Just Because (For Rupert Anson the last scoundrel in Speke)

I

He grew his hair and a beard
When I lost faith with my youth.
He kicked down fences
To show the vandals how it should be done
And smoked grass for the first time
As an octogenarian.
Just because.
He rode a tricycle to town and back
Everyday
When he reluctantly gave up his engines.
And he sat on benches
With WET PAINT signs
Still being written. Villagers aghast.
He used letters from King George
To mop up puddles of oil
Bled from the contraptions he made in his shed
Out of junk found in the wastelands
Spewed out by a dying Mersey.
And any wound could be healed
With pressure and spittle
Pressure and spittle
Pressure and spittle and patience
And he built kites for his Grandson
That didn’t fly.
There was blood on his bayonet
And he drove his wife mad
And he never believed in God.
He turned the concrete patio
Into a vegetable patch
And didn’t understand flowers at all.
He was as deaf as a house
And could do a hundred push-ups
As an octogenarian.
Just because.

II

Chew your food, she says,
He has forgotten again.
And his eyes are like swimming pools
Moss-empty and leaf-wet.

She misses him and that thought
Destroys her every time. After all,
There he is.
Bag of bones. Broken human being.

There will be no letters from the King this time
To soak you up, wring you
Back into the tin for later.
Slicked back hair. Grease the hinge.

And surely now her faith must waver?
But it never did.

Mr Anson, the photographer said,
No, he’s gone again.
And his mind is being pulled further away.
He doesn’t believe. So he ain’t coming.

Rupe, she says lovingly,
Placing a hand on his.
And in an instant like magic;
Eyes alive. Strength and love.

And the unwavering faith, for her,
Was repaid as a gift of moments with him.
And I found faith there too.
God is love, they say.
Maybe he believed after all.

III

That was the last time we saw him. Nana, maybe a few more times. But it was his last chance to see her, I think. When we cremated him we wanted to wear vegetables in our lapels, but we weren’t allowed. We talked about him in exasperated tones and everyone was laughing at the wake. That’s how I want to go. And if I should lose myself in the memories of my childhood and forget everything else. Let me remember you. Let me, like him; come back for you on our anniversary.
Just because.

Story of my life (For Mike Leeman)

When the last poem I shall write
Is scrawled into the sand
Or sprayed onto a pillar of the
Underground NCP in Basingstoke
And the final memoir of a dying poet
Rages into anonymity once more.

Will you be the one eroded by the ocean,
Washed away by the power hose,
Holding my hand and tripping our way
Into the light?

Good Enough for Me

Never destined for great things
Perhaps
We came closer
Than the historians would have
Other people’s children believe

We were one of those moments
Perhaps
The exposition
In the movie of our lives
Delivered by someone ill cast

But in an incredible feat
Leaving
Every physicist
Scratching their heads
And drawing up new blueprints

We lifted one another
Leaving
The unyielding ground
Far below our feet
Like only drunkards can

And though this imperfect poem
Remains
The only legacy
From our searching
Union of misplaced sadness

The unerring truth
Remains
Me being not
Quite good enough for you
Well, it’s good enough for me

Geometrically Speaking

The poets would have us believe
That love and logic are constantly at odds
With one another. If that were so,
No mathematician would ever feel the thrall
Of that very first
Kiss.

The obvious escapes imagination
That true love is in fact a triangle,
Made of only three sides. Her mind,
Her body and her very soul
Are all along
The vertices.

The whole must be equilateral
For the truth is clear to me now
Anything other than one-eighty degree
Perfect symmetry
Only ever results in being
An isosceles.

(And nobody wants to be an isosceles.)

So my darling, you can sit there and apply
Any theorem that you wish
To make us seem more interesting;
We will never be a scalene
No matter how much you try
Being obtuse.

I simply have to accept that, together,
It all adds up to the same length
In the end. And you need to realise
That there really is no shame
In being just a
Regular Polygon.

Fumbling with the Mathematics

The night terrors take over
Sweatyshakes and screams waking neighbours
And starting a chorus of foxes;
Crying like panic into the night.
The very odds against meeting you
Are simply astronomical
At best.

Seven billion people
Halved by sex
Divided by geography
And still I never fancied my chances.
And then the formula,
(Beyond Einstein, beyond Hawkins)
To figure out the particulars…
The Where’s and the How’s and the When’s.

Even this does not compare to the complication
Of the common denominators of our compatibility
Sub-divided by how beautiful you are
Times how ordinary I feel next to you.

I have held meetings with quantum physicists,
The greatest minds across our history,
And I have asked them
The simplest question:
Will one plus one ever equal two?
They shrug their shoulders, unknowing,
Just like the rest of us.

But then I wake
And you are watching me
And the love in your eyes is bigger than the cosmos
It is as unfathomable as life’s biggest mystery.
You are more beautiful than God, I think.

And you kiss me on the lips, like heaven descending,
“lucky bastard”, you say.

LOVE SOMETIMES LURKS BETWEEN THEM

They are captives to cynicism,
Slaves to the bitterness of experience.

Longing for the innocence that was once theirs
And loathing the innocence of others;
Happiness they now call naivety,
Love, a misunderstanding.

Removing their clothes like tired old excuses
They slip into a freshly made bed
And surrender themselves to the inevitable
With a sigh

Only to find the bedsheets are made from linen
And love sometimes lurks between them.

A MERMAIDS TRICK

She used on me
A mermaids trick
Singing lullabies and ballads
And haunting laments
Carried over seas
By the winds and waves
The beauty of which
Took me to sail
And I
Like many sailors before me
Have found myself now
Dashed against her rocks
Shipwrecked upon her shores

Untitled III

It was unremarkable
Our first meeting
Except for the birds singing
The sun setting
The heart bursting
The Earth turning
Anticlockwise

It was unremarkable
Our first greeting
Other than the time stopping
Ears popping
Stomach knotting
Throat garrotting
Sweaty palms

It was unremarkable
Our first meeting
Except for you

Big Bang (innuendo not included)

Awake now eternal

I consider the conception of the universe,

And how,

From the nothingness,

Life could grow;

Expanding still.

It is the same for me.

A void; an infinite emptiness; explosion; (you).

And then;

Heart started beating,

Love did grow;

Expanding still.

Christmas Tree Poems (for Naomi)

I

In the winter air,

Our breath,

Mini clouds,

Form shapes

And hang there

Like silver decorations.

It mingles

With steam

Rising quickly

From woollen hands

Holding spiced wine

And cinnamon sticks,

And dissipates

Amongst the mistletoe.

Your cheeks

Are like

Toffee apples,

Hair like ribbons.

Your lips are gifts

I want to unwrap.

And I wish it could be Christmas everyday

Love is my Religion (From Keats To Fanny Brawne, 13 October 1819)

I

You have ravish'd me away
By a Power I cannot resist,
I become humbled,
The nearer to your grace I exist.
If Love is my Religion
Then you have become my Christ
And, until the ever turning
Hands of time desist,
I worship your body, mind and soul
Your ever-faithful priest.

II

Born again,
I am an ex-smoker
Exhaling virtue.
Your love has become my religion
And there are posters of hyperbole
Stuck up outside my church.

I can now often be found in shopping centres
With a microphone and your photograph
Shouting into the wind.

I knock on doors and tell strangers
All about you
Offerings of tea becoming more and more rare.

Each poem I write now
Is a sermon
To you.

III

Reasoning against the reasons of my love
For you
I may as well be arm-wrestling God
For all the good it will do us


IV

My Love is selfish and it is cruel. It will not let me sleep until my eyes have the outline of your body, which is curled up next to me like a spider in a bathtub, burned indelibly, so that when I close them, my lids become cinema screens, playing your movie on a loop until the sun bleaches the morning
And you stir, and reach for me.

My love is selfish.
And will not let me be
My love is selfish.
(Just
as love
should be)