his phone rings
she says why don’t you answer it
he says it hasn’t said
anything yet     ..

is the mousetrap still running
at the theatre, is there a donkey sanctuary
in st pauls
is there still the thames, the thames!
is this then how poetry
goes

stevie smith was the
greatest poet of her
age, but what’s her
age got to do with it

wanted
to cry
but there’s people looking

worse off
than I

a small bird sings
in the wind in the
trees in the wind
a small bird sings

alas
a loss
unless
undressed
the poor old
chap was loved
I guess
her curls
in swirls
around his chest       ..

the angry knocking
and the insistence
I open the door

couldn’t help wondering
what was behind it

she’s always saying that I live
in the past
well yes, it is the only place I’ve lived
apart from now  ..

sitting at a pavement table
   of a turkish café
  near the gare de l’est

feel myself hunch
  like a dishevelled pigeon
over lunch, the waiter

asks for our order,
     naturally in french
and I ask “parlez vous anglais?”

     he enquires if we’re dutch,
               or quite possibly deutsch    ..
guess it doesn’t matter much

they remained silent
over dinner, the gravy especially was
best not mentioned again

turned up at her door
     with a bottle of gin
  so what is that for ?
oh, it’s just a way in ..

most people around here
take democracy for
granted they vote for the fascist  ..

people find me cold,
which is also
how they leave me

a sunday roast
washed down with a pint
got back on the coach
and belched.
what more do you want     ..

called the waiter over
for the bill
he said what about coffee
I said thanks
but I don’t even know you     ..

when I was a kid I got a sixpence
a week for
pocket money, plus the beano
every
saturday
and then, suddenly, they
brought in decimalisation
and a sixpence no longer existed,
and I’ve worried about
money
ever since   ..

feel unsteady, seems windier than
it used to be -
don’t know if it’s a climate change thing,
or just me

let’s do lunch tomorrow
not sure if I can make it
I’m not asking you to cook

I’m going away
for a while he
thought she’d
be ok about it  ..

rather write detective fiction
than poetry but I wouldn’t
be any good at it, and what’s
the difference? she says

the pub at lunchtime
is quiet, he says,
I’m eating

ate our sandwiches sitting
on the steps leading up to
the art gallery
it’s a matter of taste, she says

what’s with this whole twenty
first century internet
thing about having followers,
I mean I feel like a stalker

this is all knew
I’d find it odd
my dear

seems like everyone’s
angry about something
must have happened    ..

she said I wonder
what you look like
without your glasses

he said I wonder
what you look like
without my glasses    ..

someone stops the road sweeper
and asks him the way;
he says, like this     ..

people often say “less”
when they mean “fewer” -
it’s not important, I
guess, it’s just grammar    ..

can’t see a way out at all
     wherever one looks there’s just wall
    and yes, one solitary gate
      whereby they gather to await
    the old fool

the american poet I most admire
is dorothy parker,
a drinker, a poet, a cynic, a writer
and **** it, I like her!

angrily get out of bed
saying you’ve had enough!
which for me was a first

why call murderers butchers,
    when we get our lamb chops
from the butchers, and very nice they are, too
    few, those old shops   ..

went into the second hand bookshop
I said hi, what’s new?

hid a poem in a tree in
the woods
but they cut it down
to just a couple of words

writing a novel
you know what that’s like?
it’s like a story that no one’s
ever written before
yeah, I’m making it up  ..

there is little conversation
over dinner as we’re concentrating
on eating I wonder what we’ll
talk about after      ..

used to think I’d like
to get to know you,
but I don’t, anymore

looking back
on our old haunts
me still    ..

frightfully british but
also roman catholic
ate no meat on a friday
was always fish and chips

as she closed the
door behind her
mind was made up

and looking at the stars
she asks me what I’m
thinking thank goodness
it’s not raining

dylan thomas died from the drink
but that’s not what you think of
when you read his poems you think of caitlin,
swansea and soho and yeah, ok, pubs  ..

wanted to knock on his door
and ask him to come out to play
but what if his dad answered
and what if he said, oh ok  ..

only ever known two women whose
feet I found attractive
and one I married -
don’t know what happened to the
other three     ..

death’s getting close to
a certainty but I’ve always
put money
on the outsider

where were you last night?
I can’t recall
and you expect me to believe that?
not at all  ..

we’re both getting old,
but she still has dignity and desirability
and a demure sensuality and
all I have is a cough

o’hara should have
been a little more careful
on the road
perhaps wasn’t his thing

last time I wrote a poem that
was
any good was on the late lamented
deep underground poetry site about an elderly woman on the
bus who offered me a boiled
sweet,
I thought,
but no, thanks     ..

glad I never met george orwell
since he’d have despised me for
being a weak liberal and well
yeah he’d have been about right