Five poems

Five poems selected for Biscuit 2003 prize anthology (The Sensitively Thin Bill of the Shag, Biscuit 2003).

Aesthetic

Spare me the wallet-thumpers and mickey-takers,
spare me the shyness of men in suits,
spare me the tears of movers and shakers,
spare me the hollow sound of flutes.

Give me something boisterous, something bohemian
something potable – cool and long and lush –
give me the downside, give me comedians,
give me that methedrine rush.

Make it sarcastic, make it ebullient,
make it tremble in the heat,
make it breathe with giant lungs,
make it nullify defeats.

Sculpt the lover’s cheeks and hollows,
print the tabloid tale of grief,
strike it out in nervous colours,
strike it out in bold relief.

Make it extreme cause the world is extreme,
but make it gentle and evanescent,
cut and paste cartoons and dreams,
sample the fibrous, delirious, edible present.

Old Mose Knows
(Monument Valley, 1994)

He’s wandered among the red pinnacles
since the early fifties, eaten dirt, dressed
as a woman, laughed off heat and hunger.

Doffing his trademark sombrero
he makes a start, gets stuck for words
falls back on a catchphrase, dimly recalled.

‘Thank’ye kindly, Ethan, thank’ye kindly … ’
His master has passed on.
John Ford in black sunglasses

measuring the daylight
swirling down the canyons, mixing
patience with impatience, made this void

poignant, a rendezvous
of peoples,
a test of allegiance.

Old Mose was left behind.

His skull is brown.
He’s giddy with loneliness.

He will be my guide
through this civilisation of stone.
He will thread the teetering steeples

and scamper the battlements
where the towers are blind,
where the giants clamber and hiss.

Old Mose knows.
I have tracked him to his lair.
‘Thank’ye kindly, Ethan, thank’ye kindly.’

I study my shadow.
It looms like a statue.
It has Big Shoulders like John Wayne.

Apologia with muttered aside

I’m here to tell you that the lift
will continue not to work, the damp
will spread incrementally and the waiting list

for transfers is longer than the M1.

I’m here to tell you that your tips
will be deemed taxable income
and deducted from your wages.

I’m here to tell you that your Housing Benefit
will be withheld, your dinner party
boycotted, and your funeral banned.

I’m here to tell you that a white
fungus will grow between your toes but
your allotment will be barren.

I’m here to tell you that your friend who laughs
aloud while he cooks exotic meals will die
slowly of a sickness ultimately stripping him
of his sense of humour and shrivelling
his taste buds.

(You don’t like it? It’s my job,
scumbag, you think I give
a fuck what you say?
What makes you better than me?
In your dreams, Holy Joe!)

I’m here to tell you that your enemies
have been appointed pollwatchers.
The ballot is rigged but the elections
will be declared free and fair.

The Cat in the Hat

My head was buried in the Leominster Herald
life in the provinces had swallowed me up
the Corn Square was being pedestrianised
drug dealers and small floods were pestering
long-time residents and the Classic Car Society
had cancelled its monthly meeting when

suddenly there was incense of charred mutton, the brisk
taste of buttermilk on my breath and I saw
a Pukhtoon hat pulled down
over the ears of a white man with a moustache,
a beaky nose and itinerant strut
– elbows flaring, eyes swivelling, knees at the ready.

He was whispering to a young woman

in black leggings and a tired jumper
whose little laughs left puffs of vapour.

I liked the way he wore that hat.
The round flat crown with the smooth nap

sloped cunningly so that the roll
perched over the eyebrows
possibly hiding hair loss or who knows
some mildly offensive tattoo.

Had he haggled for that hat
in a smugglers’ camp round a parafin stove?
Did he pay too much on a package tour?
Did he salute when he heard the name Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan?

I knew that hat, had seen it
on politicians, peasants, chess players
across the North West Frontier Province,
and it made me smile
as I remembered Zain-ud-din Khilji
a devout Sunni who ran a family planning clinic in Quetta.

I wanted to stop, say out loud
how much I dug the lid,
but the man with the Pukhtoon hat
was sticking his grey tongue in his companion’s ear
and the forecast in the Herald was for more of the same.

Song of the besieged

Drink yourself silly tonight, the news is bad:
riots have broken out among the rich and famous,

they’re heading our way in a raucous rabble,
they’re heading our way seeking revenge.

Let’s have a pint and a chaser each,
count our offences and prepare to amend
whatever it is that’s maddened the pack,
whatever it is makes them slaver and growl.

It’s dark outside but in here there’s beer,
fags in the machine and nothing to lose,
the only complaint the price of a double,
the only sound the hubbub that soothes.

So what if somewhere in this city tonight
troubled millionaires go red in the face,
form posses in search of a good night’s sleep,
form victim support groups and beg for relief?

Have you ever noticed how sensitive they are,
the famously famous, to wisecracks and quips,
how quick to react to a fall in the pound,
how adept at assessing the stranger’s kiss?

Poor darlings! Having to remember
the innumerable names of unfamiliar friends,
having to remember to speak for us all
yet never speak ill of the lame or the dead.

So the news is bad, they’re lonely and mean,
the rich and famous from Hello magazine.
Our betters are demented but after one more short
we forgive their excesses and turn to the sport.