The heaviness has
Gone
Whatever made the beach sand pound has
Gone
And is now ebb and flow
In softer
Dapples to the livelier light.
Then the grey torpor
Heaps
Sifted through Day’s warm mesh,it
Sits
On the bottom of the sea waiting
To be ground
Again by Winter’s deepest tide.
I hear Morocco pulsing
In my feet and Hong Kong
Twinkling in my throat
Montserratian and Barbadian lapping
Ears over to New Orleans,
Rolling down to Acapulco
Further down Columbian greens
That heard my father’s
First word to the world
Now I’m flying high above
The deep giant squids and
Corals, fighting and fading into blue
Back to Europe, Corfu
Familiar pieces of the jig saw puzzle
Curling at the edges, many missing
Do of it what can be done
With what is left, before
Some breeze, dog or toddler gusts it apart, unthinking.
Sugar daddies, the
sea is blue beside
the twos and twos
of sweet neat men
two feet shorter,two
feet wider,two feet
downstream-
Sugared daughters, arm above
arm, two feet nearer the
Sun on brown pins in
Platforms,tall blonde
Or brunette,stupid or
Cruel, slurping cocktail
Sized dogs.
We stretch for blackberries
In the sun, walking slowly
Along the bay, here to commemorate
But bereft of memory
The chilhood talks, the driftwood fire,
The sausages and sticks
Were too light to sink and
Be saved for deep sea divers
To find.
One lone tanker
Heaves past as we
Leave. Do its crew
Marvel at the sunset?
Probably not. Do we?
Yes, in our minds eye,
But our hearts are
Elsewhere, trawling,
Water and memories
But the catch
Is empty, the
Hoped-for treasure,
Through it slipped,
If it was ever there.
Trapped in here,
This head of mine
Fringed with hair –
Bad cut, don’t
Mind. Trapped in
There behind a
Card, the face on
Which we set the score. How many
Looks taken beyond
The casual glance
Can we reel in
And feel, use
For energy and
Self esteem. None
It seems, for me
Except my self,
Glancing at windows
As I pass,peering
In at the stock
Behind those
Bags, saddles
For the eyes,
Underneath.
Bearing them on,
This new day,
24th Birthday gone.
Taped up
He was
Although
His mouth
Spake
Sounds fast, on the phone.
Quick, professional
Like someone
In a hurry.
‘I’m sorry
Did you
Have a
Good
Birthday
Anyway.’
Yesterday
Behind the scenes
The sets were
Moving his
Mind’s Eye in the
The dark, no
Light back there,
They knew the routine, blind.
Get up, eat,drink.
Play football,
Score, eat, drink
Water then something
Stronger, stronger
Stronger till the
Drum stretched tight
To numb the eyes
With a dull thick
Beat bump heat
Bump heat bump,
Drunk.
Go out, get up
Get up go out
Out out to the
Girl he lost somehow,
Carelessly.
On on on
To the pub’s
Strong arms,
Blue awning, benches,
Tables , gables
Green with evergreen, all
Greens and blue
To him, no more
Definition, only drink. On breath,
On toes on feet,
Aged four
Again, finding a
Way, feeling the
Floor.
In he goes, head
To the bar , order
More if he can.
Drink more if he dare.
He does, the part
That’s survived the
Tide of liquor.
Awash, lone survivor,
Drenched,
Bewildered, lost.
He wades from
Bar to shore,
Where the natives
Are feasting,
Warming the
Pub’s wood
Furniture.
Do they speak
Language?
Do they understand gesture?
Will they eat
Him alive, stirred
In their Pad Thai?
They pound with
The music, these
Questions unanswered.
He sinks down
Like and animal, neither feral
Nor domestic,
Slumped, hunched,
Stooped, even while
Sitting, laid low,
Still reeling
From Exposure to the Sea’s
Blue gin.
They decide he’s
Inedible after
Little discussion,
Having glimpsed
Him and smelt him,
The liquor then the
The sick. Sea-
Sick he explains
But they can’t understand,
Hes forgets again and keeps
Talking, waving his
Story, weaving
Yarns between mumbles,
Got hurt at football – some fool,
Something dribbled.
Out, outside,
Hurdle over, trip, the
Menu, a black-board
Trap the natives
Set. But he
Succeeds to shelter
By the plane tree,
Native too.
Leaning there
He has a thought.
It passes like a ghost
Visiting from Before.
Come back, he thinks
With his shipwrecked brain,
Come back, come
Here, lets meet again!
Alone again, he leans,
The foreign tree bark
Wont respond his plea.
Forward, through sound
And sand. Up, down
Up, down, people
Standing,natives
Feasting still,
Chatting on, a gurgling,
Almost painful.
He makes out a figure,
A She-one, carrying water,
He sees through the glass,
He holds it, drink, heavier than
The tree to lean on, he thinks.
She proffers him a seat,
Looks more like a wall,
He accepts, no offence,
And sinks onto concrete,
Hunched,
Arms wreathing ribs,
Ape-style.
Being Every Day 