Fire man - an elegy

In memory of my friend, David Hugo,
Artist 1958 - 2012

I wish that I could talk to you

By text, email or Skype

Or, even better, travel by time machine

To our early experiments

With electricity and fire –

Primitive circuit boards, gunpowder

Then amplifiers and guitars

You were a pyrotechnician

A fire imp, a bellows man

Conducting an art room rebellion

We were the boys who liked prog

Van der Graaf Generator, Camel

And the brutal blues of the Groundhogs

The first gig I ever went to

We looked for a nutmeg high

Or euphoria from banana skins

Smoked rolled up leaves on the playing fields

I recall your big house by the park

Your garden. The kiln we built there

Your suburban alchemy by fire

We were mock-Tudor revolutionaries

We snagged our grammar school blazers

On the barbed wire and left them for dead

I remember your theatre troupe

And your odd brown dungarees

You were at art school when I

Was shackled to a desk

And then, you were in London

A pioneering urban bohemian

With your canal-side studio –

A giant art room all of your own

A muse to the Corporate man

You were still playing, still blowing things up

You showed me your sculptures

Strange homespun contraptions

The chair you built for Iron Maiden

Armatures of coloured patterns

Blizzards of molecular repetition

Like the décor in your flat

And your weird collages of sound

I realised that you were a genius

Your highs were real now

You wore leather trousers

Though they did not suit you

That year, ’97, you took me a club

A dark chemical labyrinth where

Alienated by metronomic sound

I cowered in the ‘chill-out room’–

A hallucinating fairground

You had abandoned me

Why were you so angry?

Your life seemed perfect

Wasn’t your art enough?

MDMA was your new alchemy

Perhaps I was jealous

I had sensed something dangerous

In your pharmacological obsession

Your next frontier –

The chemistry of the brain

Your were not fazed by any element

But fire was burning you up

Finally, only one element

Would quench you, fearless one

Later, with the skill and delicacy

Of one of your intricate machines
You apologised for leaving me
I forgave you. You sent me a CD –

Gentle Giant and Hawkwind

You were a model maker now

Ideal for you – a new art room

We still had ‘issues’

You see, I had never liked Van der Graaf Generator

Focus were my favourite band

You said that they were ‘cocktail jazz’

We fell out, like two schoolboys

Now, we’ll never fall in

I’ll never hear from you again

I’ll miss you, fire man

The wrong colours

This is the washing machine we bought

This is the painting that didn’t win

This is the chipped mug you left

These are my tears, to have a bath in

These are my records, both of them

These are all of your picture hooks

This is the rose bush your never liked

This is your shelf – with no books

This is the orange blossom almost in bloom

This is our Habitat settee

This is today’s bottle of wine

Today’s footballing catastrophe

This was our room – yellow and blue

This is the rest of my life, without you

Narcissus

Oh, so you’ve finally turned up have you

Where the hell were you last week?

It’s pathetic, the way you attention seek

You have to be the star of the show

In all of your puffed-up brilliance

We were shivering in the snow

We were waiting for you, you know

And now you appear – well no chance!

The party’s over, you’ve lost your place

You’re a relic from another age

You thought that you were too big for us

You’re so last season, even your face

Bright colours are no longer the rage

There’s no place for you, Narcissus

Holy smoke

Ratzo is gone and no-one’s weeping

UK in triple dip debt crunch

Perhaps he was right – God is sleeping

Crocodile eats small animal for lunch

There might be life on Mars – hold the presses

Act of random kindness on the bus

Pray for the men in the red dresses

Do you think that they will pray for us?

(Especially if we are oppressed or gay)

Carmerlengo smashes the  Pope’s ring

Queen declares public holiday

Ratzo says good-bye to Papal bling

Another crap Eurovision song

No-one will vote for us, something’s wrong

Unseasonable weather

What on earth has happened to the spring?
She was observed last year.
Didn’t you see her gamboling?
Her public identity was clear.
Nature should be saying ‘look at me!’
Daffodils should be revealing
their yellow treasure gloriously.
Even the squirrels are shivering.
We should be warm, but instead
newspapers are blowing nervily.
Frozen, the blasted buds are dead.
Snow is billowing horizontally.
Winter is establishing a bridgehead
of icy crystals across the coal-shed.


NB Only people of my age or older will ever have seen a coal-shed!

My new kitchen

 













I watched grey flakes drift from the sky.
It came on the back of a big lorry.
I made the driver coffee – a Polish guy.
Three sugars, with no apology.
Your ghost was with me in B&Q.
Looking at finishes I could hear your voice
as I matched the surfaces – teal and blue
steering me through each hopeless choice.
I have dreamed a room for us to occupy.
I know that the kitchen will look good
but I will hear your gentle mockery as I
feel the screws chew through the wood
level the cabinets, line up each tile
in a union that time cannot annul.