Sudden as love it’s eight thirty.
Two & a half hours faffabout
oiling de railleur on rusted bikes;
clearing the drain with willow and prunes;
mumbling out of turn on the chain gang.
Serene cupidities conspire
Wilfully, making sense sensitive.
Hours with feet up.
Doing the log thing.
Eight a night
Five a day
For a week
Brown and sultry planning permissions
Granted! Today we sail on Braintree.
What
is this life
if full of
care
a lethal
retro
frigidaire.
Perchance
or deft planning
a scoop of baleful altar wine remains,
though not for long.
Rite of Spring:
callow neighbours nail eachother
to the paper partition wall – time
honours these home county behaviours –
some wayward blood drips through on this side,
my side.
I observe with some disdain treacly crimson goo
impinge clematis and home entertainment cables,
the main arteries of
reality are besmirched….
The orphan stale ham salad roll awaits
Ravenous, cavernous engorgement,
yields a surge of purpose, of demented potency,
to cut the crap,
make one’s mark,
utter and act.
Winston Churchill resonates at times.
These are some
hummings
Of my head…
Beaches, dog insurance, dead
Iron curtain, cigars, up yours,
Yankee cigarettes, Ray with an E, Smith,
bon viveur, bon mots, monarchista, landscape artist,
Black dog, Gallipoli, Narzees, Tonypandy,
Nobel prize for War, bricklaying, never surrender,
Field of human suffrage, chicken, neck,
Clemmie, Dundee Cake, warmonger,
Imperialist, always a bit pissed,
Figure of hate, derision, exasperation,
Fun, bore,enough.
The Pelican’s
Moored quayside;
Newly Clipped
& Trimmed:
Larboard
harboured
barbered
crimped
shrimplines
ripple
A poodle –
Kingsized,
Going
by the
name
Alice…
(plaintive, insistent yell on shoreline, middle-distant)
Doggy-paddles
pristine
past
This
Weekend will comprise one diamond guest:
Familiar, nosey, potty, bumptious…
What is guest? A wayfarer, a punter,
A complicit victim of hospitality!
This is not a motel, there are no
Bed & Breakfast signs, no spiteful
Waiters spitting in the soup. No Bill.
Just the old, battered emotional baggage to
Attend to, false dawns, a restless farewell.
Merleau-Ponty
& Charlotte Bronte
Went out for a meal
He hazarded the haggis
She indicated veal
Do you, like I, miss Phyllis Diller
And all the other
little Dillers.
Arthur & Henry
To name
But
Two
&
Their father
Windy
Of course
No, Diller, dear – Diller!
I’m sorry to be the one to tell you
Dear, but she’s passed.
you can’t crack
an omelet
without
breaking eggs.
&
you can’t pin
a femur
without
broken legs
…something moved me
stopped me in my steps
left me here
teetering
Prone as
a Wallander
on a curved
barbed wire
Grimbeau 