The poet Laurie ate
Was Lord Alfred Tennyson,
Whom he found rather tough
Although less so than venison.
Jewel
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsI can picture the exact moment
That we began to grow apart.
The usual Thursday wallow-around
(Kick-about being too lofty a term),
The mistimed challenge, the boot
Jack-knifed down upon my own,
The mumbled apology,
And the game continuing around us.
Later, back in the dressing room,
I looked for signs of damage
And although you looked no different,
I knew that you were.
That night in bed, to prove me right,
Your transformation, as subtle
As a reading lamp, began.
It was an unremarkable beginning.
A blanched greyness spread
Across the nail, like a bland surprise,
As if the blundering ghost of that tackle
Had come back to haunt you.
In the days that followed
Your true colours began to shine through,
Angry reds and bruised purples
Competed with each other
Before settling down in an uneasy truce.
I would rush home every evening,
Shoes and socks strewn across the hallway,
And inspect you, not merely to wonder
At what new hue you had turned into
(No-one do the new hue like you do)
But also to run my fingers over
The contours of your newly-formed ridges,
As brittle as life itself.
They were bittersweet times
As a gallows humour crept into our lives
(Hey, toe, what’s your favourite kind of solvent?
It must be No Need For Nails!)
And all the while, the nascent nail
Growing and pushing, pushing and growing,
Undermining, overwhelming,
And toe’s company, three’s a crowd.
Our parting when it came, though,
Came suddenly. The sun shining down,
A foot raised up from the sea,
And there the usurper but not the usurped,
Presumably washed away in the surf.
I still dream about you sometimes:
A beach-combing boy, looking for treasure
Amongst the pebbles and shells,
His eye caught by an unexpected gleam
In the sand, and something both
Splendid and mysterious is gathered up
For his collection: an Ionian jewel.
man bag man
Assorted Poems, Selected poemshe was known
as man bag man
as he was
a man
and he had
a bag
inside which
was
a man
carrying a man
was his bag
Tony
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsOf all my mates,
Tony was the pick of ’em.
He knew loads
About Tanita Tikaram.
Like that she was
From Basingstoke.
Tony. Amazing bloke.
Love Amongst The Dominoes
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsWhen Janice walked out
Of his dreams
And into the saloon bar
Of The Sparrow and Sickle
That domino-fuelled Thursday night,
Bob knew it was love at first sight
For he felt his blood thicken,
His pulse quicken,
Damn near choked on his chicken
In a basket.
Janice-stricken,
Bob was a shadow
Of his formless self,
No longer the doyen
Of the domino domain
(For that was now Ken).
Tiles clacked
With a fatal distraction.
As Bob watched Janice
Sidle over to the juke-box
He imagined her
Supplicant and supine,
Not, as she was, putting on
Walking on Sunshine.
Bob was held in thrall
No more and he returned
To the game.
For Bob there were some things
That love could not withstand.
Katrina and the Waves being one
(Another, the bloody
Goombay Dance Band).
4′ 37″
Assorted Poems, Selected poems
[The above poem is a homage to John Cage’s experimental composition, 4′ 33″. Mine’s a bit better, though, as it’s four seconds longer (but only if read at the right pace). For best results, please approach this poem from the right hand side, in a mood of sullen indifference, whilst drinking a glass of Fentiman’s Ginger Beer.]
Hand of God
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsWe cried blue murder at the time.
It was a crime against humanity,
Not an act of spontaneity
From the digits of a deity.
Still, the next week, each lunchtime,
We were all doing it.
Any aerial challenge became
An opportunity for divine intervention,
With an asphalt Ascension
Into a playground pantheon
Of class-war champions
Beckoning for anyone who could
Pull off a palm of providence
With confidence.
And although our clumsy
Sleights of hand were always exposed,
Like a bungled party trick,
It didn’t stop us from trying
To create artistry out of artifice.
Clive of Suburbia
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsClive’s a brass-knocker examiner,
A doughty door-hammerer,
Selling Wikipedia Britannica
With suburban street stamina.
He goes from door to door.
His feet feel sore and raw.
He’s just turned forty-four,
More or less (for less is more).
He’s a doorstep smash-and-grabber
A gilt-edged gift of the gabber,
He got the moves, he got the glamour,
He got more jabber than MC hammer.
To Clive there can be nothing easier
Than selling self-authored pseudo-academia,
Fifty leather-bound laptops of Wikipedia,
With a month’s free access to Virgin Media.
Compilation Cassette
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsIt was about three weeks after we met
That I began work on that compilation cassette.
Each track the result of a deliberation worthy
Of the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints,
Subject to a process of veneration and beatification
Before acceptance into the cassette tape canon.
It’s a miracle it got made at all.
I can’t remember now which songs made the cut.
There would have been no Country & Western,
(There was never any Country & Western)
But they would have shown me to be
Discerning yet eclectic, both acoustic and electric,
Vaguely exotic, mildly erotic, quintessentially quixotic
And other things I was not.
I don’t know whether you ever played my cassette.
By the time I had posted it through your letter-box,
You had already started going out with Colin Hancox.
He was good at rugby.
The Boogie Monster
Assorted Poems, Selected poemsYou were always blaming things on the boogie.
The time you stayed out in the sun too long
And your speckles turned to freckles: the boogie.
The evening you admired the light of a full moon
Only to trip and fracture your hip: the boogie.
Even those times which once seemed good
Became named, shamed and blamed on the boogie.
I quite liked the boogie.
I didn’t know why you had such a problem with it.
