Category: poetry

The Box

Waitrose is the English supermarket chain for the rich. Clifton is the Bristol suburb where some of them live.

The Box

A  guy I met in Waitrose asked me over to his place
I think you’ll be impressed, he said, it’s really quite a space.
A cool million plus’s worth of high Clifton style
With a view that on a good day stretches nearly half a mile.

It was a box.

The door was solid steel, the floor was polished glass
It was all I could do to cross the room and not fall on my arse
He poured a glass of wine and settled down in his recliner
Grinning like he’d just been made the emperor of China,
And started banging on about the electronic locks

On his box.

I was feeling slightly ill from so many right angles
When his latest wife walked in packing twenty pounds of bangles
All those mirrors in strange places showed some interesting bits
Of her perfectly hand-crafted clearly artificial tits

And her box.

It had floor to ceiling windows or was that ceiling to floor
I was so disoriented I couldn’t tell any more
The guy was spouting rubbish à propos of nothing much
We’ve really got a lot he said to learn from the Dutch
His wife stretched out beside me and flashed me some panty
Architecturally, he boasted, this place really ups the ante
I felt like a ship drifting slowly onto rocks

In his box.

I was nearing desperation and searching for an out
An appliance started beeping what on earth was that about?
So I claimed to spend my whole life working for the poor
And that the treatment of asylum seekers shocked me to the core…
Within seconds he was on his feet showing me the door

Of his box.

Life, raw

To feel too much – wimp!
To dismantle the observed – smart-arse!
Tossed in a surf of sensation and thought – narcissist!
Compelled to spill – ranter!
Propelled by impulse – fool!

Christ, who wouldn’t take a drink?

Not Grief

Grief.

Grief belongs to the families of girls carted off in trucks by hooting, khat-crazed lunatics.

Grief belongs to the parents of the child at the end of the rope.

Grief belongs to the desolate relict of the 60 year marriage.

Grief is that which bends every good soul softly to the afflicted,

In tears.

I can not claim grief. Not that.

We shared a meal, just last night. We are – friends.

But where is my word? What is its name?

To know that in all my nights to come

I will never feel your breath on the back of my neck,

Never reach out in my sleep to touch you,

Never wake to your puppy snore

And turn to stroke the slow curve of your hip,

Under the faint fabric of a beloved cotton nightshirt

Washed to silk.

Never drink your beauty in the cellphone’s glow,

And never again, as long as I will live, draw you to me in love?

This is not grief.

It just

Feels like it.

In Switzerland (for Shawn)

Komm mit mir und mit mir schlafen,

Im ein alt hotel im Ludwigshafen,

We’ll drink stolen wine out of stolen glasses

And laugh out loud at the burghers’ arses.

I will bring you traffic signs,

We’ll rip up tickets, won’t pay fines.

We’ll sit in church in our dirty jeans

Reading pornographic magazines.

And then we’ll walk for miles and miles

Past military tulips, synthetic smiles.

World Hails New Metaphysical Poet

For some reason I heard the third quote in a week on BBC 3 from someone referred to as a ‘metaphysical poet.’

Hell, I thought, if business is so brisk in the MP business, maybe there’s an opening for me?
I sat down and dashed this off – I think I may have found my metier!
Before I have business cards printed, I would value your opinion.
What mortal skull can span, O Lord,
This mighty hull, this heaving world?
Shaped by Thine immortal hand
And cast upon Thine ocean grand.
Measured by star, bounded not,
The sweep of space, nor chart, nor plot,
Nor even science the ‘Why’ can tell us,
Ionospheric sails propel us.
A hint, a glimpse of Thy great scheme –
The Milky Way, that clouded stream
That nightly wraps Thy sleeping world
As on we sail, on axis swirled.
And on and on, etcetera, plus;
I could write forever thus.