Here's a few things I think I consider finished now.


Un-struck

I am an un-struck match,
you are already the sun.
Probes have been sent to far of places
but cannot compute what you have become.


Sorted

I can only pick moments
because moments is all this will allow.
Let’s not even consider one or the other
as any sort of sacred or cash cow.
You saw to what was yours,
and I saw to what was mine.
Everyone was happy
and all will be for all time.


Rounds

You have come through to make checks
at various points in the morning,
turned the vacuum up to twelve
just to check I am still alive.

Out of bed and stretching arms
like a bird testing healed wings;
cautious and not entirely confident.
Last night you were doubling up
during happy hour.

The Patient

Stock answers don’t always fit the bill;
on more than one occasion you
have been fit to burst,
or ready to kill.

There have been times
when you’re beyond being at a loss
about what to do.
People have crossed obvious lines
when they forgot to give even half a toss
about how this affects you.

The Baileys bottle will never see the cap again,
it’s easier to just discard.
For richer or poorer, better or worse
wasn’t meant to be this hard.

Weekly phone calls from interested sons
mean something, and there are relations to help.
The location to live in you both chose.
You’re, of course, not the only ones
to go through this, but who can forget the self
when you see through the doctor’s helpful pose.

You swore you would both be together
beyond being old.
Somebody has to give.
What are you not being told?


Armitage Shanks

Softly, softly catchy monkey my arse.
Who’s got time for that these days, I ask you.
I was put out to grass,
But I swear I will out last you.

Like a tiger asleep
you’ve kept half an eye
on exactly which side
your bread’s buttered on,
maintained a stance in the eye of the storm
and kept more than a glance
on which directions the cookie crumbled.
Asked who’s batting or bowling
and from where the thunder rumbled,
taken note of what’s good for the goose;
seen what’s preferred by the gander.
You observed and calculated the sweet spot of your dander
and exactly how it’s raised.
Lord be praised,
you’ve chanced upon something.


Travel Adapter
Room 110, Las Tres Palmeras, La Gomera, September 2005

At 4am, waking with a factor 20 hangover,
time to get away from this,
to get somewhere to stop the mind turning over;
the brain’s throttle stuck.

You arrive at the destination
dressed like Alec Guinness in the River Kwai,
it will take light years to get this body
anything other than white.
You have a week.

Two days in,
and, like a drummer, the sun
has tightened our skins;
wound them in to create the perfect ouch
with every touch of cotton sheets.

Easing, and peeling your swimsuit down
in the shower later, the sea salt
being replaced by our own.
We could blame the heat,
doing things only done on holiday.

Like Buzz Aldrin in flip-flops
you hope from rock to rock
over this lava, this moon country
to watch black crabs cling to the rocks.
If they let go, it’s next stop America,
you wonder if you would put the effort in.

That walk across that black sand,
the sea delivering each tiny stone right to your feet,
you notice the way damp sand
looks like the invisible man walking on a carpet.
You notice you have time to notice this.

Desert Island Discs

We have our record collections
that will never meet…
songs to choose as our own.

Go too fast and there will be blood on the tracks.
There are things that I have never made you hear,
songs I love,
words everyone should love.
Dylan you have yet to grasp,
as you should.
Or rare groove I don’t get,
but if given a chance I could.

There are things I need you to hear.


Philosophy


I want to write the poem
that connects Deeley-Boppers and Wittgenstein,
but I haven’t the learning
and I haven’t got the time.