Straight man Standing
Crookedness feasts on
Dismal days yearning
For the filling of its stomach,
Munching with its crazy
Crooked mouth, snapping
At wet heels.
I saw a Straight man standing
in the phone box
With the moon above him
Black overcoat and nimble fingers
I saw a Straight man standing
And knew it was who I needed.
I used to smoke.
But its a sort
Of fashion these
Days to quit and be reformed
A born again appreciation
Of fresh air
I miss the community of smokers
The holiness of its communion
The intimacy of giving and receiving
A light.
I had a lighter, an eagle engraved
A scorcher before its time.
*
Beneath the paving stones
An alliance is surging
Like a sewer
Spewing slowly between cracks
Joe Boy told me
Joe Boy Snakes
Who knocks on lampposts,
“I know you’re in,
Your lights on”
There’s no one home Joe Boy
Everybody’s out to lunch
Sending their bill to the
Roy Castle Foundation.
Poor bloke
And he didn’t smoke.
Life’s unfair
Just like my Dream Team
Know it.
I know it too.
I waited under the
Bridge for you
But you never showed.
I left part of my soul
Still waiting and waiting
in the dark three years later.
You’ll come back one day
Your hand that feeds the baby
I swallowed every lie
Turning it to bile before it
Hit my throat.
Spoon after spoon.
You were clever
You were a rabbit startled in headlights
Now I eat my humble pie.
I need a Straight man standing
Need him fast.
*
I am an outlaw
I am exiled from English
One foot in front of the other
They said
But which shoes?
All my souls are blistered
All my palms are sore with salt.
I have never once seen
Tony Blair’s shoes
But suspect they could be
Roller blades,
Tony and Gerry
And their cat and mouse
Decommissioning
I am full of Irish blood
And I’d burst my own nose
For it
You famished me to England
Now my house tarnishes your view
Common as it is
I’m praying to a lord
Who won’t listen.
Where were you when
Trevor MacDonald
Read the last ever
News At Ten?
it was a moment of history
I’ll never forget
It changed the face
Of television.
I was in Shadows
Where the TV is above
The bar, I lipread
His every word
And when he said
And for the last time ever
From all at TN goodnight,
I nearly saluted the man
For his contribution to
English heritage
Long live Trevor MacDonald
And every word ever spoken
By him.
Say cheese
Smile please.
*
I’m talking poetry lads
I’m talking big brassy words
With capital letters
Commas and full stops
I’m talking
You can’t catch me
Between the lines
I’m talking mega masturbation
In bookstores.
*
it’s A WAR
And I’m gonna win.
It’s a war in the same country
But it’s not civil
it’s savagery at its most savage
Savagery with claws and teeth
Savagery biting the
Hand that feeds it.
What this country needs
is a Straight man standing.
*
Stony-man can’t last in
This world
Stony-man is everything
Good,
When he saw the grass bent
With the weight of
Dew drops,
He straightened every blade
He eased the crookedness
Of a shepherd’s crook.
His heart beats like the
Grinding of a mill stone
His breath as steady as a
Water wheel’s gathering.
I’m sorry Stony-man
I’m sorry Blake’s Tyger
Roaring in us all
But I wanted them
And most of all
I wanted their need in me
Now I crawl back just as
The slave who escaped
But didn’t like freedom
Licking my wounds
You didn’t even want
My apology.
You were Intangible
Then
On your hills
Between your pages.
I thought they were
Straight men standing
But they were as crooked
As old Nazis’ fingers
They had swastikaed underwear
And blistered the burnt out ovens.
*
Stop turning the cogs
And twisting the knobs
Of the nation,
You’ll screw it so tight it will
Snap.
The driver is blind with
Shutdown syndrome
The donkey’s carrot has
Gone mouldy
And the grave of the NHS
Is chipped with a million stones.
We need a straight man standing
With a long black coat
We need his shadow on the
Cobblestones and the click of his heel
We need his digits to dial 999
If there’s anybody there HELP!!!!!!!
*
I’ve seen Venus
Pretty in a pale blue sky
I’ve met friends at the tops of hills
And bought a bunch of
Inter-Flora flowers on Mother’s Day
With savings,
I’ve gazed at stars for hours
Wondered
Waited for answers
That never came
I heard the dogs bark
And howl
Then something stopped
Something lurked in the dark
Blinked and watched
It waited for me to curl,
There was no Stony-man
There was no Tyger
There was no Straight man
Left standing in the crookedness
Of the craft.
Page(s) 85-87
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