About being a corpse. My cares float away
Like non-biodegradable bottles.
A cox crows. The crew slams on its oars
And a rowing boat rises out of the water
To teeter on splintering legs like a drunken tsetse fly.
Before it can be disentangled
And put into reverse, a miracle: Lazarus risen,
Is up and away along the towpath.
Near Hammersmith Bridge, the trainer
Is on the other foot, as a hooded figure,
Face in shadow, comes pounding towards me.
A jogger? A mugger?
A mugger whose hobby is jogging? Vice-versa?
(Why do such men always have two g’s?)
I search in vain for a bed of nettles.
No need. She sprints past with a cherry ‘Hello’.
I recognize the aromatherapist from Number 34.
***
Waiting beneath the bridge for my breath
To catch up, I hear a cry. A figure is leaning
Out over the river, one hand on the rail.
His screaming is sucked into the slipstream
Of roaring traffic. On the walkway, pedestrians
Hurry past like Bad Samaritans.
I break into a sweat and run,
Simultaneously. ‘Hold on,’ I cry, ‘hold on.’
Galvanized, I’m up the stairs and at his side.
The would-be suicide is a man in his late twenties,
His thin frame shuddering with despair,
His eyes, clenched tattoos: HATE, HATE.
My opening gambit is the tried and trusted:
‘Don’t jump!’ He walks straight into the cliché-trap.
‘Leave me alone, I want to end it all.’
I ask him why? ‘My wife has left me.’
My tone is sympathetic. ‘That’s sad,
But it’s not the end of the world.’
‘And I’m out of work and homeless.’
‘It could be worse,’ I say, and taking his arm
Firmly but reassuringly, move in close.
‘If you think you’re hard done by
You should hear what I’ve been through.
Suffering? I’ll tell you about suffering.’
We are joined by a man in a blue uniform.
‘I can handle this,’ I snarl.
‘You get back to your parking tickets.’
He turns out to be a major
In the Salvation Army, so I relent
And let him share the intimacy of the moment.
I explain the loneliness that is for ever
The fate of the true artist,
The icy coldness that grips the heart.
The black holes of infinite despair
Through which the sensitive spirit must pass.
The seasons in Hell. The flowers of Evil.
***
The tide was turning and a full moon rising
As I lighted upon the existentialist nightmare,
The chaos within that gives birth to the dancing star.
I was illustrating the perpetual angst and ennui
With a recent poem, when the would-be suicide
jumped – (First)
The Sally Army officer, four stanzas later.
I had done my best. I dried my tears,
Crossed the road and headed west.
On the way home, needless to say, it rained.
My hangover welcomed me with open arms.
Nothing gained.
Days
What I admire most about days
Is their immaculate sense of timing.
They appear
inevitably
at first light
Eke
themselves out slowly
over noon
Then edge
surefootedly
toward evening
To bow out
at the very soupçon
of darkness.
Spot on cue, every time.
In Good Hands
Wherever night falls
The earth is always
There to catch it.
Bees Cannot Fly
Bees cannot fly, scientists have proved it.
It is all to do with wingspan and body weight.
Aerodynamically incapable of sustained flight,
Bees simply cannot fly. And yet they do.
There’s one there, unaware of its dodgy ratios,
A noisy bubble, a helium-filled steamroller.
Fat and proud of it, buzzing around the garden
As if it were the last day of the spring sales.
Trying on all the brightest flowers, squeezing itself
Into frilly numbers three sizes too small.
Bees can fly, there’s no need to prove it. And sting.
When stung, do scientists refuse to believe it?
My Life in the Garden
It is a lovely morning, what with the sun, etc.
And I won’t hear a word said against it.
Standing in the garden I have no idea of the time
Even though I am wearing the sundial hat you gave me.
What the scene requires is an aural dimension
And chuffed to high heaven, birds provide it.
I think about my life in the garden
About what has gone before
And about what is yet to come.
And were my feet not set in concrete,
I would surely jump for joy.
The Perfect Place
The world is the perfect place to be born into.
Unless of course, you don’t like people
or trees, or stars, or baguettes.
Its secret is movement.
As soon as you have stepped back
to admire the scenery
or opened your mouth
to sing its praises
it has changed places with itself.
Infinitesimally, perhaps,
but those infinitesimals add up.
(About the baguettes,
that was just me being silly.)
Happy Birthday
One morning as you step out of the bath
The telephone rings.
Wrapped loosely in a towel you answer it.
As you pick up the receiver
The front doorbell rings.
You ask the caller to hang on.
Going quickly into the hall
You open the door the merest fraction.
On the doorstep is a pleasing stranger.
‘Would you mind waiting?’ You explain,
‘I’m on the telephone.’ Closing the door to,
You hurry back to take the call.
The person at the other end is singing:
‘Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday…’
You hear the front door click shut.
Footsteps in the hall.
You turn…
Here I Am
Here I am
getting on for seventy
and never having gone to work in ladies’ underwear
Never run naked at night in the rain
Made love to a girl I’d just met on a plane
At that awkward age now between birth and death
I think of all the outrages unperpetrated
opportunities missed
The dragons unchased
The maidens unkissed
The wines still untasted
The oceans uncrossed
The fantasies wasted
The mad urges lost
Here I am
as old as Methuselah
was when he was my age
and never having stepped outside for a fight
Crossed on red, pissed on rosé (or white)
Pretty dull for a poet, I suppose, eh? Quite.
Uncle Roger
I am distinctly
ununclely.
I forget birthdays
and give Xmas presents
only when cornered.
(Money, of course, and too little.)
I am regrettably
ununclish.
Too thin to be jolly,
I can never remember
jokes or riddles.
Even fluff
my own poems.
My nephews and nieces
as far as I know
disuncled
me some time ago.
Better uncleless
than my brand of petty
uncleness.
Punk doll
Last week
I bought my favourite niece
A cute little doll
From a punk toy shop
In the King’s Road.
When you twist the safety pin
In her rosy cheek
She vomits and shouts
‘shitshitshitshitshit’
In a tinny voice.
The doll is pretty strange too.
Rocker-by
Hush-a-bye, Daddy, don’t you cry
Baby will sing a lullaby
Your duck’s arse
is thinning and grey
Your Elvis tattoo
is wearing away
Your bootlace ties
hang limp and frayed
Your 78s
are overplayed
Not rock ’n’ roll
but aches ’n’ pains
Drainies play hell
with varicose veins
Your blue-suede shoes
now have lead in them
Drunk each night
you go to bed in them
When the music stops
You’ll be dead in them
Shush, old man, your day is done
Where mine has only just begun
Where It’s At
I’m in the Health Club
I’m where it’s at
Twenty minutes on the mat
Light circuit-training
Gentle jog if not raining
Sauna, jacuzzi
Sit by Suzi
I’m in the Wine Bar
I’m where it’s at
Vino tinto into that
Pig out on tapas
Choose momento, make a pass
Scusi scusi
Chat up Suzi
I’m in the Porsche
I’m where it’s at
Rocks off in Docklands’ flat
Ecstasy, share a smoke
His ’n’ hers, two lines of coke
CD something bluesy
Hold tight Suzi
I’m in prison
I’m where it’s at
Didn’t see the Passat. Splat!
Banged up on Isle of Wight
With terrorist and transvestite
Can’t be choosy
Bye bye Suzi.
The Lottery
At five o’clock our time a killer was fried
According to law he was sentenced and died
Georgia the state where they favour the chair
When the switches were thrown I was washing my hair
Just lucky I guess.
At a quarter to midnight on his way to the shop
A stolen car hit him, revved up didn’t stop
On arrival at Casualty he was found to be dead
When they rang up his wife I was reading in bed
Just lucky I guess.
At thirteen o nine it went out of control
The port engine failed and it started to roll
Imagine the scene on that ill-fated plane
When it burst into flames I was dodging the rain
Just lucky I guess.
At twenty fifteen it was 9, 24,
11 and 7, only needed three more
As each number came up I hardly could speak
Until I remembered… No ticket this week
Unlucky I guess.
Crazy Bastard
I have always enjoyed the company of extroverts.
Wild-eyed men who would go too far
Up to the edge, and beyond. Mad, bad women.
Overcautious, me. Sensible shoes and a scarf
Tucked in. Fresh fruit and plenty of sleep.
If the sign said, ‘Keep off’, then off is where I’d keep.
***
Midsummer’s eve in the sixties.
On a moonlit beach in Devon we sit around a fire
Drinking wine and cider. Someone strumming a guitar.
Suddenly, a girl strips off and runs into the sea.
Everybody follows suit, a whoop of flickering nakedness
Hot gold into cold silver.Far out.
Not wanting to be last in I unbutton my jeans.
Then pause. Someone had better stay behind
And keep an eye on the clothes. Common sense.
I throw another piece of driftwood on to the fire
Above the crackle listen to the screams and the laughter
Take a long untroubled swig of scrumpy. Crazy bastard.
Fear of Flares
I have this fear:
At a glittering occasion,
some kind of ceremony,
I am waiting in line
to be introduced to Princess Di
when I realize that I am wearing
flared trousers. Flared trousers!
There is no time to lose.
Unzipping them, I let them fall
around my ankles, then stand back
to attention. Her Royal Highness,
to her credit, makes no mention,
chats amiably, then moves on.
I pull them up. No harm done.
Q
I join the queue
We move up slowly.
I ask the lady in front
What are we queuing for.
‘To join another queue,’
She explains.
‘How pointless,’ I say,
‘I’m leaving.’ She points
To another long queue.
‘Then you must get in line.’
I join the queue.
We move up slowly.
Clutching at Cheese Straws
Out of my depth at the cocktail party
I clutch at cheese straws.
‘Why are they called straws, do you think?’
Treading water, the ice-cool blonde
raises an eyebrow and shrugs.
‘I mean, you can’t drink through them.’
A second eyebrow reaches for the sky.
‘Or is it because they taste like straw?’
A pause, and then she says:
‘I assume it’s the shape, don’t you?’
Holding my breath, I take the plunge
and resurface with a crown of twiglets.
‘Why are these called…?’ But she has been rescued.
Weighed down, I wade down to the shallow end
and help the lads keep aloft
A giant, inflatable hammer.
Half-term
Half-term holiday, family away
Half-wanting to go, half-wanting to stay
Stay in bed for half the day.
Half-read, half-listen to the radio
Half-think things through. Get up,
Half-dressed, half-wonder what to do.
Eat half a loaf, drink half a bottle
(Save the other half until later).
Other half rings up. Feel better.
Isolation
I like my isolation
Within easy reach of other people’s
Wide-open spaces set me on edge
Than a bland savannah I’d rather be
Something clumped beneath a hedge
Perfume
I lack amongst other things a keen sense of smell.
Coffee I have no problem with. It leads me
by the nose into the kitchen each morning
before vanishing at first sip.
And cheap scent? Ah, bonsoir!
How many lamp-posts have I
almost walked into, senses blindfolded,
lost in the misdemeanours of time?
At twenty paces I can sniff the difference
between a vindaloo and a coq au vin.
Weak at the knees, I will answer
the siren call of onions sizzling,
Sent reeling, punch-drunk on garlic.
No, it’s the subtleties that I miss.
Flowers. Those free gifts laid out
on Mother Nature’s perfume counter.
Sad but true, roses smell red to me
(even white ones). Violets blue.
Everything in the garden, though lovely,
might as well be cling-filmed.
If I close my eyes and you hold up
a bloom, freshly picked, moist with dew,
I smell nothing. Your fingers perhaps?
Oil of Ulay? Nail varnish?
Then describe in loving detail its pinkness,
the glowing intensity of its petals,
and I will feel its warm breath upon me,
the distinctive scent of its colour.
Those flowers you left in the bedroom
a tangle of rainbows spilling from the vase.
Gorgeous. I turn off the light.
Collected Poems Page 25