Little fingers picked
at cheap cardboard corners
and although the stories
never quite hit home,
there was wonder
in the tiny watercolour shepherds

Sitting at our distanced picnic,
a moveable feast in which the scotch eggs
probably have deep significance, I said to you
“We’re only ever inches from the cliff.
If left alone we tread steadily. It’s those
other buggers you have to watch out for.”
and the mist on the windows
stopped us seeing more.

It threatens to shatter,
as the impossibly dark weight pushes on your
jerry-rigged defences,
propped up by the seventeen muscles
straining in your forced smile

but know that inches from your fingertips
and at the end of your sentences
we’re there waiting,
safety nets woven from former grief
which over time has tempered
to be strong enough to lend a hold
to those that need
to you

*******
hear the words from my beak
please
above the chatter and click
of these other feathered *****
as they plead for wheat, sans chaff

every single one of us
the same
except the stupid branch we’ve
ended up perched on,

early or not the worms are earmarked
and the **** always falls down

Hedge sparrows drink the sun
as it wanes
and the draining year passes

they still glean a family happiness
in spite of the closing dark,
a spite richly deserved

listen to their lead and chatter,
ruffle and preen together, apart
as hearts and feathers wait

An explosion,
pulse quickened,
the adrenaline itch
threatened to stifle me

throat constricted,
mouth cotton dried
as I eyed the few I could see
in the front row

then the music
as familiar as my pillow
gave a beat and suggested melody
and as I sang I rose

Next to me was this one
and her feet were never still
she twirled and span through contretemps
and likely always will

That one had intensity
but never said a word
from blackened fingered canvases
his voice could still be heard

These two stood in spotlights
and held everyone in thrall
performing other’s stories,
their own a quieted call

And the group raised up their voices
which entwined and fit so well
and the chorus spoke of everything
they’d never usually tell

These memories, these children,
who moved, who drew, who showed,
who sang unguarded clarity
while the emptiness bellowed

Used to have us allies
used to have us care,
now, become statistics
now, are never there

I spent fifteen minutes of the lesson
chasing a roll of Polo mints and a pound coin
out of a small hole in the working class lining of his pointless blazer, to stop him taking scissors to it,
even though mum said it was OK

At the same time, my child bosses
decided to cut my subject
from the formerly rich platter available
to our blasted, gorgeous youth
because, reasons
which I suppose are financial and deeply,
numerically,
justifiable

Meanwhile, the next kid in junior school
silently loses the opportunity
to be anything other
than a state certified failure

So, cheers

To Friday five I apologise,
to my profession and charges
I weaken and give mummers tales,
avoid holes of attention
that tired souls give in to

I love my responsibilities hotly
but there are ends to means,
so weekly turns have starts
which Mondays begin

A squall passed by
like a rough emotion,
forgotten in seconds
as a swathe of blue sky
assuages

I roll your name around my tongue,
try it on for size and fit
and note the heart-flutter it gives me
before a gulp and swallow ingests you

I ponder and digest your vitamins
as sense prevails
and I return to business as usual

Yearning for frost sharp, gaudy lights
in November seems apposite in a year consistently blighted with dull, pedestrian horror

The itch to raise a tree and string lights
to no and every god
could be scratched this time

We can pack our proud sneers
in the loft or attic in exchange for
electric hope and cellophane cheer

As nights draw in
we’ll bluff metaphors of closeness
until a wellspring comes to right us

Autumn questions
with no immediate answers

gradually denuding
to reveal skeletal branches
penning their script against pale skies,
writing of the sharp tongued winter
lying ahead

Earlier in the morning
I’d read the movements of a stalwart blackbird
flicking dead leaves on my concrete driveway,
gleaning for grubs

Later, as I unloaded the weekly food shop,
substitute, as it was, for fun,
I heard an imperious cry,

scrolling up, the fork-tailed red kites circled
in a sunshine that denied pathetic fallacy

and the screech they made meant nothing

Sometimes hearts
break in specific ways,
we will apply bandages
but the scars will form vivid,
worn by us all as memory
that the best burn bright
but brief

I don’t want to open,
not emails carefully written
or texts with clipped care and sad emojis
or uncommon knocks at the door

I don’t want to open
because they’ll be about you,

not from you

the radioactive throb of their concern
will tear at my shut eyes,
try to pry at arms tight across my chest
and draw words from the thin line of my lips

I don’t want to open,
though I know it’s the start
and ‘the best thing to do’

it will trigger the tumble,
the stumbles, the snot-nosed howls,
crushed throat rage as I claw and wrestle,

but it will slowly begin to lessen
and I’ll lose the living you

I don’t want to open

bracken memory,
rock and boot mud,
air above with voiced winds,
water flowing, thoughtless,
pure
and fire, embers, ashes
you are to me

I had a ghost, too polite to scare,
haunting took the form of kind notes,
a fridge periodically restocked,
socks paired and put in drawers

Eschewing rattled chains and wails
it chose to put the radio on,
only ever easy listening,
Sunday mourning

No ectoplasm,
no unexplained temperature drops
no arcanely spelled clues
to the tragedy of a restless soul

In time, it exorcised itself
and my communion was lost,
with a tidied kitchen,
all brass fittings shone

And I was left with everyday fear

The rain had stayed in the grass,
and as I walked my shoes got sodden

Then, I didn’t feel the chill weight
as each wet step took me towards you,
the cold, dead-leaf breeze
still thrilling

A coal glow of anticipation,
the drug-draw of your jumpered arms,
endless cups of tea in the earlying dark
watching the frost’s slow creep

Sunlight on us, tempest tossed,
disheveled in the quietude

A toaster’s clunk gives cause to move,
routine plates, butter,
knives are passed

The rasp as blackened slices scrape
mocks hollow the request
to leave the dial alone

Us as cracked pots,
with a possibility to be fixed
as fine and flawed

The geology of our clay:
dirt will behave as dirt,
rare earth as rare earth

With time it transmutes
to something new,
shot with old veins when fired

The new *** fragile,
prone to drops and knocks,
desperate to hold known water

Edged laughter of teachers,
bone-tired from the joy-slog weeks passed,
speaks of an adult relief,
R and R for bruised hearts and knocked heads

Coming off the front line,
hard fought thought-inches precariously gained,
we sit in living room street cafes,
flowing vin du table,
inhaling rest like Gauloise

The distant classroom thud and rumble never fully fades,
echoed in sandbags of intelligence to be pored over
deciphered, summarised in triplicate,
for later summits

But it will wait

For now, we’ll catch a show, an eye,
maybe even a lie of peace,
for one duvet-warm morning

Soon, we’ll be back to inspecting boots,
buttons, buckles, sharpened pens ready,
waiting for the whistle

A bold and fattened fecundity
speaking truths to the dwindling light,
securing a covenant, a pledge,
as the molasses dark flows inevitable

The cold weaves it thick
so limbs and thoughts are held
and insidious suggestions have free reign

The hedgerows offer so that spring remembers:
after marshalling reserves, it must return

I forget the interstitial blips,
boiled egg dinners,
weak cups of tea,
the tight cost-benefit chats
where eyes don’t meet

I remember certain things,
not necessarily in the order they came
but in vermillion shocks
and ****** afterglows
as heartbeats slowed back down

Friday:
faux finish line it may be,
but colour me happy
as my knackered toe to tip
crosses it

I heard that Dr Johnny Bananas
signed off on a letter on herd immunity
and *******, I’m in

Last seen fleeing a beat up
Chunking Mansion room
after a deal for python skins
(needed for his surefast oil) went bad,
his mad streak nearly had him

This was after that narrow squeak in Singapore, when peddling stay hard pills to rotten expats got dicey, as they realised his concoction
was more talc than tungsten
and some Salakau took a machete interest

So the enigmatic Dr B has resurfaced
in Great Barrington, Mass.
to add his voice to the Ivy League Profs, homeopaths and khoomii singers’
hard nosed exhortations
to stop worrying and love the fever,
persistent cough,
anosmia

If life has taught us anything
it’s that when Dr Johnny B spins
fresh from Whitehall or White House
with advice for living well,
you can take that to the offshore bank.
I’m sold

Remember every now and then
to redress the balance and acknowledge
that there are hedgehogs,
cooked breakfasts,
stomach aches from laughing
and the dumb comfort of an afternoon snooze

My dog-soul forgets to feed
and starves black,
paces circles for a bed
and with dead weight,
settles

thought and action,
usually smitten with intricacies,
are quietly smothered to nothing

a flat purgatory
scored with white noise, overcast
rendered in a pauper’s palette
on a canvas with no edge

ticks remain untocked
until at some distance
a mechanism is rewound
and a leash jangled
for an ear to lazily lift again

Remember the roast potato days,
try to feel them when they arrive
in a kind of “What is this life…” way

The days when a surfeit of crisp-crunch
surrounds a fluffy middle, robed in a gravy of any persuasion
placating even the glummest sentiments

When rains are driven off
by silken rice pudding
spiked with a sweet acid dollop of jam of any fruit

Recall the carbohydrate wealth
when the poor days come
and your heart-stomach rumbles

Butter fat richness will return
and learning to trust this
is an adult meal indeed

Three AM awake, aching with lateness
wrestling alone
even if a significant other is next to you
or little breaths flutter in next rooms

Shadow boxing ridiculous odds
in a world and heart full
of treacle thick worries
weighting your punches ineffectual
just like in the fear-fever dreams
that woke you

You skirt the maw below
resting place of your almighty failures
as the sick orange glow
breaches curtains and makes
familiar shapes judgmental
tut tut tutting at your uselessness

Here, you are defenceless

Here, the black thoughts insinuate,
find cracks to prise and plant suggestions
of a better world without you in it:
the limit of you

Dig deep, my human kin
quietly get up,
make a cup of tea,
write a message or two
to yourself, or for others later

Bide and wait
for the mute loved heaviness of sleep to return
or the welcome thinness of morning light
to wash the darkness back

In the new day, reach out,
with steady voice or bubble-snot,
be heard and seen
by friends or strangers
and try to heal again

Sing me a song of now
to hear what it sounds like

Broken rhythms and discords
or a bitter battled harmony?

I have my feet to stomp
and will whistle and holler free

To reach ears, hidden and open
all shaped the same

You’ve recalled what it’s like to be cold
in this blustered autumn wind
your fingers may be privileged
to flick a switch on central heating
and ignore the insistent, shivering world
while it continues to divide and burn

This light,
amber edge of autumn,
kisses souls to forget
the once welcomed lethargic sweats of summer
and gently chides us to remember

woollen pullovers and happiness
in sharp cold breaths intaken,
exhaled as a fake sophisticate
puffing on a glamorous cigarette

As the year begins its sleep
our senses wake
to ask questions in the dark

Against the backdrop of a global catastrophe
witness us busying to fix the natural damage
heavily wrought
an endeavour in itself,
which ought to warrant respect
and the gift of time and patience

Our blood and sweat
a human resource
gladly spent to rebuild the detriment,
but not at any cost
not kamikaze squadrons
dashed upon the decks of a false progress

For each of us as batteries
are finite
and our spark will drain,
our light will die
unless the blinkered
see that trying is enough
for now

When foundations are rebuilt, safe
and feet feel steady
we will readily head skywards again

What’s left lingers on me,
your smell on my fingers,
my hair, my chafed skin,
my well washed shirts

and I could wash
I could
I know

I never knew essential
meant impossible to be without
until the scent began to fade

Quit your childish, mouth breathing,
shirt buttoned up wrong nonsense
and as a grown human
witness the others around you

Sometimes they cook and talk different,
sometimes look and worry too,
but as has been said for centuries
blood is always red
and there are way too many ******

The ones truly coming to take your lives,
your jobs, your holidays,
your houses, cars and sweethearts
speak on TV, Facebook, Twitter and the rags,
demanding you fear the folk
whose hearts and hands are desperate
to protect their kin, like you

In their money nests
the few snooze and giggle at your
wasted weight and misdirected roar

Bring it to bear

Mushroom promises swell into existence,
flim-flam miracles,
pristine plump “truths”
when uttered, swelling proud
alongside peach-keen
endorsing smiles

But the treacle of decay acts quickly
so even the casual observer
sees the rot before the ink dries,
smells rank mould,
and we decry ad infinitum

You’re in our blood and marrow
guiding us each beat,
but more

through oral histories
smoothed by years and the telling
around later dinner tables
with warm wine smiles
sharp edges and harsh, too-sharp clarity
burnished and buffed away,

as our minds turn over each recollection
we feel the warm glow of worn gold
to hold us, linger-hugged,
or ride the swelling tide from a fabled talisman
as we channel your strength
to stand up to them

or we might laugh recalling pompous brass buttons
‘til stitch given tears pour
at the tenderness of your
remembered buffoonery
where wisdom dressed up daft
and sang stupid songs to love us

Once around the block and done.

No extra-time or after parties,
just a head-spinning rattle
from itching frustration
to breathless incredulity
at the pace of it all

So please, by all means
saunter, dance, crawl, or wriggle
as the situation demands,
although sometimes you’ll still kvetch
at slow walking goons in the supermarket
and want to crack the back of their heads
and educate them about trolley etiquette
and getting the heck out of your
important way

Try to love pastoral pauses,
either in your mind’s green eye
or if lucky, in a glade
as real as bark and river pebbles
where cousins, lovers, friends,
pendulum on rope swings
to an abandoned splash

However hard,
hearts don’t beat well solo

Pan - all
Demos - people

Everyone touched and fiddled with
tricked, cut, broken and hauled
across coals that hurt directly
or by degrees

More pernicious than a novel virus,
exposed to the utter selfishness
of folk who won’t even cover their mouths to cough
or at best will wear a cloth across their mouths
but leave their noses to bleed casual indifference

I want to love my fellow man and see them as allies
so I struggle to suppress my surprise
that too many would claw and fling
sad corpses of different colours or origins
to the rising tide
just to stay unhappily dry, never mind alive

Disposable gloved hands stretched out with open hearts,
basic ***** hygiene and an even playing field
are a tiny ask for all

Take a deep (covered) breath,
be deaf to the filthy fear peddlers
who try to cling to power
by screaming vitriol and division
one tweet and cable TV show at a time
and reach instead for the sublime and silly brilliance
of being human

The edges of summer’s
soak and throb routine
begin their curled leaf fraying
with the last fat spoons of clotted dreams
lashed haphazard

All those weights we foisted forward
to when wet autumn
would just **** us off anyway
rattle-threat at their fastenings
in the fractious post-tropical gales

Inertia makes it clear
why our transatlantic cousins call it fall,
but pre-echoes of crisp, clear frosts
do their best to placate anxieties
that appear to be calendared

Rest as a remedy,
forced to stay put,
instead of filling my head and feet with
a million next steps
and very necessary jobs and concerns,
I have to sit

the normal distractions
I covet in the pell-mell of things,
box sets, deep cuts, long reads, levelling up,
lose lustre fast
I glaze-stare at the fictional tree line
ticks trickling to tocks

From deep below I hear the slow plod
thudded footfalls of ‘those’ thoughts,
sensing a weakness in the barricades,
heaving down the drawbridge
usually bound firm by chains of daily grind,
LED light show and the world’s digital caterwaul

My busted foot has robbed my nimbleness,
unable to glance, sidestep or dance aside,
our eyes catch and fix,
like the titans of the twilight
their inexorable, gargantuan tread reaches me

I put up a pathetic wrestle
before I am pinned by the weight
long past the three count
frantically tapping on the mat
my morse SOS growing weak

Please Doc,
just give me a dose of elixir so they’ll retreat
and my broken *** will ride
a frivolous winged horse
back to safe and anxious ground

I can stay and die
or I can try to go where angry folk don’t want me

Death, or raging pink faces
is a choice of sorts,
but still no place, no home

So, beheading, or maybe hanging,
lynched by dragging,
or if lucky, shot alone,

versus locking up in a green walled facility,
****** as it may be,
until someone takes a moment to judge me safe,
is luxury

Or maybe I’ll be deported,
doomed,
I struggle to see your view against me

As a young brown man I know I’m done,
I might have a degree in medicine
or years of fixing cars or houses, horses,
understand trade or charity

It won’t matter
when my photofit
reminds you of another brown man
who blew himself up or lashed out with a knife,
for a misread life and afterlife

A few white lives will always tip the scale
where hundreds,
thousands,
millions of ours,
despite your fears
will not prevail

I play video games on easy.

Yeah,
I know how some folk will see me,
but now, here’s the thing:

I don’t thrive on challenge.
I grow from knowing
what I’m capable of knowing
and showing all of that
polished up

I get that people see mountains
and climb because they’re there
but me knowing there’s a cafe at the top
with flapjack, tea and Kendal mint cake
seems to make it fair

Better still if a tarmac track
or funicular railway
can get me halfway or more,
I’m all over that,
you just watch me summit

To return to the original sort of analogy:
if I can beat the enigmatic end of level boss
who tosses a second or third energy bar
in the mix
by spamming the same overpowered move over and over,
I’m doing it,
end of

When I stand in the ashes of the beast
whatever it might be
and take loot or XP
that might be not quite as good as on normal or hard
I’m good
I still feel the buzz of winning

If I have to grind repeatedly
and learn intricate enemy routines to evade or parry
and die
and die
and die

It’s not for me.

It could be because I cut my gaming teeth in eighties arcades
where I judged how good a game was
by how far 10p could take me
at a time when 10ps were limited

A forgiving difficulty level was a boon
(Yeah, I’m looking at you Mad Dog McCree
50 flipping *** a go and dead in 30 seconds!)

Anyway...

A little friction in life is fine,
no drama without conflict and all that,
but given the option
to up up, down down
left right, left right
B A Start
my heart will always take it

I’m in my forties now
and if I knock my knee it aches for days
even if I can’t say
precisely when and how I did it

Vexed I am left to neck ibuprofen
and recall what I took for granted
in the fat rosiness of my twenties

But I have my own front door
and a car
and keys for both
and when things go wrong I can fix them
or at least pay a guy called Steve
to pop round and do that for me
while I watch the news and tut

I have my own front door
behind which I can hide safe
with only the news to scare me,
I put a tire iron under my bed
to feel better

Late at night I look out the window
from time to time
to see the reassuring flash
of my car’s alarm indicator
and I wonder in the dark who else can see it

The news and my social media
say things are bad and getting worse
so I’m glad of my front door
I don’t go out too much anymore
anyway

not like the past
when knocks and bumps were shrugged off
and my guts could take a hit
and I was one of the people
making drunken noises in the night
but it was just a laugh, right?

Not like now.
These folk have no respect.
I lock the door as soon as I am in,
car or house
and check the news again.
I might call Steve and see if he can set me up
some CCTV.

Iron in the stone bleeds a colour
against grey enamel,
bone bedrock

See ticks and tocks writ on lined faces,
craning to read flickered futures
where rock-solid certainties
and metal connectivities clash
in janky dissonance

Grasping the surety of a copper coin
in a clenched fist,
the shape as sure as love and rage,
when opened, shows
the sleight of hand and thought
sold to us all

Remember the sandwich of youth?

On a drizzly beach with actual sand,
the grit crunch making things somehow better
for the supermarket cheddar
and margarine on sliced white

Let the memories come

The loved ones flinging frisbees,
or playing impossible cricket matches,
grand unplanned architecture,
studded with dead shells,
monuments to a hopeful utopia,
collapsed by the heavy-heeled truths of vengeful siblings
or everyday tides

Sea air makes you hungry and tired,
content,
like life and years try

I get that beef fat and butter
in this day and age are a sin
and contribute to the decline
of myself and this earth

But, my lords and ladies,
I am weak
and beholden to the
grease shined smile
on stuffed chops
as my euphemistic dad ***
becomes ever more so,
ballooning to a middle age where
there be dragons

I plead mercy,
and perhaps some ice cream

No anticipation is as great
as finishing seconds of a chicken pie
then looking forward
to what Paul will cook next year

We coulda been anything that we wanted to be
but our unshaped dreams
saw us in smokey cinemas
or waiting for VHS rewinds
to learn songs or follow twists
as humans wrestled with being flawed,
at the dark end of the street,
facing the devil
or dodging foam in a fake speakeasy

Feel the good cheer,
like they say in the poem