Seven-thirty, my life:
cider and ashtray gob, pee (an ocean).
Put the kettle on; spill, make and drink a
glass of mud. Bowel creaks and groans,
there is a hog on the roof…
now above and emptied, dig out the day
to come from the old bog road.
Could have been a toad in another life.
Maybe a camel.
Bactrian of course. Yes, that’s it!
Plonked beside the sphinx waiting for a ride.
Better than Buddy on old Barry beach,
freezing in his duffel coat.
Fires behind windcheaters,
they eat ready-made drumsticks;
glower and growl when approached with a view to a sell.
Neddy gets a toffee apple and pukes on a sandcastle ruin.
Conway not, Kidwelly more likely.
Outside toilets on the fourth floor
always a hazard to the uninitiated
The galley is a mess: the Cook’s portholes,
open, abandoned, admit the squalid
Seaspray.
‘Keel haul that Boson, Master Bates, cocking a snook again!’
Karmic three times before the gloaming
Sixbell.
Cross word addiction seeks crucifiction.
Cryptic agnostic pursues persecution.
Here comes the window cleaner in a towel.
So, splice the main brace, Mr Hands, the wind howls
the sea is incandescent maroon green,
a kraken’s wake can be seen astern.
Just there beside the gherkins.
Looks like a job for the Kropotkins.
…that grease-monkey over there,
clad in a voluminous grey migraine of a kaftan,
smells incoming rain, she
watches the rosewood barometer plummet
from minds-eye.
Two cups: dark, bog green and light duck egg blue –
call it grey if you will. Look upon the too pink wall!
A violet pyggy bank, dark pastel blue lagoon.
Dylan: fat sporting unselfconscious Woodbine,
older and hooked now, Larne shed dweller;
‘..in the town of New Haven’… Morrison mugshot postcard;
Milligan Sieg-Heiling traffic Hitler.
Curling at the edges coloured
photocopy of dog-eared Ulysses.
Wailing was the morning
wall of lost projections.
Idling around upstairs:
the crows nest on a dead
lead soft afternoon.
Was that our gate?
Is the back door locked?
Pscho-burglars,
Killer-flyers,
Mutant neighbours, midweek papers,
possibly a bloody postman!
hello…
hullo…
Helloohh…
stagnant pause (eleven years)…
sighs…(two short, one longer)
footfall on stair…
Shostokovich climaxes…
A throat clears…
Blue flush of toilet…
Phulushhh…
‘What was it?…’
‘When I picked it up it was dead…hisss
I mean dead happened just as I picked it up…
the other one was the paper boy…’
Deeep breathes…
so glad it was just a piddling matter.
Cruel and vicious age as ever was
longsuffering lifesufferer.
Do not bullshit one about the deprivations of the posh or chide me
I am unspeakable toothless with bite snap vengeful hard work
my reward three times twenty three this year shite up the snout
maculate deceivers line your nests and fill your boobies with
silica and choux pastry resentful me you betcha runs in the
breed like the wooden leg hip hop clip clop Iggy copped it
again last night a long drawn out affair mizzled puzzled dazzled
daddy sulks longest sulk in history of history and night
disturbing bassoon oboe stormtrooping quadruped
foodless as a mulligatawny owl a moustachioed pistachio
beckoned forward by a blindfold bogyman for mud is thicker
than water go the whole hog and take the plunge…