Frank Field – Prince of Paupers

Square cut for a more heroic age

There's a maniacal set to you jaw

You are the new Conservative sage

Part human and part skeletor

Strange, thin Jesuitical bloke

Tried to screw up pensions, sacked by Tony Blair

Now back in the fold – a masterstroke

You want to take money from the poor

The largess of the Welfare State

Always offended your moral rules

You were designed for the Poor Laws, mate

Dishing out gristle, or watery gruel

You like to spout the latest jargon

A right-wing discourse we've heard before

They'll only blow the money at Argos

They are so undeserving, these poor

Middle-class prejudice, current still

The mum's on drugs, the boy can barely talk

Your master's voice comes from Notting Hill

Cameron speaks it, you walk the walk

The money's gone, blown on bonuses

Shame. Now you spout your sterile creed

Like a weird, cracked conduit –

Meanness is the other side to greed

Lace doilies in the Field house

A clock ticks. Shut up. Don't make a sound

Don't talk. Be as quiet as a mouse

You – at the edge of the playground

We can only speculate, Frank

That your mother did not hold her boy

You were destined for insurance, or a bank

You envy what the poor possess – joy

Whiteout

To Karina

Behind the snow, more snow piling down

Me, in my kitchen, standing at the window

I'm waiting for something to be delivered

In a big lorry, on a day like this – ridiculous

And so the day has been gifted to me

Snow is something to share – smooth

Like felt, the Christmas lights, the crisp air

I walk to the shops thinking of you

There's only one kind of butter you will eat

‘It's the old people I feel sorry for’

You would love this. I miss you so much

Too much loss and behind, another loss

Drifting from the sky. Waiting to come down

There's only one kind of butter you will eat

And only one kind of bread. I love you

Kidderminster to Euston

Expectant lights forlornly blinking

Here, winter colours are all year round

Hope is stacked, the pub is waiting

For the Christmas tree to be unfurled

Winter slides past the Virgin train

England in corduroy – grey and brown

Horse pastures and jumbled allotments

Retail sheds and football fields

Warnings of suspicious packages

Punctuate the train's smooth progress

Through the winter fields, green and maroon

Let's hope that Christmas is a peaceful one

Wagner or Wagner?

An examination of cultural signifiers

I don't like the taste of foccaccia

Or the poetry of Boccaccio

Italian poetry is merely rude

As is texture and taste in food

My kitchen cupboards are laid bare

Of all exotic foreign fare

Instead of basil you will see

Plain white bread, and penury

Don't like Cage nor Bartok neither

Schoenberg's not my lemon squeezer

Clark's provide my favourite shoes

Pam Ayres is my Parnassan muse

If interrogated I shall

Denounce the Bayreuth Festival

Let silence fill the Viking Halls

Pasquale is my Parcifal

Charlotte Street blues

It's a long queue for one who is barely famous
Soho. A weekday night. A crowd snakes through the rain
Folk, some in their fifties, wait patiently for you – us

Inside, the ambience, part concert hall, part pub
Is a fitting space for your soaring Les Paul
With its intimate tables – a New Orleans club

Sweat, fear and sorrow, in the dark, gave us these songs
Danger is part of the contract we all have
The crowd, restive and drunk, wills you to go on

Scowling, as if pride was not a mortal sin
You hack through a familiar repertoire
From the Bluesbreakers, a band you were never in

A camera flashes, a snarl crosses your face

Offended you lash out – like a wounded animal
To show generosity is to be truly great

Your last song is a cliche, painted on velvet
With its lurid colours and predictable lines
Are you a blues immortal? Not really – not yet

Your face distorts to the tortured howl of your guitar

The last riff in your book of tricks – not doing an encore

I turn away puzzled. The crowd calls for more

NB: Poor chap died shortly after this poem was written, in a hotel in Spain, leaving a tiny footnote in the history of popular music. Maybe he read it? He was not a happy bunny when I saw him.

Playing tennis with Martin Amis

Martin's vicious forehand slams
a yellow missile onto the baseline.
It's a rocket. Whistles like a bullet.
Two games to one. Final set.

With a faintly superior smile
he looks almost apologetic.
‘I'm afraid I won that one, again’.
He shows barely a trace of sweat.

My people wrapped butter for his.
There is a certain look to their mouth.
We pressed their cricket whites
ran their baths, polished their brogues.

Their superiority is in-bred:
part of the order of things
like Martin's forehand lob.
We died for them in our droves.

Prep school, Oxford, the coxless fours
and now this. A minor victory
on the municipal courts.
He is about to take me apart.

He crouches at the quivering net.
He'll be modest in victory, of course
smile and offer a limp fist.
Shame I had such a bad start.

The King and Castle, Kidderminster

Old men slouch in the drab gentility

Of the nostalgic railway waiting room

With its Thirties posters and station clock

Rustling their pages, merely keeping warm.

A Midlands town on the edge of nowhere –

Bricks baked from the earth, in ochre roads

The skeletons of mills, an oily canal.

Clouds slide across the pewter sky like shrouds.

In a curious archaeology

Their memories are reflected in here –

A world of rock cakes and steaming tea urns

When cigarette smoke fogged the atmosphere.

There were no poncy trades. People made things.

The ghostly men drink their beer, patiently.

My eyes stray from the oxblood walls. Outside

Two white gulls drift over the rooftops.