Sometimes, my favourite poems are the shortest and simplest. These two are maybe my favourites, also because others have commented on them. ‘The Plate Spinner’ especially: I have friends (in Weymouth and Cagliari) who know what plate spinning really means in metaphorical terms! Read here by Johnny Morris. ‘Land’s End’ read by myself reminds me of home and Devon, and gave me an opportunity to try to put on a pirate accent! Moony plays a blinder! The collage to this poem is one of my favourites and again a popular one with friends.
the plate spinner spins his plates but he’s let things slip a little of late his life in pieces at his feet that magic touch that filled the seats a helpless helping of butter fingers now all washed-up he takes a bow what a shame what a pity this inconsequential little ditty.
Land’s End
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?
When The Beatles released ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’/Penny Lane, the idea was that they would write an album about Liverpool and their childhoods. I’ve often gone nostalgically back to my childhood, and here are two examples. ‘1964’ is a poem that was read beautifully by Johnny Morris* in a ‘posh Liverpudlian accent’ during a poetry evening in 2008, and one of many poems about my childhood written 2003/2004 to mark my 40th birthday. ‘Rainy Old English Way’ is a poem from 2015 that would bring a softer autobiographical side to the single!
*see other examples of him reading my poems on the blog
1964
The year of my birth. Space-age infancy, I landed on earth. I weighed in as a lightweight With, what the father would state, The hands of a boxer! Cassius Clay conquering America. The Beatles, planning their first U.S. tour, About to meet him for a photo-call.
The parents had tied the knot Just five months before I lay in my cot. The everyday story of every-night flings And what inexperience usually brings. She was eighteen, he twenty-two. Neither, I guess, had much of a clue. The Swinging Sixties had sort of begun. I want to hold your hand had hit The States No.1.
One of the earliest photographs shows Me in my pram, not yet in the know, In an Oxford garden, giggling away. A rented room they struggled to pay. She held the baby, as he worked late In the catering trade, with a lot on their plate. I doubt if she noticed Ray Davis happy. Probably too busy changing my nappy.
Every name under the sun She’d been called (for what she had done). Her father had flipped at her deflowering at first. That the man was a foreigner had made it much worse. They were in love or so they had said But a shotgun, for sure, had been at their head. A far cry from The Social Revolution They were shouting about on Wilson’s election.
As for his family, what they thought when they knew Their Catholic boy had one coming too, Must have been a much bigger shock; The very first grandchild conceived out of wedlock! But, as often happens, everyone rallied And, by the time I was born, everything tallied. So, I got my chance to live in spite As Lennon was published In his own Write.
On February 1st, a Saturday At 11pm or so they say Out I popped for my first night out Jaundiced, of course, like a lager lout In a hospital taking its name from Churchill Where the embattled mother lay feeling quite ill. Her war had been won, a special occasion As the pop world awaited The British Invasion.
Yes, that is me, the blue pram isn’t the pram though! This collage was for my poem 30¾ – another example in the same ilk here.
RAINY OLD ENGLISH WAY
Waving off grandpa and grandma from the back of our car painted pub signs swing like a wood-creaking wind-wing as autumnal photos fall-float nostalgia.
Now I’m an adult at the airport too lazy to get too deep in thought. Twiggy whistling trees referee playing-field football posts growing on stilts for rugby while outside a coach kaleidoscopic window flutter raffle tickets no-one bought.
Back then, the rain was lashing down on the streets of a splashing town. Being who you were when you were at home Gazing at a big cloud in monochrome Where watery shillings drip-dropped on puddles of half a crown.
In 2016, I wrote a collection called ‘Moonsville’ when I wanted to get gothic, Victorian darkness in! After having watched a documentary on Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. The whole collection had a darkness to it cos I liked a fact that in the documentary it said that there had been a summer of darkness one year in Britain! These two poems are maybe my two favourites from ‘Moonsville’. The first influenced by a song I love by Siouxie and the Banshees called ‘Carousel’ and the second written after David Bowie’s death, and a couple of lines dedicated to a great friend of mine, David Trist who had died suddenly in 2015.
ON A CAROUSEL
Morning mourners come to terms with their birth. Toddlers clamber up shoes piled up in the corner of the room; Start school, risk getting into trouble or not, do their homework, and love most things that go crack, bang and boom.
Later and well before, flower bulbs are lobbed into the sea. Seeds rain down on seaworthy upside-down roofs. Everyone needs money, or something to get something, a currency As wine bottles twirl round daring them to tell truths.
Over time, flesh drops off bones as skin gets torn. Brains bubble and boil in jars hidden away in treetop laboratory hideaways. They retire or die before, expect the unknown, finish their days. The only thing for sure is running away to the fair will be frowned upon and, even contemplating it, will be treated with scorn.
PIONEER 10
Far out and far off Messengers send out messages for others far away. Above a head shouldering that flaming blame A heart bursts below on a planet of anonymous fame.
After your death, going back home isn’t quite the same. I count down blast off to your return. All of the papers mentioned you ‘cause you were headline news. All the night stars tonight have the sky blues.
Once quietly brilliant. Now brilliantly quiet. ‘While amateurs fit characters to plots professionals fit plots to characters’.
There’s something going on. Something going right or wrong? This term’s work has been erratic. Long-term may stick.
Is everything ok at home? Seems distant at times and a long way away. Just like a cat that wants to roam while flattening down 100 blades of grass where it’ll lay.
Music seems to be the way to go. While lost in it, tends to find focus. The other day there was a moment when a look + a sudden flash = (ed) what it meant.
The club is ok. I’m feeling it distantly. If you have my contact numbers could u forward them on to me? Thanks. The no feeling club is called ‘Numbers’
Feeling a buzz is what gets us on our knees. Feeling the birds and the bees. That message you sent was so rash. You hated it but I’d give it a bash.
I’m a mythomaniac. I’ve got no empathy with facts. I make up things to not crack. I’ve got a devil’s tongue on my shoulder for pacts.
I’m a mythomaniac. I’ve got a shallow grave for yakety yak. I make up things for what I lack. I’ve got an angel on my shoulder to wing it with my quack.
I’m a mythomaniac. I’m a legend with a tall tale to stack. I make up things to clickety clack. I’ve got a grave digger to cover my tracks.
I’m a mythomaniac. I’ve got truths and lies holding back. I make up things in my shack. I ignore it if I give myself any flack.
A Pretty Kettle of Poetry 