Decades-old poetry...

... that, on reflection, isn’t too cringe-worthy!

1.

CARRIER

A carrier bag full

of carrier bags

In the cupboard

under the sink

The gaudiest of them

caught my eye

A jolly Santa,

heavy-lashed deer

Unlikely foils in my plot,

mwahaha

To come across as

quirky. Acceptably so

By taking a Christmas bag to school

On a sunny Wednesday in June

2.

DOG SHIT ALLEY

A frenzy of hands,

parallel walls of them

Testing

and touching

and thinking of taking

A dawning, then

Grabbing and grabbing

“She loves it”

Till gentleness shifts

And then gives

3.

PERSPECTIVE

“Who are you?” “Sally.” A decoy,

thinking on my feet.

“Sally? Fucking mucky tits”

Something, then,

what can I say?

Nothing like a kiss

“Gonna snitch?” Shake my head

“Coz you’re as bad as me.”

bad-as-me-bad-as-me-bad-as-me

A dead frog marches home

Scouring, then, and scouring

At a new me, changed from the old

4.

BLOOD

Gathering like pond scum

“Fight.” “Fight.”

Looking for blood

Finding quiet

brutality

Methodical. Unjust

Awareness spreads

- like the bloodstain —

of what we’d found and lost

5.

POINTLESS

Thump

ing. ear. ring. ing

deepred, bloodthud

“What’s that for?”

Thump.

ing. ear. ring. ing

reddeep, thudblood

“Asking.”

6.

GLUE

It wasn’t glue that bonded us

We weren’t chavs, after all

We’d buy ourselves some cider

And, by jove, we’d drink it all

7.

EQUATION

a bad seed equals a worse fruit

divide

multiply

subtract

8.

SOUR

friendly and free and

fresh faced and fun and

fuckers, fuckers

Something within me is spoiled

A kernel that twists, turns

sour

9.

SHUDDER

An enemy, the worst one

Between my ears. Behind my eyes

Hearing all. And seeing all

And judging, judging

And always there for me

And never there for me

10.

WAR POEM

Battle lines

unclear, unspoken

and deafeningly loud

Who to speak to,

where to sit,

who to love and how

Games,

intangible frontiers

Impossible to win

Can I object,

conscientiously?

Or sleep and bury my head?

You are too young to fall asleep for ever;

And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.