Come dine with me

In such good company

The art of conversation can thrive

The food was excellent  –

well-chosen and in season

For this reason, I am giving you a five

I have eaten gazpacho before

It’s somewhat passé, don’t you think?
A bit gauche, a bit nouveau riche

At least there was plenty to pour

For this reason, I am giving you a four

For you, talk does not flow easily

Your talents are not culinary

Your menu, frankly, did not rise above the ordinary

Beans on toast, I mean … really?

For reason, I am giving you a three

I did not say anything

But there was a hair in my stew

Your conversation was awkward

Your cooking atrocious

For this reason, I am giving you a two

You greeted your guests with a gun

Three contracted food poisoning

Another decided to run

For this reason, I am giving you a one

A new direction

A change of career, at my age, but what? 
Perhaps I could be a philologist
Or work overseas as a diplomat
Or entertain, as a stage hypnotist

In my new role perhaps I could be
A logician, or an ontologist
Or a lecturer in theology
Or a Jungian psychoanalyst

But I am not qualified for that
Or to skateboard professionally
Or to be a comedian, or an acrobat
For I lack the skill or dexterity

Perhaps a gift for mere fluency
Could serve me in my new career
I could be a spin doctor, or a disc jockey
Or the new presenter on Top Gear

I guess you should know that I am not
Strong enough to work in security –
If hot air built homes, I could build a lot –
And that early mornings wouldn’t suit me

A change of career, but what?
Proof-reader, cat breeder, exorcist?
I need a job that is frankly bullshit –
Like style consultant or astrologist

I could spin a line as a touchline hack
A self-styled ‘sports psychologist’
Or turn a coin, half-guru, half-quack
With Feng Shui, as a New Age therapist

If I was fired up with passion
I could demonstrate kitchen gadgetry
Or be a faith healer or work in fashion
But, to be honest, I don’t have the energy

To earn a crust from guile or flattery
My motivation levels are low
Why can’t they just pay me to watch TV?
Each rejection would be a body blow

Rye Lane in a time of war

We wrap up in layers of winter jeopardy
As if unaware of the hostilities
a man is selling vegetables in the square. 
The whispering leaves are our enemies.

In their crimson coats, they are warriors.
Their sole purpose, to return to the ground.
‘The earth is great,’ they cry out
as they pull the ripcord and plunge earthbound.

We wear our solemnity like old clothes
with a vague sense that we have been here before
recalling our ancestors in silent remembrances.
Like they were, we are at war.

Hip hop

The studied casualness of your choreography

evokes a faint memory – the slow

transit of boot from pavement to groin

the shock of the new, flick-knife and Cromby

Where showbiz meets thuggery

see how art shines an arc lamp onto

the murky corners of reality

its shadow play echoes our anxiety

Loosely, you wear your urban finery –

we are a little afraid, but that’s the point

your badges of blood are your currency

you are not us; your art has redacted you

It has lifted you into the daylight

erased your danger, for this Friday night

Peter Gentle – a eulogy

And so, pained of belly
and more or less broken down

I lift my head and leave this dismal isle

England – our lonely planet

Of Bo-Jo and Cameron, of Gary Bushell
of The Sun and of egregious Littlejohn
of Ronnie Corbett, who from Shirley hails
and a host of others you knew so well
of reckless evenings in Soho
and of smoke-fogged pool halls
where you learned to sharpen your cue

(you were always so nonchalant and cool)
Elegant musician, mimic, comedian
you were Croydon’s Marlon Brando
a nocturnal, blue-eyed chameleon
as elusive as a wisp of smoke
even to those who knew you

You were a suburban sophisticate
an autodidact, a habitué of Herne Hill|
a fixture of steamy Streatham cabarets
a West Norwood Casanova
an existentialist of the South Bank

You were a runner, smoke was in your veins
and concrete and puddles and lampposts
a hunter gatherer, the South Circular was your Amazon

You were a mod, a rude boy
in Crombie and Parka
a historian of popular culture
charting that of which you were made
a radio commentator, a true friend
on a night out, charged with chaos and humour
or, even, a night in

You brought sparkle, laughter
and hope. It was fun to know you

I’ll miss you, mate, and I will drink
my next pint of amber nectar for you

Memorial to the fallen of Mokotow

These streets pockmarked by bullets and shrapnel

record, like an old photograph

the terror of a specific afternoon

the crackle of guns, a face at a window

This simple concrete memorial

protects the memory of infamy

There is no glory in tyranny

It does not wave flags, or boast

It does not parade through town on stilts
but records in simple lines

the shape of a helmet

a rifle raised carefully

a stick man falling down

Where’s Wally?

A dialogue between Apollo and Artemis

There was something warm in the old guitars
The valves that glowed in the dark
We were not like our fathers
At night, we sat by braziers
At midsummer, we were pagans
We drove westwards in our multi-coloured cars
Do you remember my old Cortina?
I was Lancelot, you were Guinevere

How did you find me here?
Who gave you my number?
I am a professional, not some pin-up
on a pre-Raphaelite poster
Your message is misogyny –
A demeaning patriarchy
You seek, clearly, to objectify
to diminish my authority
by the enslavement of beauty

Remember the squat in Amesbury
where I was busted for half a tab?
Do you remember the books by our bed?
You were my white goddess
All those years – Windsor and Stonehenge
The free festivals. Our history
I was sectioned in Salisbury
I was buried by the plod.

Well, you were always a little mad
To defy your parents’ authority
you made the sun into your god
with your weird version of anarchy
You didn't realise, my realm was lunar
The fleeting mysteries
of Bacchus and Dionysius
were burned up by your power

How could I disempower a deity
merely by saying that you were hot?
By the way, I worshipped you
If I have offended, I am sorry
In the modern world, all is rational
The scattered tribes of the Westway
have lost their remedies, their currency
People look at me as if I am crazy

Walk on air against your better judgement

Somewhere by a tousled strip of sea
troubled gulls fly busily.
In a seaside place, trading on past glories
a new life is waiting for me.

Beach combers and fishermen
will form my community.
They could almost be on holiday.
They have moved to the edge, untied the knot
there’s no shame in living in a caravan
exchanged their old place for a smaller plot.


Man’s lot is to travel hopefully.
Not all of them are lonely, or sad.
I will trade down my anxiety
for tranquillity – go on grandad!

I’ll be a tethered nomad
where the elements are broken down
gathering samphire and sea lavender
on the edge of some faded town.
The sea my friend, the sky my starry bed
I'll be happy, living in a shed.

My father's clothes

You are waiting for me in the wardrobe 

your slouched shape persists in wool and cloth

a form that you once inhabited

your old green cardigan, now touched with moth.

Form without breath, for they have vanished

your thick glasses, waiting by the bed

your sherry, your daily crossword puzzle

Lives of the Engineers – the books you read.

Like your spirit, they will rise to the attic

your wedding photo, that lived on the TV

boy at boarding school holding ball solemnly

your army beret, angled jauntily

Your precise rituals, never broken

are even imprinted on your old skin

your blurred initials, APH, that were placed

neatly, for the care home, on your cardigan.

Why do I dislike to dress smartly?
It could hardly be be to piss you off.
You barely seemed to notice me.
My big days, it seems, were not big enough.

Carefully, you avoided the foreground.
There was no sense of occasion for you
and yet, often, when I am slopping around
with no shame, splattered with paint and glue

I am touched by our strange similarity.
Hanging in the wardrobe, you are still there
I can breathe you in, step into your shadows
your slowness – the language that we shared.

Our arguments have faded into history
you would not have noticed the irony
of my reluctance to wear smart clothes.
You only had one suit, dad. So do I.

As I box up your stuff for charity
I can hear your slow, patient voice
and I remember what you showed me
when I am sawing a piece of wood.

 

Philip Larkin

That was Philip’s room

For you, it was always the lonely interior
At nine o’clock the curtains would be drawn
On the starched damask and flock wallpaper

Note the imprisoned begonias and the neat lawn
A study in sepia, some Highland scene –
Antlers and crepuscular melancholy

Everything here is cream or mushroom brown
Nature is subdued by suburban irony
Such houses have been lost to history

Old sheet music curls on the piano stand
If only the wild notes of some New Orleans band
Could impose upon this Victorian gentility

Through an open doorway I can picture you:
The tea-rings, the ash-burned coverlet
The stacked discs, your well-thumbed library

That was Philip’s room. I can imagine

Your history – faded and nicotine yellow
The dog-eared porn, Palgrave’s Golden Treasury

Phil and Ted

The church authorities are to place a memorial to Philip Larkin in poet’s corner in Westminster Abbey, close to Ted Hughes, the last poet to be so honoured

Why would they put your slab next to his?
You the melancholic librarian
He, the bludgeon, the contrarian
Come on dean, you’re taking the piss!

He had one good trick, his blood and gore
With his nervy wives and his cruel menagerie
You viewed your companion for eternity

As a curmudgeon – the pub bore

You had little time for the old sod
Now frowned over by feminists

Who think you were both misogynists

You must share a cold stone bed

With the laureate, your enemy

In the draughty antechamber of God

Two lonely old men, Phil and Ted

Locked together in perpetuity

Gunslingers

Fresh from welding cars these old-school hipsters
Wander quietly into the bar
These characters are small-town heroes
 
Their vices are hidden, like old tattoos
Slow to anger, they seek no favours
They are virtuous desperados

They chew the air, these low-slung lone-stars
There are scars on their battered Fenders
They could kill you with one cold stare
 
They can nail a riff at a hundred yards
In any fly-blown, one-horse town
They can lift the mood of the hardest crowd

Narrow-eyed, they check out the room
Casually, for opportunities
Cool customers. Quicker men are dead
 
Those who were too keen to impress
Who did not have the economy
Of true heroes: their legendary finesse

These men have stolen many hearts
With the tunes in their fingers
With their deaths heads and silver dollars
 
They’ll ride in, clean up and ride out
Leaving, merely, the air ringing
A twist of smoke. No forwarding address

Today

Today, I have been mostly going crazy

I observed, curiously, a jigsaw of clouds
And reached for their corollary in mere words – poetry

I watched paper darts cross the window hopefully
Longing for somewhere hopelessly
As if I could spear them with my melancholy

The day was night and night was day
I did not wear the mask of comedy or tragedy
Because I was mostly going crazy

Something odd stirred in the fig tree
I saw the devil’s face, a divinity
No opiate would sedate me

The sun came. But here’s the thing
Its black rays of some unknown frequency
Had no warmth. They merely fogged my plate

Berries stretched my nerves taut
Never asleep, I needed them to wake me
Coffee and wine, wine and coffee

Trapped in my solitary imperium
I scribbled in my book furiously

As mad as grass, you would say

I watched the clock and swung on its pendulum
Not wishing to dwell on the gloomy
Could it be that the world is mad, not me?

Fairy tale

You were the sleeping beauty

And I a shadow – your courtier

On all of our puzzled journeys

At best, I was merely a follower

On our tangled routes I would

Interrogate your mystery, your art

As if some secret formula

Could unlock your frozen heart

There was no hope for me

No magic, no fleeting touch

Could cure my melancholy

And no kiss could ever wake you

Even in the deepest wood

I loved you; you never understood

Vote for us

See that woman, isn’t she fat

How dare she go out looking like that

Here is Ed with his Oxford pals

He looks like a toff in top hat and tails

His eyes are crossed, his hair is lank

Like a teller who works in a bank

See him eating a bacon sarny

What a weird expression – he must be barmy

His plans for Britain are a sham

So meet the Camerons, Dave and Sam

With his polo shirts and shiny hair

Dave’s a regular millionaire

A normal guy with a normal wife

Leading the London and Cotswolds life

Don’t vote for Sturgeon or for Wood

Hardship and poverty are good

Good for us and not for you

The silent masses who we screw

Vote for longer waiting lists

And savage cuts to benefits

Vote for more austerity

It’s best for the economy

Ensure that socialists are beaten

By trust fund boys who went to Eton

By non-doms and by hedge fund chaps

And oligarchs in baseball caps

We require servility

So vote to keep them rich and free

Circus

The colours of your grass theatre 
are blood red and ice blue.
You arrive with a tang of petrol
we admire what you do.
You bring us glamour and danger
as you ride bareback, tumble and spin
appearing to be boneless
you flex your elastic skin.
On your Wheel of Death, your Globe of Terror
you claw back victory from calamity.
We watch as you dance on air
you seem to defy our gravity.
If we could, we would follow you.
We are drawn by your weightless jeopardy.

The twisted sisters

Three scarlet hussies – watch them scheme
These shameless women make me sick
The twisted sisters – Ed’s harem
What do they want? The moon on a stick?
With their compassion and generosity
They are the enemy within
They will destroy our austerity
They’ll let more foreigners in
We’ve seen their sort before
Yes, they’re very BBC this lot
They’ll punish the rich and favour the poor
The Welsh woman, the green and the Scot
All of them are brazen idealists
We are being held hostage – by pacifists!

Staying in

Darkness falls; a gathering gloom
brings shadows and parakeets
chattering into my room.
It is swift here, the extinction of dusk.
The coming of night shape shifts.
In this muffled suburbia
squares of light draw one in
cozy interiors - an advent calendar.
I hope that something will tempt me
that a new mood, like a sudden landfall
will prise me from the window.
Perhaps I have grown too attached to them -
the clouds of bright birds and the eucalyptus
I turn back to the window. It's too easy to stay in.

The rumour

There was a whisper that you were coming

a rumour, a vague undertow

You can change things with your magic

That’s why we are afraid of you

We are too scared to let you in

The delicate touch of your soft hands

can damage us. It can burn our skin

and yet we talk fondly of your visits

You slow us down, force us to look

afresh at ourselves. You are no secret

On any street, you are an open book

Like an old friend who can bless or kill

you line the brook and lie on top of the hill

Imagine

Just imagine if the rain did not stop

I would  float through life like a shadow

glide down a ribbon of light to the shops

I would enjoy going to work in my canoe.
Rye Lane Peckham would be my Amazon.

Like a modern hunter gatherer

I would paddle to Morrisons

to scan its watery aisles for treasure.

No clock but dawn would draw me from my bed.

With my lethal blow-pipe or dart gun

I would haunt the tributaries of Nunhead

Hunting for dinner – dangerous but fun.

To perfect my journeys, a new craft

her planks bent to the shape of my dreams.

She would be sleek and graceful, not like a raft

flit like a kingfisher down narrow streams.

Smoothed like glass with sandpaper and plane

she would be the turquoise queen of the rain.