woke up in bed, offside
the kettle whistle blew
got sent off to the bathroom
and had an early shower
put on the company colours
and got to the club canteen
had a team talk on the match ahead
and went over tactics with the big man
feigned diving in the office
and got a red card for foul play
fined for bringing the game into disrepute
practiced keeping my mouth shut
playing away, got home
signed an autograph for the wife
got a free kick for a late challenge
got knocked out.
Predictable predictors get so used to predicting what will happen,
it’s almost like nothing does.
Snatching depression from the jaws of happiness
they wear puppets on their gloves.
Isn’t it just the way
that bottles of wine spin at the end of the day
when things were just getting better?
When it seemed there were enough hours left to out-welcome any stay?
So, The Optimists’ Club turns over a new leaf
and sticks post-it notes with The End is Nigh written on their foreheads
and go to sleep wearing their sandwich board pyjamas
lying on top of each other, stacked up like bunk beds.
90s ghosts in The Beer Engine in Newton St Cyres
get butterflies in their stomachs about haunting the station
throwing up collectors with their nets
to get caught and pinned down in their own dusty collection.
Do you ever make up conversations
with real people in your head?
That then keep you awake at night as you mull over every word
and later quote them verbatim to others: words they actually never said?
Chancers scratch scratch cards
looking for a better future
but start to lose sight of why they started
and scratch out their eyes.
Meanwhile, somebody who shall remain nameless chants:
I need no-one’s help
to snuff out my own desperate cries
and do tricks to a standing ovation to fool myself
until the clapping dies.
It’s a yes.
The best of the best.
The future looks bright.
Looking forward to Good Morning with a Good Night.
Anything can happen and it will.
It can only go right, Jack and Jill.
There’s a hundred reasons why.
A change for the better is nigh.
Think positive.
Is there anything against you can argue with?
Love will win
and if it doesn’t, it’s a porky pie sin.
Birds clamouring outside all treed.
Trees outside full of birds tweeting ’bout something you need.
Obsessive compulsive birds on play-back
playing back their dawn chorus on repeat track.
Only thing for sure is unlikely to happen.
Drum rolls roll to a dead standstill.
Peace of mind is a mind-piece snappin’
with Hitchcock birds gatherin’ over the hill.
Can’t say I want to sleep
though my eye lids are drooping
common sense goes out of the window
when the mad moon is stooping.
I want to see you again and again
avoid you again and again
look for you again and again
ignore you again and again.
If there’s time, let’s waste it.
If there’s a cop out, let’s go for it
If there’s a day to grab, let’s skip it
if there’s an afterlife, let’s do it before.
Genova
Orange marmalade buses
in a traffic jam along the portside street
with Vespas and Fiats
and pedestrians on rush-hour feet.
Local fishmongers, displaying crab, carp
and swordfish, set up stall,
while nearby, waterway mermaids
wait outside bladderwrackety doors.
Columbus’ city of cats
cobbled together like cobblestones
curled up on car bonnets
or licking on leftover fishbones.
While in Centrostorico
in a riotous rundown taverna,
a haul of seafarers sink pasta and pesto
vino bianco and Grappa.
Having had a breakfast brioche
and Caffe Americano on Via Garibaldi,
I find myself down by the dock
looking out over the Ligurian Sea;
A compass spinning out of control
and seagulls circling the crow’s nest.
My Aquarian heart, waterladen
with what to do next.
Gevova revisited (or Cagliari)
I live here
in a dinky Genova.
Dinky buses and dinky boats
and dinky matchbox cars.
A destiny turning on a compass
getting dinkier by the minute,
I look over a dinky sea
with little fish trying to swim it.
Don’t get sea-weedy on me
the bladderwrackety blabbermouth says
much to the cormorants glee
and the seagulls who seagully gaze.
Thinking big makes thoughts
brain cell squeeze.
Get a dinky breakfast
down a via Garabaldi street.
I was talking to a friend tonight
about Columbus’ city of cats
and got to thinking about how 30 years is a long time
but went a bit, or dinkily, like that.
Shuffling school shoes through soggy autumn leaves
being told off cos you might get dog shit on them
you wallow in unpunishable sin
cos the hits keep on coming.
Playing kiss chase and British bulldogs
and turning into charging frogs
you go as traffic lights to the fancy dress party feeling embarrassing
in a mum-painted white sheet with circles in red amber and green.
But there’s no going round in circles here
just square roots of how to get out
smudging your squared maths exercise book pages with snot
you dance in the rain with your flowerpot
as heads spin round on a merry go round
and grow up to be supply teachers on a roundabout.
Unfortunately, a lighthouse blackout tomorrow
with ruddy comic hang-ups of yesterday
will shed light on polls today
that old fogeys push upon child prodigies to say:
“It’s a wing and a prayer
now we’re at the top of the stair
with our world ruled by yours
as we walk like our pets on all fours.”
Think don’t think.
Blink don’t blink.
Stay don’t stay.
Leave our dusty hang-ups of yesterday
to get handled and picked up with kid gloves from this ruddy in-tray.
Every moment makes me think of a minute
when any one of them might have changed in sixty seconds.
If I was never good enough, that’s too bad.
If happiness never made it, that’s sad.
Evenings that went pear shaped in a moment.
Days that could have been saved if nights hadn’t left them for dead.
I never said anything I meant
but what I said was from the gut and I meant everything I said.
pop forget
you earn what you get
and throwing away
your throw away lines
won’t save you
like some self-proclaimed saviour
already in print
in a fish ‘n’ chips newspaper
spouting off, drowning
in free-flowing words
going to towning
they say: ‘serves you right!’
cos you couldn’t
keep your mouth water-tight
facts get fictionalised
in your eyes
and you say ‘really?’
that’s not what I meant
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A Pretty Kettle of Poetry 