
Thanks to the TUC
Our wages now are frozen
But not so much as thee.
And my lonely widow
Does she nightly grieve
For her dear departed
Gone early to the grave?
No she’s right as rain
And not the one to weep
She is well looked after
Be still my lad, and sleep.
And what of you, dear friend
Are you still unwed
Or have you found a lady
To share your bachelor bed?
Well… er, I don’t know how to say this
But after the funeral I got really plastered
I walked the widow back to yours, and
Oh, you lousy b*stard!
Poem for the opening of Christ the King Cathedral, Liverpool, 1967
O Lord on thy new Liverpool address
let no bombs fall
Gather not relics in the attic
nor dust in the hall
But daily may a thousand friends
who want to chat just call
Let it not be a showroom
for wouldbe good Catholics
or worse:
a museum
a shrine
a concrete hearse
But let it be a place
Where lovers meet after work
for kind words and kisses
Where dockers go of a Saturday night
to get away from the missus
Tramps let kip there through till morning
kids let rip there every evening
Let us pray there
heads held high
arms to the sky
not afraid and kneeling
let Koppites
teach us how to sing
God’s ‘Top of the Pops’ with feeling
After visiting you
May trafficwardens let noisy parkers off
and policemen dance on the beat
Barrowomen knock a shilling off
exatheists sing in the street
And let the cathedral laugh
Even show its teeth
And if it must wear the cassock of dignity
Then let’s glimpse the jeans beneath
O Lord on thy new Liverpool address
let no bombs fall
Keep always a light in the window
a welcome mat in the hall
That it may be a home sweet
home from home for all.
In Two Minds
What I love about night
is the silver certainty of its stars
What I hate about stars
is the overweening swank of their names
What I love about names
is that every complete stranger has one
What I hate about one
is the numerical power it wields over its followers
What I love about followers
is the unseemly jostle to fill the footsteps
What I hate about footsteps
is the way they gang up in the darkness
What I love about darkness
is the soft sighing of its secrets
What I hate about secrets
is the excitement they pack into their short lives
What I love about lives
is the variety cut from the same pattern
What I hate about pattern
is its dull insistence on conformity
What I love about conformity
is the seed of rebelliousness within
What I hate about within
is the absence of landscape, the feel of weather
What I love about weather
is its refusal to stay in at night
What I hate about night
is the silver certainty of its stars
crusader
in bed
like a dead
crusader
arms a
cross my chest
i lie
eyes closed
listening
to the body’s glib mechanics
***
on the street
outside
men of violence
quarrel.
Their drunken voices
dark weals
on the
glistening
back of the night.
Catching up on Sleep
i go to bed early
to catch up on my sleep
but my sleep
is a slippery customer
it bobs and weaves
and leaves
me exhausted. It
side steps my clumsy tackles.
with ease. Bed
raggled I drag
myself to my knees.
The sheep are countless
I pretend to snore
yearn for chloroform
or a sock on the jaw
body sweats heart beats
there is Panic in the Sheets
until
as dawn slopes up the stairs
to set me free
unawares
sleep catches up on me
vampire
Blood is an acquired taste
‘tis warm and sickly
and sticks to the teeth
a surfeit makes me puke.
I judge my victims as a connoisseur
a sip here, a mouthful there.
I never kill
and am careful to cause no pain
to those who sleeping nourish me
and calling once I never call again.
So if one morning you awake,
stretch, and remember
dark dreams of
falling
falling
if your neck is sore
a mark that wasn’t there the night before
be not afeared ’tis but a sign
i give thee thanks
i have drunk thy wine.
warlock poems
Nocturne
Unable to sleep.
Every sound an enemy,
each stirring an intruder.
Even my own breathing
is frisked
before being allowed out.
I suffer during darkness
a thousand bludgeonings,
see blood everywhere.
How my poor heart
dreads the night
shift. I wear
a smear of sweat
like a moist plastercast.
Adrift in a monstered sea.
Those actors who scare so well
in your nightmares
have all practised first on me.
exsomnia
in bed
counting sheep
my attention
distracted by
a passing nude
when suddenly
a hoof
caught me
on the head
with a soft moan I collapsed
now i lie
by the bed
side more dead
than alive
waiting for the
somnambulance
to arrive
ofa sunday
ofa sunday
the only thing
i burn
at both ends
is my bacon.
Like the tele
phone i am
off the hook
i watch the
newspapers for
hours & browse
through T.V.
miss mass
and wonder
if mass
misses me
italic
ONCE I LIVED IN CAPITALS
MY LIFE INTENSELY PHALLIC
but now i’m sadly lowercase
with the occasional italic
Scintillate
I have outlived
my youthfulness
So a quiet life for me.
Where once
I used to
scintillate
now I sin
till ten
Collected Poems Page 12