summer’s lease

Tags

2016, funfair, lark in the park, poem, poem in a white ribbed vest

it’s a sodden cigarette butt in the gutter day

though the primary coloured fun fair

tries hard to paint the park into summer.

 

its tabarded guards wear welcome grins

of grim determined cheer,

as they usher you in.

 

the striped medieval marquees

glisten with runoff raindrops.

wet grass clippings coat your shoes

like breadcrumbs on fish to be fried.

 

ice cream vans pipe out hope,

in short staccato bursts,

entice you into t-shirts and shorts,

selling optimism by the cone.

 

a girl with a peach bow in her hair,

tresses that swing down to her waist,

could have skipped straight out of the past,

a once upon a time world of happy ever after.

 

as the rides turn to music in the air,

they deal a hand of sunshine

to call the clouds’ bluff,

and we all revolve in glee, complicit.

 

but the sullen sky frowns down

its light disapproval of rain,

peeling back the wallpaper of august

to reveal, hidden beneath,

the stark surface of winter,

in all its mottled shades of cold.

 

Picture from Lark in the Park, Sidcup.

 

disarmed

Tags

2016, alexander zverev, hug, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, poem, poem in a white ribbed vest, sascha zverev

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

you ride with him
heart-stoppingly
the emotional
roller coaster of youth.
affectionately
avert your gaze
from a discharge
of pent up rage.

but your soft centre
can still be touched
by his broken-heartedness,
his disappointment
as tangible to the onlooker
as a grazed elbow,
nursed with a pout
after a playground tumble.

he redlines,
revives,
survives on the edge of glory.
yields utterly,
tragically, to despair,
then surfaces like a
long distance swimmer
coming up for air.

imperiously
issues orders
and demands,
tosses his head
like a prima donna
expecting tribute.
but his sudden sweet smile
or heartfelt hug on victory

melts antagonisms
cancels doubts,
windscreen-wipes
minor misdemeanours
from your memory,
reels you right back in,
in some uncanny reversal
of catch and release.

‘Elemental‘ is the first in a trilogy of poems about Sascha Zverev. The second is ‘Adolescent‘ and the third ‘Disarmed‘.

jeopardy

Tags

2016, lovers, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, poem, poem in a white ribbed vest

he vouchsafes you

an empty smile as of someone

just bested in an argument

outwardly mild but at heart

dangerous as a cornered animal.

 

his beauty’s that of the wild

windswept coast.

he’s possessed by momentum,

seizes life by the throat.

his eyes whiplash

defiance into submission.

 

lacerated by the flashing

blades of passion,

you lick your wounds

behind a locked door.

his gaze can laser through defences,

sear through to the marrow.

 

but when the rage relents,

the calm after the storm

makes you sigh like a weary traveller

who’s turned his head for home.

 

raincheck

Tags

2016, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, poem, poem in a white ribbed vest

Shafts of sunlight falling through storm clouds

a skiving off shopping

saturday afternoon

with the sun

sending down

slim spears

of lemonade light

against a canvas of pewter,

broken by an inexplicable

bright patch of white,

as if randomly scrubbed out

by a gigantic child

armed with an enormous eraser.

.

Image from www.freefoto.com

reckoning

Tags

2016, boys of summer, don henley, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, poem, poem in a white ribbed vest, summer

feel the fire scalding my back,

a sharp electric heat.

kneeling on the floor,

arms around myself,

listening to the boys

of summer,

swaying back and forth.

remembering the open-windowed

sounds of june days in the park –

kids playing, cars and radios

and rushing over pell-mell

when a tennis court comes free.

I’m cold but the room

smells of burning.

it’s february – the weather

is bitter, paying us back

for still hot sun-drenched days,

for too much free time,

for daring to think we’d never

have to settle down to this.

 

indisposed

Tags

2016, illness, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, poem, poem in a white ribbed vest

I simmer with the feverish seediness

of someone who’s gone back to bed

in all their clothes,

way under the weather.

I am crumpled and greasy

as a soiled napkin

after takeaway pizza.

undead with sleeplessness,

a sick heaviness in my head,

my mind leaden and blank,

despair coiled in my intestines

like a snare laid by some malevolent god.

wasteland

Tags

2016, elvis, memphis, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, poem, poem in a white ribbed vest

we traipse through memphis in a sad dry dusk,

along the never-ending heartbroken boulevard,

busted concrete cooling in the vast vacant lots,

decades of trampled neglect and born again defeat,

once thriving concerns derelict and barb-wired off,

exposed like the underside of an upturned rock.

the stench of the hot punishment of the day,

fades to a less aggressive version of itself,

as if someone remote-controlled it down

in time with the dwindling brilliance,

and you feel the earth decide enough’s enough

and gently ease the pressure off.

undisciplined

Tags

2016, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, poem, poem in a white ribbed vest

my mind flings open the doors

of conception and poems spill out,

chattering children freed by the bell

from the temporary hell of a classroom,

they push and shove and jostle

for position.

 

words wind themselves around my legs

crafty as cats craving attention;

or they erupt like drunks at a wedding,

uninhibited and brash,

kicking up a commotion

in the corner of my eye.

 

my metre is unmoored,

ungovernable as an autistic child

screaming in the middle of the street.

images emerge like photos

in a developing tank,

slowly take shape,

acquire light and shade and definition.

 

my verses are unbridled,

a shoal of silver fish tipped from a net

flapping on the slick boat deck,

gasping hard and

drowning in air.

 

they shake off form

like dogs out of a river,

ready to rampage after rabbits

through a hazy summer meadow.

adolescent

Tags

2016, alexander zverev, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, poem, poem in a white ribbed vest, sascha zverev, tennis player

a dead net cord

is an affront

to his soul,

he stands

indignant,

as nakedly

crestfallen

as a child denied,

this bewitching blend

of petulant and

incandescent.

he blows

hot and cold

with fortune’s

favour,

his talent

a given,

a ticket

to glory,

his rise

breathtaking,

meteoric.

he blazes

a trail

and scatters

opponents,

shattered and

shellshocked,

like so much

tumbled debris

in his fiery wake.

‘Elemental‘ is the first in a trilogy of poems about Sascha Zverev. The second is ‘Adolescent‘ and the third ‘Disarmed‘.

lament

Tags

2016, cumberland gap, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, poem, poem in a white ribbed vest, regret

on a lonely night with no prospects

you choose to wallow in regrets.

even unsummoned,

they rise up all around you

like cemetery corpses

in a bad zombie b movie,

impossible to ignore.

they compete for attention

and you register each one,

a bulb being drained of energy by degrees,

till your light is faint and faltering,

stricken and enfeebled,

and you have no strength to break free.

 

Photo of Cumberland Gap by Belinda