Thursday 21 January 2016

‘Fast’ Eddie's story

This guitar rasps like a smoker’s cough.
It was always in our house, see
and everyone who came in scraped some varnish off
didn’t they. Well, one day
it disappears; it gets half-inched
They put a story in the newspaper
about how it’s been pinched:
‘Local pop group looking for guitar’.
This bloke phones me up about the ‘reward’.
He wants a hundred quid – frigging liberty.
Next thing, someone’s on the doorstep, this bird.
That’s how it came back to me.
This guitar sings to me like Leda’s swan.
Next week, it’s going back up the M1.

Monday 11 January 2016

Fixing a door


Recalling blue lights flashing
I sandpaper your plaster and wood
returning to health your leper’s skin
as if repairing you could make things good.
You were the protector of this house
your scars are an accurate record
of each choatic entrance and egress –
they are a route map of discord.
I will scrape and polish the front door
as if smoothing out each impression
will reestablish a sense order
hoping to restore harmony within
and to rehabilitate a failed guardian.
You kept danger out - or held it in

Wednesday 6 January 2016

Pret a Manger spicy burrito wrap

Bland, content less, homogenous
food from which the life has been beaten
food that has no soul
rendered lifeless by repetition
food that merely whispers
and that has no mystery
food like a spread sheet
designed by a committee
food like a vague memory
whose colours are washed away
food that that casts no shadow
and that has no history
no guitar plays, the square is empty
a ghostly horse wanders by