"shopfronts" poems
This is our blitz, puppydog, I said,
dragging him away from the whizzbangs
echoing green and purple off shopfronts.
My Chuchundra scuttled ground-bellied
from fallen ******* bags spilling guts
like casualties of war
and hoodlums tremendous in commando gear
who set off peonies and chrysanthemums
before charging triumphant down alleyways.
We go home. I’m happy to leave these heroes
the soda from the Catherine wheels,
and the drizzle, for which London has yet to apologise.
Oct 22, 2011
Oct 22, 2011 at 6:51 AM UTC
Sitting a row in front, her forehead rests on a tanned hand
perhaps in simple boredom, her thoughts
caged in by the rays of sunlight washing her brunette hair.
The train rattles on, passing empty shopfronts
and two boys racing each other on bicycles
I yawn, breathing the laziness around
'I could sit next to her' I imagine
my eyes fixed on her delicate eyelashes, but
foolishness is embarrassing
so I yawn again.
If love could be defined, it certainly cannot be
two strangers with unacquainted hearts.
That's not love - that's a childish crush, a fatal attraction,
an act of stalking!
Sigh.
OH she's leaving. Wait
Beauty.. Heaven.. Strawberries..!
You.. Me.. love.. Love!
gone
Jan 17, 2013
Jan 17, 2013 at 9:40 AM UTC
In many short years
we’ll know we were sweet and naive.
We’ll think about the things we thought,
our understated predictions
our dinner table conversations.
There were floaters
in our oracle’s eyes.
It will not be the now
that we know.
As what happens to us
disappears
like the sound of an engine
in the fog,
moving away.
In many short years
Auschwitz has a café.
After the tour
all the waitresses
come from the kitchen
uniformed
to sing to you
on your birthday.
In many short years
they’ll build on Chernobyl
and Fukushima will be an oasis.
There’ll be fields of bodies
fertilising strawberries
for other countries.
-
We’ve got no memory.
Horrors aren’t like happiness
they lose their impact
with every sharing
and every listen.
Will you be there?
In the next big thing.
Think of that.
How much faster everything’s destroyed
than it’s made.
Think of what work your life took
Wrong gods appear again.
As always a side will be picked for you.
As always the goals are your own.
And the answers are more questions,
homophones,
the same lessons
and still they’ll bomb playgrounds
built on bomb sites.
-
Then the next big thing.
Your entropy,
that starts and ends in fire.
The wolf
from another wood and paper town.
The flames on your monuments
and shopfronts
caught on divine wind
and a scent for sin.
Most now know
they’ve never been scared before.
Things you never thought could alight
prove you wrong.
The air stings and follows
and the clouds finally become too much for the sun.
Your heartbeat’s afterlife
is someone else’s tutting.
Unread letters,
guitars and bars with history,
family traditions
and the weight of her hand,
thumb hooked to the belt loop
of your jeans
are now one weather formation.
And under all
is flat and yellow
like an African morning.
Is it angels or great bats
which have given you
your turn?
Aug 3, 2016
Aug 3, 2016 at 10:03 PM UTC
Caught in the drag of traffic
meandering a.m.
under cataract eyes of street lamps, parallel to shopfronts despondent.
Bleak slate clouds overhang
sullen and brooding with rain
through which we drive
listening to indicators
tutting each turn
as if they witnessed some moment of shame.
the wipers toss aside windscreen diamonds
like
reminders of treasured times
squandered.
An ache without physical pain
We e-rode away.
Apr 29, 2017
Apr 29, 2017 at 3:30 PM UTC