Underneath the Horse Chestnut Tree

We scattered mum over where her sister lay
My Father seemed smaller somehow as my Brother,
Ready to catch him at any moment,
Walked him out of the churchyard
Beneath the archway where he had once kissed her

The world seemed silent just for them
The sky had grabbed the clouds and held them still,
And the wind and the birds and the trees all held court
As they paused beneath the horse chestnut tree
Opposite the school where mum had served us dinners in the hall
And applied band-aids and cuddles on the playground
Then they collapsed into the car and drove away

I stayed behind. We needed to talk.
“I’m so angry at you” I said
But, of course, I wasn’t
Not at her. Not anymore

And so I knelt in the cool and comforting grass
And I plunged my fingers into the earth
And held her in my fingers for one last time
And I wept tears of pleading
And I howled for the dogs to hear

I too stopped beneath the horse chestnut tree
It had thrown its wares to the floor
Like a clown throws sweets at a children’s party
And I remembered then all the hours we spent:
Throwing branches in the air to reach the highest fruit
Hunting for the perfect weapon
So fat it looked like a medieval mace
Strong enough to kill a kid and cleave his head in two
(But pick too early and the stone would be soft
Too late and it would start to decay)
Then home to the mums to bake and pickle
And skewer
Vinegar drips and newly learned knots
The jousts in the netball court
Stampsy’s and “No Stampy’s”
(There was always a stampsy, no matter what)

I could picture a dozen kids
Watching in awe as David Hunt’s seventy-niner
(a brazen boast: no evidence provided)
Was obliterated in one almighty swing
Casualties were feared as pieces of shrapnel
Exploded into wide-eyed and gleeful faces
And the cry, the understated yelp,
“Well, that’s a Oner!”
Applying salt to the wounds

And part of me wished I’d scattered you here
Here beneath the chestnut tree
And I would have come back next year
And picked the fruit
And I’d have made sure I wasn’t too early
That the stone would be soft
And I’d have promised not to ever be so late again
It would have begun to decay

Kissing the Alien (a boyhood dream)

Awash with the monochrome glow
Of Saturday television
I would watch cardboard rocket ships on strings
Wobble into polystyrene cities
Buck and Flash and James T. Kirk
Would wrassle to the ground
All manner of humanoids with strange features
Made of mud or rock or wood
Each one succumbing to the earthling’s righteousness
With a boff and a thud

And that was great

On these far-flung planets of the outer galaxies
Men had wings or jet-fuelled rocket packs
Pistols shot white lights that exploded like fireworks
On Andurian New Year
Justice prevailed, the underdog won
And evil was vanquished
Until next Saturday morn

And that was great too

But each time Kirk or Gordon
Would find themselves locked in an interstellar embrace
(Red lips pressed against green
The milky-way swirling in her eyes
A triumvirate of tits tightly wrapped up in tin-foil
Pistols cocked and set to stun)
This was when I knew that I simply had to be
The galactic hero
Kissing the alien
Beneath the twin moons of Castillion 3

Forty now
And my disbelief has been permanently suspended
I know Leia loves Han
Just as much as he does
Flash would still save the Earth if he only a teabreak to do it in
And Dale would love him, regardless
Even Lucas’s betrayal has lost its impact
There is no green-screen to stand in front of
And imagine a better world; full of fun

And I still haven’t kissed the alien
In the yellowy haze of the setting suns

Yellow Purple Blue

The corridors seem longer with each foreboding march along
Men my age, mid-life, shuffle toward me dragging their drips
Or machines that feed tubes into their sides, their throats, their asses
I watch the gunk being sucked out and the penicillin pumping in.
I was here many times as a kid
We ran riot with our legs cast, stitches busting, nightgowns flapping
The nurses would chase us
There was laughter
And a laissez-faire attitude to our care back then
Not now
Not here in this ward
I scrub my hands
They are as sterile as is possible
If I could I’d strip naked and scrub myself with bleach if it helped
But there is no helping now either
The buzzer sounds and the nurse opens the door
Into the realm of the dying
She is the ferryman guiding me across the river Styx

This is not the place she should be spending her last days
Hours
Minutes?
She is yellow and she is purple and she is blue
And it hurts to even look at her
(More than it ever has)
But it’s ok
I trick myself into thinking that colourful describes her best and that eventually
We all turn into who we have spent our lives being
And so I take her hand like it’s a butterfly wing
Like she is turning to dust
And I tell her what she already knows

The corridors, longer still on the way out, are so bare
Footsteps sound like castanets accompanied by the broken marimba
Of the clank of crutches and gurney’s clattering
But there’s no nurse chasing me
I haven’t heard laughter in weeks
Just a laissez-faire attitude to our care remains

Nagasaki Shadows

Watching the ocean cherryspit villages across the fields
And spew the wreckages of an age into the Kyoukai
Where the flotsam and the derelict are indiscernible
From the hoardings and the fabric of the cot, the house
The workstation and the supermarket fittings
I can’t help but think that
If the waves keep rolling, rolling
Rolling on
They would be strong enough
To wash away the shadows
On the steps of the Sumitomo Bank

Peace

Peace

I don't sleep.
I wrestle the darkness.
It smothers my skin; vicious
Visceral oil.
I kick and drown.
Kick and drown.
The bastard won't release me,
Even when rabbited by passing cars.
The duvet cements
                     me to the sheets
Like melting marshmallow.
The pillows, like 16-bit ghosts,
Attack and retreat
Attack and retreat.
In your absence I am less than usual
(as usual).
I long for the door to creak;
To feel you clamber over me.
Your scent, silvery skin,
Warmth.
Ah, at last,
Peace.

Help the (Middle) Aged

Old enough to know better
We lay out in the crisp, damp grass
In our Sunday best
And made no mention of the clouds
That looked like Groucho Marx or flamingos.
Instead we let our toes toy with the idea of touching;
Coyness getting the better of them eventually.
Instead I marvelled at her eyes
(Two neighbouring discotheques competing for custom).
Instead we talked and we listened in turn.

Half a lifetime away
And we may have danced through the fountain
Fully clothed
Or turned cartwheels
Until the flamingos turned pink and took wing.
Perhaps we are too long in the trousers now
To fall for Cupid’s trickery twice.
Perhaps Freya and Radha and Kama
Can see that we are middle-aged
And able to handle things on our own for once.

It’s difficult to say for sure
It is a foreign land to me it seems,
Virgin territory.
It would appear that my compass was broken before
And my map had been held upside down.
But wherever this is we find ourselves
We seem to speak the language.
Wherever this is that we are
The customs suit us well.
Whatever this country turns out to be
We’ll be fine; they welcome the middle-aged.

Bukowski

I’m amazed
More people don’t write like Bukowski.
Everyone is bitter
Everyone is selfish
No one gives a shit about anyone else

On reflection
Perhaps everyone does
And the city is festooned with
Nests built from poems of sadness