Mary Beard’s on TV
discussing which art
could be suppressed,
never seen and placed
in secretum

The brash *******,
raw ****** ******,
Roman Charity
and priapic rampancy
does, I suppose, provoke thought.

My submission:
anything etched
by class 9Y,  Period 5 on a Friday

Today, the opened door  
loosed sharp memory,
someone missing from the rituals,
the glitter bright edges of the season
showed that they can catch,
draw tears,
with only long years
returning the absent love

For a time the doors are flicked open
and forgot
in a rush to dress, cram breakfast
and sing ad infinitum
(to the great delight of my brother, I’m sure)
the final rehearsals for the Christmas play
make days thrum by

I walked in grey today
intent on letting the scale
of the problem spiral

I sat on an illicit log
and allowed the panic and sorrow in
to grip my throat
fold me inwards
and paint the worst case scenario

but the day wouldn’t let me sink,
my river companion lazily waved,
sinuous fish flowing through,
two green blurs of woodpeckers
tickled me to lift my head again

The crowning azure flash
of the kingfisher
shocked a grin,
unfolded
and I was back to the dizzying
ups and downs of everything

Sometimes words fall out
vehement, blood high,
incendiary,
meat thought chained
like sausage link
or metal hard train cars
yanked by emphatic engines

Other times the pool swirls
and breezes blow
oppositional
and as lungs slow labour
thoughts drift and slip from place
languid fingers trace ripples
that may mean nothing

The mind needs time to breathe
and holler equally
so we can feed and be fed

Stand arboreally tall,
present a strength,
represent stability,
provide a safe place,
wide-branched sanctuary,
hold rooted principles,
speak truth to power,

til the hour you break and tumble,
your fingers thumbs
and your heart falling
numbed

senses bent, thoughts fraying,
tattered threads evasive,
the very idea of existence,
position,
self,
buckles

Far-sightedness retracts,
a fancy contra-zoom,
Hitchcockian,
eyes locked on your two feet,
tip-toes edged up
against your own precipice,
your own private void

We all feel this
sooner or later,
but its ridiculous melodrama
stills our tongues to tell,
til we’re left believing
we’re the only losers facing hell

To speak is strong,
to cry courageous,
to panic and dread next steps, next breaths,
is human

I pledge to listen, ask for the same
and beg that next time
we keep shooting the breeze
until the ledge fades

Coaxed awake through floorboards
by the kitchen radio, distracted then
from the holly behind the fourth door
by Shakin’ Stevens’ parties and celebrations.
Now, looking back nostalgic for eighties
nostalgic for fifties,
the true meaning of Christmas appears

The incomplete dark
of a suburban night
makes seeing the great beyond
hard

but patience, peace
and allowing the eyes to adjust
finally reveals a truth

firefly flicks burn
amongst the static majesty
of constellations
reassuring that all is
still in motion

from our frozen homes
we can gaze and hope
as surely as our kin
watched stars fall like rain

The rattle in your lung
says the choice is no longer yours

Pause

For thought or effect,
the end’s the same

Played your hands in the game like always

But

The rattle in your lung
says the choice is no longer yours

And where did the vitriol get you,
old man?

To a better place?
Where fat white women sing your praise?

While at home your carbon copies
bust their lips
when the home team loses?

The rattle in your lung
says the choice is no longer yours

You waiting for something?
Applause for working a nine to five
and allowing a fraction
of your take home to be spent on living,
raising?

The rattle in your lung
says the choice is no longer yours

I’ll stand over you now
As you stood over me
Instead of raining blows
I’ll let the misery of your truth
Catch in your chest
and fight for the cause

The rattle in your lung
says the choice is no longer yours

Iscariot behaviours mean
this never temple body
sometimes struggles to hide
the weather roll
that the eager might hail
pathetic fallacy
with smug misrecognition

Listen to the twitch and thud
as you get older, sure,
but hold off on fearing the worst

The hearse always takes a while
for those who hear its stately glide
daily

#age #health #anxiety #peace #steady

Acknowledge: the infinitesimally small chance
of any of us being born,
with utterly no choice
regarding shape, size or colour

A quirk of an elegant double helix
mixed by the hand of years and years
leads to our underbite
or sticking out ears
or skin

Imagine then: some folk in this long odds dice game
are deemed by implicit consensus  
to have lost at birth
and the cost is constant denigration
and a knee on the neck

That any of us from the species **** sapiens
could have hearts that are stopped
by the cruelty of blind chance is ridiculous
and should be seen and felt by all,
and rage should follow

I know this stuff
is gloomy sad at times,
but hiding the fact there are few rhymes
and I laugh at poops and farts
most of all
is part of my poet’s call x

I’m not letting it stop me,
I’ll just carry on living my life
he said
treading dog **** deep into the ****
while under each arm
were many bags of bog rolls
puy lentils and spelt flour
that within the hour
would begin their months long spoil
at the back of a damp garage

Us writ large

exposed by this little
biological *******
which, let’s remember, does not think

Just because Dagenham Dave
or Portia
don’t either
does not make us sparring partners

Evoke Dunkirk or the blitz
if you want
but please
do it getting off your ****
on the 1995 bottle of ouzo
from the back of your drinks cupboard

at home

#dontbedicks

Thoughts gather and pool
and the weight of wet clothing
sits heavier

a moment slowed,
where falling rain
mutes some senses,
nudges others

catching melancholic glances
puddled and ponded
can spark reflection,
but not at depth

set a course back home
to hang leaden jackets
and wait

My heart’s lub-dub
pushes blood half lost.

In the lab they would no doubt see
an elegant double helix
pointing to a certain ancestry

but I see faded yellow turtle necks
and kitchen based bowl cuts
rain hammered car roofs
peering through steamed windows
at the sea

I smell lemon zest
taste cake mix
and hear the muffled,
distance thwarted hum
of Radio Wales

In amongst my GATC
you are woven unloseable,
a shepherd to my instincts

I give thanks with each breath

I feel it all collapse
and wrap around like normal
with a wire wool hug

the chafe is on

A broken clarity
scored by fat pigeon coos
and the gangster chatter of crows

A winged court is in session and
they are not finding in our favour

Their behaviour’s changed
so even the ranks
of hedge birds are emboldened
to thumb their beaks
and sing clear in number
and the woodpecker’s gavel falls

When our industry prevails
will we seek vengeance,
or preserve this
hallowed cacophony?

Claw to scratch
itches that you can’t identify,
as if I could ever stoop so low

Nobody told me so
is no excuse, buddy boy,
so stop playing the silly goose

I hate you, bambino,
your stupidity sticky
like sad celluloid
held too long in the gate

We’re through

#done #disappointment #end #humans

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

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

It’s only us that’s broken

these once unspoken words
reverberate around a globe
that doesn’t wait for us

gets on with growth and bloom
and spawn and gambol
same as always

as children we cry
and bemoan our lot
unjust and unwarranted

but the doublespeak
is busted by the healing
all around

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

I began a thought
followed it really closely
until dazzled by a mote of dust
that drifted by me

momentarily dumbfounded
I grasped to catch
where I had been heading
when a cat crossed the garden
and intent on its actions
I stalled once more

I shook my head
and pinned my fingers
to the keyboard
to rattle out important words
but then I wondered
how the Easter Islanders
celebrated Easter
and went down that rabbit hole
for an hour

Resurfacing I finally began
and sentences flowed
for a good five minutes

until I saw
that it was time
for dinner

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

An April fool
run to ground by a bug,
limited to roam a little upstairs,
a little down

I have consumed my body weight
in ones and zeroes,
which is no mean feat

I’ve streamed series,
beaten end of level bosses,
gone back and got mired
in the reeds
of the long reads

This feast,
long anticipated,
has not tasted as planned
and my multimedia catch up
leaves me wanting

When the time comes
I will cut and run
and plash my legs
in the sea to my knees

and I will not capture the moment
with an eye and thought
other than my own

Caterpillar
Windowsiller
Crawl across
Do what you willer
Caterpillar
Stomach filler
My dad calls you
Cabbage killer

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

It’s big
and it chews on your thoughts
termite toothed
til you feel your
brain pan is honeycombed
with broken links

To think around it
seems impossible
when from current vantage
you can’t even see its shape

Perspective seems
as hard to find
as eggs and flour

but minutes will hour
hours will day
as always

and time will do it’s thing
turning tragedy
comic

Stone memory
and earth thought
hurt sometimes
when you remember what was
not is

Life is never pliant
we just have to go with the grain

remaining just to say
we remain

My free stumbling foot
disturbed your treetop dining
and you took flight,
vivid yellow talons
gripping a glut-plump
summer rat
in best of health if not for
inches of claw
****** through chest

I see that carrion
is not your only meal
as I’d believed,
discounting your size
as faux majesty
by a flamboyant opportunist

But now I see you better
and in proving to pick your battles,
know you more

No poetry on Mondays
sorry
thems the rules
not even a half rhyme
a poignant metaphor
a little alliteration
or assonance

******

Strange times indeed
when time itself has
adopted corporate technique
and seeks efficiencies

cutbacks in shaded
public daydreams
and an addendum added
so on the clock is replaced
by elongated shifts
in fluorescent lighted kitchens
or fuggy bedrooms

and yes, we will accept
the company line
it’s for the greater good

but your worst innovation
is to bring forward collection
of our family and friends’
souls and smiles
like you can shave some time
to make a smoother run
down the line

these things aren’t yours to take yet

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

Down the line
your fat self sits content
at a life spent mostly decent

Your green cheeks absorb for now
and by ****** you grow,
occasionally showing off
to love and wince at later
on Timehop

You don’t think of roots.

Why would you?
Your wood grows supple
and strong with you
alone

But roots make you belong
and yield

Our youthful skill
of ignoring feelings
sticks with some

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

If I could save time in a bottle
my clumsiness would see me spill it

As memories soaked into the rug,
loves, losses, laughs and deaths
would mix as they spread,
to send remembering askew

Not so much a blank slate
as everything old and new blended,
same highs, lows, pains and leaps,
felt and forgot together,
so the never-neverland of you
is and never was

A metal nosed thought
wished for bark dreams
and grass forgetfulness

The vitriol drips
entered through eyes or loose lips
take hold and make most
a little sick

At the same time
chlorophyll is tickled
and the ambient temp
clicks biological switches
and the earth does it’s thing

It won’t stop because we’re hurting,
quite the opposite,
it’ll take its chance to breathe
without us being *******

So when we’re done coughing
and it couches us again in
long grass and butterfly kisses,
let’s try not to forget

In the case of
minor poet versus hangover
I find in favour of hangover

minor poet shall cover costs
with ill thought words
and petty half rhymes
and pay a fine of couplets
and regular metre
like proper poems

may god have mercy on your headache

Barb says it’ll pass
and by May we’ll be done,
can get back to having fun
she says, if not before

And Angela’s had enough
and is meeting up with Amy
for a G&T,
might even protest the virus

Dave the Rave had his mates round
says it was sound AF,
as luck would have it
when the cops showed up
they’d all gone home

back to their families
cos some of them are
key workers and they
didn’t want to keep em up late,
they’re good like that