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