15 Sunday Apr 2018
Posted in NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, poetry, travel, youth
once upon a time
my happy ever afters
hitched their wagons
to someone else’s star.
my possibilities shrank,
dreams gathered dust
on the cluttered sideboard.
my future narrowed,
narrowed, to the sights
of a gun, a circle of light
and colour in the far distance.
and I still have such a long way to go,
but on a rope bridge of uncertain strength
and to a destination less distinct.
11 Wednesday Apr 2018
hearing a certain song now
resonates inside your heart
as if it really held strings;
and your eyes begin to leak the grief
that is drowning you by degrees.
your record collection
a roll call of the dead.
it carries the same unexpected pathos
as the accidental discovery
of something banal or mundane
– a note to the milkman,
for ‘one extra pint, please’,
a recipe or an address –
in the handwriting of
a deceased parent, so
familiar and now so seldom seen.
they will never put pen to paper again.
Posted in music, NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, poetry
Tags
blog, jarvis cocker, kodachrome, morrissey, NaPoWriMo, poem, pulp, ray davies
when jarvis cocker yelps,
aroused by acrylic,
remembering,
in kodachrome,
the first time.
when he tries to control
his sexual urges,
adolescence
drawing him surely,
irresistibly back.
when he revels
in illicit afternoons
under eiderdowns,
when his voice is
distorted by desire.
when he doles out
romantic advice
to someone else’s
girlfriend, forlornly
wishing to be noticed.
when he is thwarted,
passion unrequited,
and languishes in
the bittersweetness
of ‘I told you so’s.
when he resigns himself
to best friend status
and watches her
waste her youth
on someone unworthy.
when he talks to you
in a hollywood club
or sends you a postcard.
when he djs at a friend
of a friend’s birthday do.
when you ask if he’ll
give up smoking once
you’re married, and he says
something about filters
you don’t understand.
when you correspond
about sixth formers
in white lab coats and
your dad succumbing
for ever to prog rock.
when you and your sister
dance to songs that
actually mean something
at indie nights by the score
all through the nineties.
when he colours
his hair with glints
the shade of poppy
and the fans almost fall
through the balcony.
when, wearing sunglasses
on his head, he pokes fun
at the upper classes
or castigates those
who should know better.
when there is no one
else quite like him
for leavening disdain
with compassion,
a condiment of empathy.
when songs start in mid-
conversation and he beckons
the camera in closer,
confidentially
urging you: ‘listen’.
when he dissects
class divisions
with a scalpel of satire
but his tongue still
firmly in his cheek.
when, in a few years more
he’s what they like to call
a national treasure,
a sir ray davies or
a morrissey.
when there was never
a more heartfelt chorus
of ‘yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah yeah’s,
when they somehow
kind of say it all.
More on Jarvis and Pulp on bashfulbadgersblog – lyrics; aside on his art school days, mentions here and here.
04 Wednesday Apr 2018
Posted in music, NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, poetry, US
the softest soft focus
on the bleached out face
of the famous old folk singer,
her features, once so strong,
so definite, half erased
by highlighting,
as if in mid-dissolve
to the next shot.
insubstantial
as a wraith
when she used to be
so vital, so present,
grounded as a tree,
an earthiness to her
that connected to the stars
and sun and sky.
now she is stripped
of personality,
rendered generic,
blonde and ironed out,
almost to the point
of invisibility.
her song remains
her monument,
vibrant, trenchant, true,
her stairway
to immortality.
03 Tuesday Apr 2018
Tags
one day, a while ago,
my life set sail without me
and I waved it off from the dock,
blithe in sandalled feet and strappy summer dress,
all see-through with the brilliant sun behind me.
I too was translucent,
my edges incandescent,
slim and lithe and hopeful
with youth’s first ardour.
my eyes set on the horizon,
vitality bursting out of me like a song,
the world my oyster to discover.
I didn’t know my path was fixed,
circumscribed by my past,
my personality all flaws
and no fortitude.
my shortcomings, never overcome,
tethered me like a long leash,
never letting me stray too far,
tautening, tightening and pulling me back.
and I would only ever stand alone
on the farthest end of the jetty
and cast a wistful glance out to sea.
01 Sunday Apr 2018
Posted in poem in a white ribbed vest, poetry, weather
Tags
a strange preternatural
semidarkness descends
towards midday,
as if prelude to an eclipse.
the autumnal light
is filtered through
a glass of orangeade,
saharan dust generating
a lozenge of warmth
on the blond hardwood floor,
the october sky an apricot
washed over by grey.
Thanks to Brigitte Jeffs for photo.
28 Friday Apr 2017
Posted in NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, poetry, writing
writing done in the dark
that you can barely decipher in daylight.
lines crawling diagonally up the page
and colliding with each other
as if blindfolded and spun by the shoulders.
squashed and crooked letters,
unfinished thoughts
snaking out of control
pell mell and gung ho
as dodgems at the fair.
words escaping the edges of the paper
rivulets of spilled ink
or runaway trains in old
grey TV westerns.
ideas that crowd your head
and will not be denied:
clamouring like vendors at the rialto
robustly proclaiming their wares:
make it mine, make it mine,
make it mine.
27 Thursday Apr 2017
Posted in NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, poetry, writing
a newcomer
at the writing group
upsets the balance,
the pattern and flow
of read and response,
the kid glove critics
handing out biscuits
and circumspect approval.
she senses their mistrust,
an invisible wall
that must be scaled
or broken down.
she has to feel her way
past cold shoulders,
tentative, a blind person
in a maze of hazards,
nervous as a lamb
in unfamiliar pasture.
26 Wednesday Apr 2017
Posted in NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, poetry
the medicine applied
to my tooth releases
a steady stream
of bitterness
all night long –
an old maid’s lament –
when no prince charming
has been forthcoming
and she withers,
unplucked, on the bough.
my soon-to-be ex-
tooth grizzles
and complains,
a fretful child
whose whimpering
I can’t ignore –
it’s raising hell
in an unsupervised corner.
the earthiness
of oil of cloves
mollifies,
grants a brief respite,
a shoulder squeeze
of sympathy
from someone
otherwise undemonstrative.
25 Tuesday Apr 2017
Posted in NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, poetry
something meek and endearing
about his hesitancy,
his fear of reprisals.
he pauses
as if controlled
by an unseen index
finger depressing
a stop button.
stands just inside
the threshold,
a child uncertain
of its welcome,
wary of unwittingly
setting foot somewhere
out of bounds.
