Made good, and not just a pretty face.
She started off with a different name in a different place.
She played her roles on screen
but it was her private life that thrilled her public behind a scene.
Yes, she drank, yes she stank – of money.
Yes, she married and divorced- several times.
And yes, was larger than life – of course.
She had her heyday and was loved by many.
She died in decline – one of life’s little crimes.
We are us.
You are them.
You dress.
We wear the hem.
We don’t.
You do.
We are the many.
You are the few.
3 times table.
Sums at school.
Stark bollock naked
or wrapped up in cotton wool.
Work it out for yourself
and when you do
see if it adds up
and if the equation includes you too.
I lie on the sofa
Telling me about myself.
Little old me, belittling it all.
Dead lonely, a coffin elf.
The first thing that enters my head
As word associations process the data fed;
What comes to mind with “the ties that bind”?
Do-it-yourself, and the fear of being left behind.
Do I play the victim? Would I say I wallow?
Well, I couldn’t say but I’ll come back tomorrow.
Same time, same place.
Just hope I don’t get off me face.
I lie on the sofa.
Smoking away, whacked.
I might die from a fag-end.
Anyone know a good quack?
I passed by here
looking for shelter.
Flocks of me
disappeared for all to see.
I must be on my way.
Will you misquote me and what I didn’t use to say?
You’ll end up
a bad’un;
No going back
but on what you’ve done.
It’s a risky game.
You play till you drop.
A few hundred metres
onto the rocks.
You’ll hear the gulls
and the sea-spray crushed
but will you jump
even when pushed?
The Royal pardon said sorry for not forgiving me at all.
Famous people in their prime with obituaries sold in purgatory’s mall.
Meanwhile I meantime, as is habitual.
Somewhere someone is really living and about to die in a dawn dual.
Stopping to pull the rug from under my feet
The red-carpet envoy skips, making excuses to everyone I greet.
Marooned, I recycle bottles like nobody’s business
and send small deals in non-naval dress.
A piano and a Wurlitzer were playing from a field next door.
A gramophone record and a wireless from a meadow across the hall.
A violin and an accordion from a stream 3rd floor
and a xylophone and a chiming glass from an upstairs market stall.
Typewriters tapped away, and words got scattered across sawdust moors
as sheep wandered and cows grazed on living room carpets, treading the boards.
Everyone puts in their password.
Servants to the server. Expecting to be accepted.
But there’s a spanner in the works
as their letters and symbols get rejected.
Nobody understands why.
Nobody gets anywhere.
Some go mad and start to cry.
All spend hours and hours in despair.
Question upon question to do.
Get one wrong and you start anew.
Walls of technology crashing round them.
Debris of a system.
The whole race dies out.
Skeletons clutching their phones.
Suddenly a big beep breaks the silence all about.
It was just a virus; skull and crossbones.
You can bury it underground
sink it underwater
send it out to space
But
When it sprouts
or floats to the surface
or comes down to earth
It’s as plain as the nose on your face.
You can burn it,
set it on fire.
Have it eaten by the sows,
have it gone away forever.
But
When the ashes and the bones
get to make breaking news
when the ashes and the bones
bring to life DNA
It’s as plain as the nose on your face.
Treading the tight-rope with gusty guile
As far away as a horizontal mile
keep everything balanced until it teeters
like snapping a ruler at 32 centimetres.
A Pretty Kettle of Poetry 