Collected Poems Page 18
Of the street.
Imagine my surprise, when
On retrieving them this morning
I discovered that they had been
Polished.
What a nice neighbourhood I live in.
What a great country this is.
Ex Patria
After supper, we move out on to the veranda.
Moths flit between lamps. We drink, think about sex
and consider how best to wreck each other’s lives.
At the river’s edge, the kitchen maids are washing up.
In the age-old tradition, they slap the plates
against the side of a rock, singing tonelessly.
Like tiny chauffeurs, the mosquitoes will soon arrive
and drive us home. O England, how I miss you.
Ascot, Henley, Wimbledon. It’s the little things.
Posh
Where I live is posh
Sundays the lawns are mown
My neighbours drink papaya squash
Sushi is a favourite nosh
Each six-year-old has a mobile phone
Where I live is posh
In spring each garden is awash
with wisteria, pink and fully blown
My neighbours drink papaya squash
Radicchio thrives beneath the cloche
Cannabis is home grown
Where I live is posh
Appliances by Míele and Bosch
Sugar-free jam on wholemeal scone
My neighbours drink papaya squash
Birds hum and bees drone
The paedophile is left alone
My neighbours drink papaya squash
Where I live is posh.
Shite
Where I live is shite
An inner-city high-rise shack
Social workers shoot on sight
The hospital’s been set alight
The fire brigade’s under attack
Where I live is shite
Police hide under their beds at night
Every road’s a cul-de-sac
Social workers shoot on sight
Girls get pregnant just for spite
My mate’s a repo-maniac
Where I live is shite.
Newborn junkies scratch and bite
Six-year-olds swap sweets for crack
Social workers shoot on sight
Tattooed upon my granny’s back
A fading wrinkled Union Jack
Social workers shoot on sight
Where I live is shite.
The Jogger’s Song
After leaving the Harp nightclub in Deptford, a 35-year-old woman was raped and assaulted by two men in Fordham Park. Left in a shocked and dishevelled state she appealed for help to a man in a light-coloured tracksuit who was out jogging. Instead of rescuing her, he also raped her.
Standard, 27 January 1984
Well, she was asking for it.
Lying there, cryin out,
dying for it. Pissed of course.
Of course, nice girls don’t.
Don’t know who she was,
where from, didn’t care.
Nor did she. Slut. Slut.
Now I look after myself. Fit.
Keep myself fit. Got
a good body. Good body. Slim.
Go to the gym. Keep in trim.
Girls like a man wiv a good body.
Strong arms, tight arse. Right
tart she was. Slut. Pissed.
Now I don’t drink. No fear.
Like to keep a clear
head. Keep ahead. Like
I said, like to know what I’m doin
who I’m screwin (excuse language).
Not like her. Baggage. Half-
dressed, couldn’t-care-less. Pissed.
Crawlin round beggin for it.
Lying there, dyin for it.
Cryin. Cryin. Nice girls don’t.
Right one she was. A raver.
At night, after dark,
on her own, in the park?
Well, do me a favour.
And tell me this:
If she didn’t enjoy it,
why didn’t she scream?
Fart
He was lyin there, so I… er
Stabbed him. Just the once.
In the stomach. Crashed out
on the sofa he was. After the pub.
He wasn’t asleep. Some nights
he’d pass out but most nights he’d pretend.
Lie there he would, eyes closed.
Burp. Fart, like I wasn’t there.
Eggin me on to say somethin.
And if I did. If ever I did,
you know, say what I thought
He’d be up in a flash.
Because that’s what he wanted
Me to say somethin. Lose my temper.
I’d goaded him, you see. Asked for it.
‘You asked for it,’ he’d say
Afterwards, in bed, me, sobbin.
A fresh bruise on an old swellin.
Not on the face. He never hit me
on the face. Too calculatin.
Always the body. Stomach, kidneys
He used to be one of you, see.
He knew where to hit.
Cold. Always, in control.
But tonight, I took control.
Picked up the breadknife.
He was gettin ready to let one go
I could see that.
The veins in his neck standin out
Throbbin. White against the purple.
Eyes behind closed lids, flickerin
Waitin to jump out on me.
So I… er stabbed him. Just the once.
He farted and screamed at the same time.
I know that sounds funny, but it wasn’t
Not at the time. Not with the blood.
He rolled off of the sofa
Hunched on his knees, holdin the knife.
Not trying to pull it out
Just holdin it. Like keepin it in.
Then he keeled over and that was that.
I put my coat on and came down here
And what I want to know is…
What’s goin to happen to the kids?
End of Story
Sometimes I wish I was back in Nicosia
smoking the wacky-backy with the lads
and watching Sandy getting tarted up.
Night on the town. Blood on the streets.
Razor-blades stitched into the lapels
of his crushed-velvet tartan jacket.
Headcase but funny with it. Not like Fitzy.
Now we’re talking nasty bastards.
Four brothers and half a brain between them.
He only knew three questions:
Who are you lookin at? What did you say?
Are you takin the piss?
Simple questions that no one ever got right
because only Fitzy knew the answers:
(a) Beerglass (b) Boot (c) Head-butt.
Put on more charges than the Light Brigade.
Next thing, he marries a local girl.
Maria Somethingopolis. Big name. Big family.
It won’t last long, we said. And it didn’t.
Took three of them, though. Stabbed him
in the back of a car, then set fire to it.
Cyprus One, England Nil. Mainly, though,
I remember the good times. Sound mates,
cheap bevvy. Moonlight on the Med. End of story.
No Surprises
He wakes when the sun rises
Gets up Exercises
Breakfasts with one whom he despises
Chooses one of his disguises
and his gun Fires his
first bullet It paralyses
Drives into town Terrorizes
Armed police in visors
materialize His demise is
swift No surprises.
Six Shooters
1
You ar
e his repartee.
His last word on the subject.
After each row
he storms upstairs
and takes you out of
the dressingtable drawer.
He points you
at the bedroom door
and waits for her
to dare one final taunt.
‘Come on up,’ you croon.
‘Come on up.’
2
She brazens it out.
Denies. Tries
to cover up
in a negligee of lies.
You, the lead hyphen
in between.
Infiltrator.
He loves her still
but she gone done him wrong.
You burst into song.
In a flash, all is forgiven.
3
Went through a war together
never left his side.
Back home, though illicit,
still his pride.
4 a.m. in the den now.
The note written. Suicide.
You don’t care who
you kill do you?
With whom you fellate
Into whose mouth
you hurl abuse,
whose brains you gurgitate.
4
After the outlaw
has bitten the dust
(Never again to rise)
The sheriff
takes you for a spin
round his finger
then blows the smoke
from your eyes.
5
You rarely get the blame.
Always the man
behind the hand
that holds you
Always the finger
in front of the trigger
you squeeze.
You rarely get the blame.
Always the fool
who thinks that you’re
the answer
Always the tool
who does just as
you please.
6
oiled
and snug
in a
moist
holster
six
deadly pearls
in a
gross
oyster
Greek Tragedy
Approaching midnight and the mezze unfinished
we linger over Greek coffee and consider
calling for the bill, when suddenly the door
bangs open, and out of the neon-starry sky
falls a dazed giant. He stumbles in
and pinballs his way between the tables
nicking ringlets of deep-fried calamari en route.
Nikos appears from the kitchen, nervous but soothing.
‘Double moussaka,’ grunts the giant,
‘and two bottles of that retsina muck.’
He gazes around the taverna, now freeze-framed.
No tables are empty, but none are full.
You could have broken bits off the silence
and dipped them into your taramasalata.
Then he sees me. I turn to a rubberplant
in the far corner and try to catch its eye,
‘Excuse me, can I have the bill, please?’
He staggers over and sits down. The chair groans
and the table shudders. ‘I know you, don’t I?’
he says. ‘ “Lily the Pink” an’ all that crap.
‘Give us yer autograph. It’s not for me,
it’s for me nephew. Stick it on this.’
I sign the crumpled napkin as if it were
the Magna Carta and hand it back.
Then to my girlfriend I say overcheerfully,
‘Time we were off, love.’ While peering
at the napkin as if I’d blown my nose into it
he threatens: ‘Youse are not goin’ nowhere.’
On cue, a plate of cheesy mince and two bottles
appear. Flicking our hands from the top of the glasses
he refills them and looks at me hard. Very hard.
‘D’ye know who I am?’ (I do, but pretend I don’t.)
‘Eddie Mason. Call me Eddie.’ ‘Cheers, Eddie.’
‘D’ye know what I do?’ (I do, but pretend I don’t.)
‘I’m a villain. Livin’ on the edge. Bit like you,
Know what I mean?’ (I don’t, but pretend I do.)
‘I’m in the people business like yourself.’
Lest I am a doubting Thomas, he grabs my hand
and shoves a finger into a dent in his skull.
‘Pickaxe. And feel tha’… and tha’… and tha’.’
Brick, hammer, knife, screwdriver, baseball bat.
He takes me on a guided tour of his scalp.
A map of clubs and pubs, doorways and dives.
Of scores settled and wounds not yet healed.
What he couldn’t show me were the two holes
above the left eye, where the bullets went in
a fortnight later. Shot dead in the back of a cab
by the father of a guy whose legs he’d smashed
with an iron bar. He hardly touched
his moussaka, but he ordered more wine.
And it goes without saying, that he shredded
the napkin, and left without paying.
The Terrible Outside
The bus I often took as a boy to visit an aunt
went past it. From the top deck I would look
beyond the wall for signs of life: a rooftop protest,
a banner hung from cell windows. I would picture
the escape. Two men sliding down the rope
and legging it up Walton Vale. Maybe hijacking
the bus and holding us hostage. But I’d talk them
round. Share my sweets and pay their fares.
Years later I am invited there to run a poetry
workshop. An escapism easily contained.
And as I check in and pass through security,
and as door after door clangs open and shut,
I imagine that I am a prisoner. ‘But I’m innocent,
I tell you. I was framed.’ It’s no use protesting,
take the old lag’s advice, just keep your head down
and get on with it. The three hours will soon pass.
A class of eighteen. All lifers in their early twenties,
most with tattoos, childishly scratched and inked in.
Nervous, I remove my raincoat and shake my
umbrella. ‘It’s terrible outside,’ I say. Then panic.
‘I mean, compared to life inside it’s not terrible…
It’s good. It was the weather I was talking about.
Outside, it’s really bad. But not as bad as in here,
of course. Being locked up… it must be terrible.’
They look at me blankly, wondering perhaps
if that was my first poem and not thinking much of it.
We talk. I read my stuff and they read theirs.
I answer questions (about fashion and music).
The questions I want to ask I can’t. ‘Hands up
those who killed their fathers? Hands up
those who killed more than once? Hands up…’
But those hands are clean, those faces bright.
Any one of them I’d trust with my life.
Or would I? Time’s up and the door clangs open.
They all gather round and insist on shaking my hand.
A hand that touches women, that lifts pints, a hand
that counts money, that buttons up brand-new shirts.
A hand that shakes the hand of the Governor,
that raises an umbrella and waves down a cab.
A hand that trembles and clenches and pushes
itself deep into a raincoat pocket. A hand
that is glad to be part of the terrible outside.
The End of Summer
It is the end of summer
The end of
day and cool,
As children, holiday-sated,
Idle happily home from school.
Dusk is slow to gather
The pavements still are bright,
It is the end of summer
And a bag of dynamite
Is pushed behind the counter
Of a department store, and soon
A trembling hand will put an end
To an English afternoon.
The sun on rooftops gleaming
Underlines the need to kill,
It is the end of summer
And all is cool, and still.
A Brown Paper Carrierbag
IN THE TIME…
a spider’s web woven across
the plateglass window shivers snaps
and sends a shimmering haze of lethal stars
across the crowded restaurant
IN THE TIME IT TAKES…
jigsaw pieces of shrapnel
glide gently towards children
tucking in to the warm flesh
a terrible hunger sated
IN THE TIME IT TAKES TO PUT DOWN…
on the pavement
people come apart slowly
at first
only the dead not screaming
IN THE TIME IT TAKES TO PUT DOWN
A BROWN PAPER CARRIERBAG.
The Identification
So you think it’s Stephen?
Then I’d best make sure
Be on the safe side as it were.