Tag: books

Arthur’s Box

They say one ought not drain the reservoir. A quill can only dip so deep. Shallow waters make for substandard shadings. A certain desperation though, may well be conveyed.

Conveyed thus is the want of a waning scribe. Sunstruck pools flatter wainscot ideals, fleeting grandeur, illusions, glib happenstance purified, pureed, pissed up against a carboard cliff face.

Cast derision upon the cut and clip lyrical approach, find divine rinds in amongst a twist of sticking plugs. You see all along there was a malfunctioning juicer set to de-humanize. For all the good it would do you might as well have thrust your fist into its lacerating crux. By Job you could sing the very alphabet.

Sign a frenzied cry for help. Usher religious busy-bodies into coal-lit sheds. Shed prejudice in favour of yet-unheralded delight. Reject the advance of figures of authority. Sail head-first into political gatherings. Gather yourself. The nonsense has been run right through. Set the dials for a principled compulsion.

———————————————————————————————–

The only instruction….
Let me dig these threadbare pockets,
See I’ve got this little crinkling episode
It mightn’t be any good but I’ve to read it

Yes

It may well be
That the artistic nature
Accounts for that class
Of offensive pests: the socially ill-equipped

Perhaps the truth
Pertains more to an inconsistency.
The two compared, characteristically speaking…
It could well be a chance thing.

If we accept this meanwhile as sooth
Happily then rendering the socially incapable
As a sorry bunch, filth-ridden;
All the more worthy of remedy are they then? Of some lenience?

Despite the preamble fore-sworn lacking any real coherence,
Let me continue: Society can scarce afford
To dismiss the gifts fermenting in the guts of our most stunted stand-abouts.
(Do make allowance for any coarseness, botched antiquity of phrasing, general shoddiness etc…)

One could very well be persuaded
That this crooked lot be condemned
Thus ridding those social adepts
Of another scourge, a mild annoyance that they could be doing without.

Can you imagine a world though
Bereft of knackered John, at dance around the lamp post in his faded butcher’s apron?
Or bleeding Gregory Pack, cavorting with the one straight priest in the parish?
They’re our busted uncles. It’s only your manic aunt.

I’d near trample that dancing drunk all over the footpath
Truth be told I see too much of myself in him,
The run-down scapegoats of every gene-pool’s puddle.
And aren’t they lovable? Bedraggled damp codgers, wet with yesterday’s piss.

If there’s a true and proper reason for it
Who am I to clarify, or bludgeon ignorant heads either?
I’d just like to see those beasts gathered up in a warmer huddle.
Can we stand them a further minute? Mind your purse now.

————————————————————————————————————-

Arthur was working the scythe. We weren’t to speak when Arthur was at the scythe. I stood back. Tossing about some loose scenario with our Arthur as the renowned Reaper, I’d to stifle a silly laugh. Silliness was frowned upon, probably a gateway to mild sinning in the black flood. They’d to cleanse all debauchery of romance. Puritans weren’t in the least bit like what they go calling ‘Goths,’ nowadays. Pleasure was a lash in the back, a remittance whose strain you couldn’t accept blame nor credit for.

Our boy was murdering the corn, his technique impeccable. You’d to hand it to him, he had a way with the blade. My job was to gather to gather the ear. Some hick-jackal once chided me that the sack I was wrangling with had seen better days with black slaves. Arthur said that if he ever heard that layabout talking like that again he’d show him ‘what it’s like.’ I was aware of what he meant by that more or less, sensed its vague danger. It was the distinction in my mind though, which was a nice way of saying that I was different. It was my way to want to investigate and to find out exactly what somebody like Arthur meant by taking a heckler away to show him ‘what it’s like.’

You could suppose the encouragement and chastisement that I got from Mr Rich sent me mostly in this direction. Writing my thoughts down so that they could keep track. Isn’t it nice when people take an interest? Arthur said that those good people become less and less when you get to being a ‘serious man.’ He never had a lot of time for hecklers, Arthur.

Mr Rich valued imagination. I mean, I presume that he did. It was written on the classroom board. He was genuine though. One of those exhorting jaunty sorts. I’m pretty sure he imagined himself as some hip, lean general, once more unto the breach and all that. We gave him a pass. He probably was stifling a few laughs of his own, chortling down those foppish sleeves. Without irony he dressed after an approximation of DaVinci, or one of those slave musicians maybe… There was this one boy in our class who was a genius. Of the best sort, very funny, and I’m doing him no justice here. You’ll have to believe me, great guy. Became a teacher himself, probably could’ve changed the world, but I don’t know, he never did the requisite drugs, I suppose. That’s how it goes with a puritan, there are only so many directions they can go. And they put all of those ragged in the workhouse. Keep them off the streets. It’s really best one gets out. Arthur and them are where they’re supposed to be. For you and me though, it’s got to be different.


Still Buck Leppin

Little girls doused in their mother’s perfume
Demented seaman with the soot-flecked moustache
Crooked-legged alco ladies lamenting
This street corner set for joy on a greying day

Rhinestone homeward angel long gone
Star-crossed Christy peels Christ from a post
Edwardian Alison in threadbare furs fairs ‘cross a black frost street
Black dead thoughts make the Wednesday meet

Welcome to reality
It’s how you dress up
You see it, now you don’t
Maybe one day you’ll see the point

Soldier on they say and smile
Sat there praying all the while
That sweating thus we’ll tip the still
With tinctures then they’ll print their pill

I can grate on you without
The shame the pain or any doubt
It’s something that you’re born to see
Now come and earn your black degree

Welcome to reality
It’s how we dress it up you see
First you see it, then you don’t
Maybe now you get the point?

———————————————————————————————–

Duke Ellington
Scribbled John
Coltrane’s name
Into his little brown book

You understand
Duke’s scribble
Would cause a
Calligrapher to expire

He wrote expressly
For his players,
Duke. Some allowance
Being made for a soloist

Some doubted Coltrane
As a man for ballads,
Sideways speaking, his
Escapade was confined most grandly.

—————————————————————————————–


You’d want not
To do your wrists in
With the incessant
Writing of poems

Tis, so it’s said
Better to serve the interlude,
A favour also
To one’s keening mind

Brains are funny things
And you’d not want it all dried up
Too liable then to be concussed
By the blow of some drunken codger

It’s hard to say
Where they come from, poems
All I’m saying is to mind your faculties
Lest this blessed magnet have no further use for you

——————————————————————————————————-


One can be corrupted, you know
As silly a thing as it sounds;
I’ve seen saints rage unholy tirades,
In a tame sort of tawdry manner, albeit

Yes there exists a sweet purity
In forgiving the follies of your neighbour
Before lashing him repeatedly with good vigour,
Forgiveness has its place alright

Even now there’s a fool troubles my mind
His proximity alone shames nuns into hiding,
Great remonstrators have held court, oh the drama;
We had to kill him in the end.

————————————————————————————————————

As an older person I am obliged
To proffer these tidbits. They may well
Prove erroneous, long after you’ve lost
Whoever it was promised first their value

All that I can venture, is that this may
Be in the very nature of giving advices
Not to mention the serendipitous manner
In which they are hoped to be received

Yes without taking too much of your time
Understand that it will come your turn
To glint the eye and tighten the urging grip
So that some other young scoundrel may scoff

——————————————————————–

They may have captured it better then
Before digital tricks and that cursed bug
Something like an old camera rigged
Up perhaps to your father’s gramophone?

Then again the wrinkled and greying
Are prone to shine their fading lamps
Haphazard somehow in a manner revealing,
Pertaining to equipment I can only splutter

If it were horses you’d want the knowing of
Jesus boy I could scour your very mind in a blink
That were if the notion were to stir in me
Which e’en had I allowed it, never was enough to break the peace


————————————————————————————————


Pass down that hat, boy!
I’ve a mind for adventure.

Roving along hi ho we go
Fill the canteen with good water please

I say, what goes yonder?
Stay close now there’s danger

Nantucket, we’ll cross that old gone bridge
Injuns. Must’ve come up from the Free state

We’re going to make a trade, m’boy;
Quilts and beads, for to please the women

————————————————————————————————


The difficulty being, are you listening?
Yes, it being, against the Cuban: it’s their rhythm
Syncopated in a fashion unfamiliar to us, I mean, the Irish
There are few at hand who would dance at them

Now of course I am drawing the musical comparison
As a beneficial equivalent when attempting to dissect
The problem in its entirety. It’s a rare one indeed
That possesses the inbuilt ability even to see themselves pass with a good Cuban

So what I’m trying to get at here
We pick out the likely candidate
And from an early age immerse them
So that they have every chance

If they can compete in those realms with the Cuban
So too can they with the elite in any culture
With all of their rhythmic and technical peculiarities.
There are musicians that come to know it…

Come, let’s rare the pale Irishman, and yes the fighting colleen
That can measure up to any aficionado’s fancy
And eme-, don’t you call me ridiculous yet, Flanagan,
And emerge one day perchance, as the finest fighter this world has seen.

—————————————————————————————-

He’s a passionate one that, Jesus, what’s his name?
If he’d only plant his feet in reality
It’s as simple as black to white, call me coarse
And maybe I am but I’m a realist, now have that

Yes, ideas a bit too far-fetched, God love him
And that’s before he’s the drink in him
There’ll not ever be an Irishman
To stand with the best of good Cubans, nor the black American for that matter

He did bring that whiskey to be fair to him
And in all honesty I’ve seen young lads at the guitar
Hear me out, I’ve seen them
They can get a handle on the outside stuff, I’ve seen it

We’d spend a generation getting up to speed
With the bloody Cubans, next of all
We’ve fallen out of form with the Russians
Facts are facts, boys. Make sure he pays up.

———————————————————————————————————-


Certain things have to be got down
Until they’re intuitive, you’ve to drill it.
Eventually you can get a feel for the finer thing
It would seem that culture has a great thing to do with it.

———————————————————————————————–

When the next curly-headed kid comes straight out
The womb playing them deep blues
We have the habit of saying:
They are possessed of ‘an old soul’

One bespectacled performer comes to mind as having reported
‘Feeling like a black man trapped inside a white man’s body.’
It goes beyond the breadth and depth of the thing vocally
Past still some rare raising of the choir from strings

It’s a connection to the motherland
The black land that bore us too, mind
And if you’re wired up right
Then you’re simply more prone to being electrified

So you can read the hundred books on it
Or debate with drunks in pubs
Chances are though, like the rest of us,
You’re only wired up to the moon

——————————————————————————————-


What makes a good Irishman?
Something that comes between
Watercress, poetry, boxing and whisky
With the diagrams as living organisms

Drink your whiskey
Take a beating
Write the poetry
Watercress for tea

There’s an aulde dishcloth
That yer da wears about the house
As a makeshift flatcap
Talking off the top of his head

He once rinsed
A quarter bottle
Of High Commissioner
All down his face and neck

And came home that night to find you
Wearing his good cloth cap about the house
With everybody in stitches.
He didn’t take it too well, bless him. But that’s another story.

————————————————————————————

Uncles are known to be possessed of a strange cunning
They say it relies upon their accepted foolhardiness.
It’s a quare boy indeed who can
Brave cognisance of his own shortcomings for a steely moment

It’s an unsuspected thing altogether
I’ve seen overweight men leap buildings
And though the cracks of their arses were showing
Sure didn’t they land back with your busted ball?

And all they’d to give was a grunt
After you’d managed your faint ‘thank you.’
Uncles aren’t to be ladled
With the everyday commonplace things

Rather they’d be off selling fruit
As you pass up their rust-jacket reels again.
We don’t take the trouble to understand them
Sure what would be the point?

And then of all things we envy their triumph
When some yellow man trickles out counterfeit tales
The puddle spelling something vague, yet essential.
Them boys aren’t to be understood at all.

——————————————————————————-


I say, it should be mandatory!
And not one of them let away from it
A nation of savages, battering each other
Until there is finally respect and due course given!

Yes, ye old ninny, we do see your point
All we ask is that you refrain from inciting
Mass violence, regardless the respect due those wounded and maimed
You’re perfectly entitled, sir, please just a little civility

The trouble now as I see it, ahem
Is that not every child is fit for athletics
In that they are incapable of even the slightest
And of course in the case of undiagnosed invalids

Yes! The man in the crowd! That lonely child.
How do we remedy his situation? Look at poor Bell there
More talent than the rest of us put together
But he was suffering beyond our very, oh Jesus

Well that’s a matter for the parents, and of…
It’s a matter for society, for the community, but…
Look I don’t think either or any of us can take responsibility for…
But yes I do wish we could’ve saved Bell.

There’s some very good would-be athletes out there
But we’d need a bloody psychiatrist.
I mean we can’t turn him pro at forty, can we?
We maybe could you know, let me have a look

Anxiety and all the rest of it, there’s a lot going on now
Specialist centres! That’s it, I’ve got it!
Specialist centres for the athletically bereft
For the uncared for and exempt. Yes.

They’d be an awful target you know.
Some sort of regulation would really be
Yes I mean we’ve only to look back
Shall we wash our hands then?

————————————————————————–


So yes, indeed, we were glad to announce
Young Bell is in for the Jr Paralympics
Young bell? The man’s forty years of age
You say nothing, he’s being tipped for gold…

17 year young Irish Bell, who I must say fights with a great maturity,
Is getting stuck in here to this talented Ukrainian
Bell unleashes a two fisted attack, a furious assault…
The poor Ukrainian is coming apart in there, he really doesn’t have a leg to stand on

You see Bell got gold there in the Paralympics?
Yeah he done well, that fella he fought
The final, he was tearing him limb from limb by the end
Aye that man’s been collecting bronze all his days

So here what’s Bell’s disability?
Aw, he’s got severe tinnitus
Jesus, that doesn’t sound too serious
It affects the balance. Here he comes-

Foibles

I spent half the journey wondering had I stepped in shite, but it was just the country air. Hundreds of tonnes of Pigshite are travelled through these parts per annum. To whom and why is a complete mystery; but they’re buying it up, by the tonne, I’m telling you the truth now. If they were fit to advertise it I’m sure it’d be on every billboard: Cookstown’s Finest. As seen on T.V. Well I’d contributed plenty of my own, Special Reserve, 10 Year Cherry Cask. Shite’s shite at the end of the day, but, isn’t it? In the interest of a peaceful evening, let’s keep this one short.

You’re just a guy
Sat down the pub
So fucking what?
You fell in love?

You want a window?
‘Mon over here
And grab for me and for him
Another pint of beer

You’re just a lad
Sat with the boys
Halfways lit
Making noise

Your jokes are shit
But mine are worse
Ye mind the time
I pulled that nurse?

Your mummy’s dying
Your daddy’s dead
Sure here, what odds?
Look straight ahead

You are the man
But keep it short
The guy across
Is making his retort

————————————————————————————————————

With clever planning
We can make it through
There’s room for more
After me and you

Take you the torch
Good man yourself
You’re better looking
After I’ve drank my health

I’m only joking
Lead the way
And maybe after
We’ll let you have your say

——————————————————————————————————

Poetry is a curse
Upon the victims of its hearing
And a curse
Upon the head of him there waiting

——————————————————————————————————–

Perturbed beyond a scalding clash
Finding all my futures blessed
And out beyond, the system’s crashed
Writhing moan this one’s possessed

Slash the stalks as mourners grind
Close the door on paupers please
Focus and you’re bound to find
A better place down on your knees

It being morning I’ve got to get to writing. So up the pen I pick it, locate the candle and I wick it.
I need a hint, something to get me started. Why don’t you think of a colour, and I’ll tell you the colour you’re thinking of? Pink? Okay. It’s nothing but a pink silk sky salmon sheathes align the bay. There’s a Gordontrot a-thumping and I think I’ve found my angle…

Abacus Dobro

——————————————————————————————-

If you’d happen to meet, or have met, happened upon a meeting perhaps? Yes, if you’d run into some faded figure from the black spots in your past, and let’s say this person and you hadn’t parted on particularly good terms? In fact, there existed a fear-fed acrimony, at least on your part, in all likelihood theirs too, for the sake of spelling out an insult to the deductive powers of the peruser. Then again this forced thoroughness could be an exercise in overthinking aloud in the proposed cadence that should justify any such self-indulgent posturing. Yes, regardless of the back and forth, fixating most anally, the bare bones of the story have been established. Now, what if, when you run into this old foe, he or she has suffered some terrible injury? What if they had been rendered incapable of harming you in any way by some unexplained contortion of fate? You would barely recognise them, once up-front and boisterous, reduced now to a mumbling invalid. Following some tedious interaction barely worth mentioning, a bond is formed, though the danger remains! It’s in their eyes, let not their drool-swept chin distract you from those orbs so sinister…

They blurt out, as some greater explanation in itself, that they ‘don’t use electronic mobile phones.’ I guess our new friend has maintained their faith in the old plastic cup and string charade. Maybe they’re a telepath. Like some badly pitched straight to TV film, they arrive unexplained in sequential locations, calling your name from the doorway of a public seating area. Conscious as I am of nearing the bone, I’ll say one final thing. The essential reaction within your system has changed drastically. From caution, wariness and fear; to caution, wariness, and care. Strange old world. Happy holidays, to you cheerless farts who spend a week in Spain, or even Turkey. We’ll get our turkey teeth the old fashioned way, by dissembling their skellingtons.

His brain’s ablaze
Causation undetermined
Evidence of neuroplasticity
Cognition approaching phenomenological verity

————————————————————————————-

A passing friend and I had clashed
A night out on the beer
Sped from her graces a mess of two faces
Convinced her I’d enlisted as queer

Eupheme’s lilt was on me spilt
I touched for the rare auld wit
When a piper’s rhyme threw me off the line
And I fell ‘pon his piper’s kit

———————————————————————————-

You are not
Obliged to smile
Within these confines
Faces hang

Blow lowly
Swing slowly
For what is holy
Needs fill’t

Rolling one up
Seems abrupt
Corrupting structures
Deemed now unfit

Stale bottled beer
Takes it toll
Your guy’s in knots
Time to roll

—————————————————————————————-

Paint quaint walkway
With the filling
Of your guts

If you’d have known
The job in hand
You might have worn
A wisp to frays

Gondoliers cajoling trip
In puddles thus receiving
Footnote mentions
A token for shrives

Glistening now ‘neath lamplight
This pulsing ming derives
Legitimacy from a bloodied coupon

————————————————————————————————-

You can hire a man
To paint a pail
With liquid grot
2 and 6

A further flim
Will see him gallop
At a brickwork curtain
Redolent in grey horsehair

We are the powerless
In awe of
His bulging elephantiasis
Tuscany leatherette

Dreams you up
A cocktail whose
Raw egg base will
Fool the tellings of age

————————————————————————————————

The introverted reveal
A suspect shortsightedness
Taking up places
In the crowded public bar

Notwithstanding
The giveaway owing most
To outlandish displays
Appalling apparel

They can only
Assert a feasible level
Of consistency in their behaviours
By way of thrift signalling

If the band could only hold
Some stillness in uniformity
A resting reprimand
They’d bloody sit a-peace!

—————————————————————————-

Those not possessed
Of artistic drive, nor otherwise maddened
Are notable by their spotless trainers
Or ‘guddies’

The musician, actor, playwright
A-lull necessarily in his conch
Awake to it all
With pen-fetched promise embroiling

Employ another’s toothbrush
In the bleaching scrub that grants
Access to the more intimate
Corners of a doorman’s heart

They are not bad people, not at all
In fact it’s us, according to our shoes
And so we make do with these sodden
Embraces, that only an endearing ensemble could invoke

And so you walk home another
Man’s shoes, and think of all the
Escalators they’ve graced and
Whether he’d neglected to tie up his laces

One day it’ll all come off
Wilting femmes will be felled
Casting call covert, collaboration .
Never are we though, free from grime

——————————————————————————–.

The teenager is romantic
I mean not at all
But in their perceptions
They in a way are

I regard an impressive
Player altogether different
Nowadays, an easy separation
That enables a deeper appreciation

I’m not trying to paint
Myself as some almighty
Pilot of holy consciousness,
The poetically inclined digress

It’s angled somewhat besides
According to familiarity
Subtle is the silent cheer
Fit for the purpose here

Let it be understood
Never mentioned
Lest we’re convinced
Of a sore soul struggling

————————————————————————————-

Young man runs
Mad to show
All that he got
The naked eye’s plain

Old man wise
Nurses his lump
Serves the section
Shrugs frame free

————————————————————————————–

-You like blues, aye?

-Love ’em, compadre. All the classics.

-Do you know Bflat King?

-You have a king sized mattress in your flat?

-Naw, single. What about Johnny B Goode do you like him?

-Please don’t call me King. Cigarette?

———————————————————————————–

————————————————————————————-

Wheaten slick with grease
It’s the cheaper sort
Perfectly adequate
For scrubbing oul pots

I was forced into buying it
It nearly withstood the cold butter
That’s the stuff that built
The men of old

A stubborn nature
Will resist even nature’s test
Galvanise the lot of them
But they were all dog men

Raised and reared champions
According to their constitution
Ate hot spuds from the pot
Having served their time at the peace wall

———————————————————————————

Frida was a rhythmic mistress
She’d not the looks of Agnetha
I’ll give you that, fair does
She knew something though

Agnetha was a grand chanter
But she could never move like Frida
Together of course they were dynamite
I bet the bass player had half an eye on her

———————————————————————————

A sideways face gone smiling
And if you’d any call to be happy
In the smallest of ways
It’s for sure you’d be smiling on your way

Low key days are easier kept
In the confines of a tidy script
You’ve to give yourself every chance
And sure we’ve all to suffer

———————————————————————————-

Buck shot bodies
Piano key eyes
Criminal records
Drug fucked minds

This is my design
Think we’re doing fine
They closed the bloody mine
And still our babies cry

Mummy’s on the wine
Daddy’s gone away
Keep what you can find
Live another day

This is our design
Is it meant to be so trying?
They want you out of line
Confrontation’s worth your time

————————————————————————–

The breadth of her
Would stoned the head off ye
She’s a fair whack of woman
All of it there

Good whack a stuff there
Tell ye what
I’d near climb over the seat of this bus
You back me here, I’m goin’ in

————————————————————————–

His water tap nose
Strapped shut with sinew
Rivalled at last
The question mark man

His elderly neighbour
Fed the plants
With human excrement
And when he knelt

The arch of his back
Defied humanology
Standing straight up
He was the human question mark

Or an old East Belfast
Pirate’s hook for
Hustling carcasses
And rending men askew

Scared stiff of scurvy
Porter was purloined
Rat guts succoured
Through the black hours

If your da was a pirate
You’d get a dirty pack of cards
And illicit French letters
With a hook in the gub

Seagull squawks
Sent them fleeing for breadcrumb
And a short barstool leg
For to fit your father’s deficiency

‘Dorset! Are you ready to go? Hurry up, your father’s appointment with the phrenology board is today, we mustn’t be late!’

Dorset Tsung had often been mistaken as a dialect, distinct to the Far East diaspora that had settled in the region. Her father had struck upon her Christian name after having cycled head-first into a road sign, whose tungsten alloy had allowed a near-perfect indentation of his exceedingly thick skull.

‘Dorset, my girl? Come hither! Yes, let me see, a fine set of dimensions. The phrenologists will be most impressed. It’s not every full-blooded English girl can lay claim to such exotic strands. Pull your skirt a bit higher, love. Remember how one must address?’

‘Your excellency, what fine features you have, pending further research I bend to your superiority. Could I interest you in a foot rub?’

‘Excellent! My dear Dorset, you do have a bright future ahead of you. The bloodline must continue. Avichi, reandre!’

‘Oh come now, Phillip, don’t be silly. This isn’t Highlander, you know.’

‘Petunia, if you are going to prop every put-down with a reference so obscure, that Dorset will be necessarily distracted with undue research, then I am afraid I cannot heed your comely warnings. Avichi, moondebbre!’


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