Ah. What to say about poetry? It is my life, although that’s not a particularly good chat-up line. From my father reciting Kipling’s Barrack Room Ballards before I was even walking with kings or loosing the common touch, to a hand-written anthology birthday present for my 18th ?, in ’79 to Army scribblings to my PhD. All of human nature lies therein. Two examples, one from way-back when, one from my PhD.
The Other Side of Suicide
if cancer is a noble loss
as a soldier’s legs or arms
the other side of suicide
raises no alarms
if the life i steer is not so clear
without booze and fags and dope
the other side of suicide’s
the still small voice of hope
when i have lost all contact
with all the friends i’ve had
the other side of suicide
doesn’t seem so bad
when the taxman’s had his trophy
and the final battle’s fought
the other side of suicide
beats my day in court
if the girls i’ve known have sadly grown
beyond the love of me
the other side of suicide
may be a better side to be
The Empty Half
The words stopped
coming as if a giant sized twelve paw had stepped
on the hose and the a’s and e’s and o’s built up a backlog
of pressure that extended the rubber like a pig’s bladder filled
with a football’s air. With the pump released from the pressure,
gutturals began, seeping out through a clotted throat, if I have the stomach.
The rains came and washed away the two pools of bubbled bile
and fluids, white and airy like a bride’s breath, but still alive.
The patch-work fluid of translucence, around his mouth agape
left fractal patterns and ox-bow lakes, leaked past the lolling tongue
in death. The sun burnt off the stain at 2.48 that day, as I drank beer
the bubbled white phlegm-like puddles lived through the burn.
Alive, the big tail swept a low table clear quicker
than a radar sweep detected danger serpents under’t.
I could always read his eyes, which he used as a FLIR
to search the lost souls beyond their owners’ reach.
Iris pulled back near to the white, a thin rim of defensive line,
pupils deep black with the early milky cloud of a gone-away.
Belly extended like a malnourished child, mouth agape
as you’d expect in death, clear juices running, no petit mort.
My visceral wail at the vets, him too big for the doorway,
four giant paws clinking the jamb
when Simon picked him up to kennel him enhearsed
his four legs stuck out straight, into clear air,
horizontal,
but his tail flapped down loose like a drunkard’s wave,
not enough rigor in its mortise.
Thirty quid for cremation en masse, ton-twenty
for the single return of whatever’s in the tray.
Si, can I borr … I don’t want your money, he said.
Bed at half nine, he’s already outside, I open
the kitchen door. He clambered the stairs at a quarter to one,
I tell Sam in the chip shop, he has more street smarts than me.
He permises me to spring another cider though I’ve already
out pissed my protection pants.
He was whimpering.
He downed the stairs, closer to the world’s end. He whimpered still.
I found
an ex’s dressing gown, turned on the back-room light. Couldn’t see him.
The whimpering stopped. He came asking for help, I told
Street Smart Sam, I couldn’t help him. I cried.
No, he didn’t, said Sam, he didn’t come asking for help.
He came to say goodbye.