I could write a song
About that old auction room
I don’t feel like it

They must’ve closed it
The day I left
A white wagon for the infirmary

———————————————————————————————-

Sacrificed myself
In the smack down saloon
A barking joke
Some situation

Where haught-sprung pride
Bombasts as cast iron masts
Whose practicality buffoons
With blown up shoulder patrols

Meanwhile on the payroll
Is a sneering rumslave
Whose early grave awaits
A worthless corpse bereft of mates

And I just waits
Until the champion chides me childishly
So that I’m forced to skin his hide and see
The snakish scales that never fail to pale

In comparison to me? He’s never done gloating
Pretentions above his head floating
And before you get your unbeknownst begotten vote in
Let me choke sin

From the gurgling throat
Of this puny mite
Who’s hosting
Grand ideas, they’re mostly wrong-footed
Black boot up the hole of folks
In peasant dress who don’t confess

To plenary indulgence neither guess
At guilty groomsmen finery binding
Their behinds in lines that rival opposite sides
Only to find they’re placed behind
And they shouldn’t have started

They never had the kind of mind
That compares to a street champion
Back now to the scullion
And lay claim to their bullion

———————————————————————————————————

If any one man were to stand
And fling his mother-wrought mittens
In the dirt that worn wool will easy catch
With stern eye struck in that shaking dare

Upon reckoning some long dormant pride within,
My own worn bones I’d finally raise
Fix the scoundrel a’glare with knowing measure

No reason had I to lift or pluck
Any instrument hither and thence
Until a much-able gent
Unveiled his true bent

And what to say, does it matter any?
Should I light up my works so easy?
I’ll take due offence to this suitor’s pretence
In my right might set him right, see?

At any cost, I’ll rend his intent
A hex upon his very being
And demonstrate the fine state of mine own vertebrea
With ease let the breeze lift my mien

Any man taught by established means ought
To recognise the source of his undoing
If this one proves dull I’ll thus brand his skull
And see to my fortunes accruing

————————————————————————–

Welcome to your new life
In this life you will face difficulties
Pint sized problems are a thing of the past
Welcome to super-size sinning and insolvency

Welcome to the undoing of your social costume
The things you savoured as yours alone
Have been judged public, property of the great unwashed

Welcome to the workplace
Welcome to your boss’ back passage
You have been granted entry
Having gained years you are now thought viable

Welcome to the trashy undercarriage
Of gurgling tarmac pass ways
This pass provides for your ignorance
You have proven yourself capable, how swell

Welcome to the grave you paid for
Welcome to this side-line slave-drive pastime
You are very welcome to this and other dubious pleasures

Privileges the uptake of which may prove
Your credibility in a sick suffering world
Where to kill is to thrive
How does it feel to be alive?

—————————————————————————————–

Unaware I sickened they
Irritated, frustrated; a childlike
Disregard, an endearing pride
Nonetheless provoked

The lightning strike
Of a mind untamed
By every dated discourse’s tease

Set thrills of steady
Pouring reams
Upon a page soon grey

This sullen source,
Or channel then?
Could only thrive in light

When placed within
The crucible
And forced to bend that night

We must compete
If one would heat
The thinning cost of players

The master’s touch
In scorching thrusts
Died just, the task complete

————————————————————————————–

I studied those cobbled features
Slept so long on soaked streets solid
His face had taken concrete into it

As well the front of him was hardened such
Out there where he’d been before I
Many are the affronts typical to it

A certain respect I’d to grant him
For the endurance then until he’d shewn
Survival is one thing in the civilised

This poor crater in terms most literal
Hadn’t the penny to pay his comeuppance
And so it persisted in a daily fashion

If I’d anything to give him
Save the scant regard I could spare
It would well be his deserving grace

And any man beside him should benefit
If the summoned God beyond us deigned remittance
The pair of them away, a brazen crown apiece

———————————————————————————————————

None will rush to aid you
Let it be known

In your direst hour they will desert you
Make peace with this truth

These truths are not golden
Seek here no relief

This church lifts no garland
Come, acknowledge the truth of your days

————————————————————————————————————

Words to lift the lids from your eyes
Were here fashioned at the cost of a hurting heart

Words tailor-made for the outcast and the idiot
Were hewn in the shade of an aching soul

Words joined with labour untold
Are set down here. For better, for worse.

————————————————————————————————————

He was a scandalous person. A cad by his own admission. The depth of him you’d have guessed as narrow in a downwards fashion. As the foregoing suggests reasonably enough, you’d suppose the work as forged; but he was a wily one altogether. His depths held different stuff than from the average man. He might well have been composed of stout and whiskey. A fine Irishman, and a damned good drinker besides.

————————————————————————————————————

I’ll never grow to outgrow you
The fact in years is only natural
Oh! the smirk, and taint of past lambasts
These tawdry rhymes would swift undo

To say the salve was cursory
Or by any measure a satisfaction
Would be a smear upon
Your own good self, seized as you were

Gone years we cannot reclaim
Vain as any pretence might seem
What’s due, ‘tis sooth, has clutched our theme
Blast the daring laggard, begone!

Ground was gained across a stretch
Not quite the year, nor e’en its half
At play the bailiff stands us down
The stranger thing, we’ve cause to laugh

——————————————————————————————————–

The finer wrought couplets
Of this browning hand
Remand my own
I have learned to respect authority

Fashioning now with craft enlivened
An effort that does not rot in comparison
Few feel this pulse, I may mould at play
In any earned time, since allotted

I am giving up, these mistakes,
Going one better.
I’m happy now to offer
What I hope is a respectable effort

—————————————————————————

I’ve cause to wonder
In these pauses, blue sanity
Whether it was more you,
Not myself that was lost

At sea, asleep, and flailing
You left me to swim
I was too drunken
To mend even your sail

———————————————————————-

At once
I am sickened by your song
Then soothed and subdued

The same falsity I sensed
In your nature and bearing
Is present also it seems
As frills and friendship

——————————————————————————————

Because of you
And everything you have done

Because of you
I obeyed the urge to dig out that old book

Because of you
You, and the untold bearing you have damned

Upon my humble, unassuming, spirit
I prey with pen, with instincts refined

The tools of the trade
Plucked from my flesh
The necessary demand
Of a new birth coming

Beaten
Black and blue
A burgeoning beau
Promising youth promoted

I can only thank
You and your kind
Our kind
Where does such cruelty
Spring from desirous love?

————————————————————————————

I have to write these
Poems about you
Because I’ve been put
In my place, in print

It matters little.
The intensity of our experience
Should surely have marked you
The blacksmith forging, praying he brands

Our friend in common
Another I’ve to respect
Happily it was in retirement…
My pen is wet, I bleed this.

I’d shed blood before drawing it
Any brand of brotherhood however
Requires the conflicting exchange
For how can life thrive untried?

———————————————————————————————–

Other friends in common
Intelligent men, the fairer too
We share a brand of familiars
Coarse, common; refined, still wilting

Here stand we delineated
At our stations registering dumb
Our coarsened hearts once pink
Absorbing the mechanised propulsions

Every tremor sets us
Soak up their saliva
And sweat, savouring the ease
That the coming piece will release

Thumbing the instruction
Psychotherapy done at home
Done too at our familiars’ doors
Appearing as broke dusty angels

——————————————————————————————

Challenged to run the depths of our connection
If you will picture it once as a gulley
I’ve to see through every other passing thought
The one that last passed asked:

When was it that you first felt
The knowing that you had traversed
That other treacherous way
Had come to be, at last, a poet

You see, I have an idea that my own
Seen your involvement which I am sure
Comes as no surprise to your
Smiling patient father’s face

When was it for you?
It would have been damned satisfying.
Work seen then as very much worthy
Some perhaps would even go to enjoy it.

————————————————————————————————-

Where you are stationed now
I am unsure as to the specifics of your intake
Whether the medicines are as ready

It is good work you are doing
We are in a similar field
It can be dangerous

And the living situations are difficult
Not least with personal life issues circumstantial

It is hard to know at all, if even a jot
Have we been posted with the foresight, or intention?
That our subject matter could perhaps be better described
Given an experiential, spiritual supplication?

I have enclosed a book of my recent poems
I hope that they find you well, that they
Stand up to your expectations of me
Both as a student and as a friend.

—————————————————————————————————————-

You write of drying glasses
And sunbeams that seem to leap
Off the page. Mine barely flicker?

You have written of vanilla pills
Whose potency offers dreamlike bursts.
Please excuse the license I have taken.

The dry perfunctory detailing of everyday events
That I offer calmly as desultory excuses
Are relieved, thankfully, by an endearing childlike fault in my hand

You wrote magpies, their associated superstitions,
Into several of your admirable works
I was taught to salute the magpie as a child,
Signalling my friendship with a peremptory ‘Morning George.’

—————————————————————————————————-

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