Collected Poems Read online

  What I love about birth

  is the universal surprise, on the dot, everyday

  What I hate about everyday

  is The End, the beginning of eclipses.

  The Bright Side

  Things are so bad

  I am reduced to scraping

  The outside of the barrel.

  And yet, I do not despair.

  In the yard there are many

  Worse off than myself. (Well, four:

  A one-eyed rat

  A three-legged cat

  A corpse and the lavatory door.)

  Worry

  Where would we be without worry?

  It helps keep the brain occupied.

  Doing doesn’t take your mind off things,

  I’ve tried.

  Worry is God’s gift to the nervous.

  Best if kept bottled inside.

  I once knew a man who couldn’t care less.

  He died.

  The Unknown Worrier

  Don’t worry, I’ll do it for you

  I’m a therapist manqué

  Let me be your worry beads

  I’ll tell your cares away

  Should I chance to sit beside you

  In a café or a park

  And a cloud is hanging over

  Groaning, heavy and dark

  You can bet that when it’s time to go

  You’ll have nothing on your mind

  While I sit in the shadow

  Of the cloud you left behind

  Don’t worry, I’ll do it for you

  Relax, I’ll take the strain

  Anxiety is my forte

  I’ve got worry on the brain

  New Brooms

  New brooms sweep clean

  Old brooms can’t be fussed

  New brooms are mad keen

  Old brooms can’t stand dust.

  New brooms are young bulls

  Can’t wait to get their teeth

  Into the kitchen carpet,

  Up the stairs and underneath

  The fridge and the cooker

  Where grease stains won’t dissolve,

  With each problem their bristles

  Stiffening with resolve.

  Old brooms are allergic

  To dust and doggy hair

  Than raise a whirlwind in the lounge

  They would much prefer

  To rearrange the particles

  With a reassuring sweep,

  Then lean against the cupboard wall

  For a long and dreamless sleep.

  ‘Dust is the carpet of the contented’

  The motto of ancient brooms

  And of the folk who sit contentedly

  Waiting, in darkening rooms.

  low jinks

  today

  i will play low jinks,

  be commonplace.

  will merge,

  blend, change

  not one jot.

  be beige, be –

  have, my friend

  will fault me not.

  couching myself

  in low terms

  i will understate.

  today

  i will give the little blue ones a miss,

  and see what happens.

  Passion

  We keep our noses clean, my friend and i,

  do what we’re told.

  Keep profiles soft and low

  as we grow old.

  We take up little space, my friend and i,

  avoid the town.

  Keep our curtains drawn

  our voices down.

  We live an ordered life, my friend and i,

  cause little fuss.

  If only everyone

  could be like us.

  ***

  Screaming now, he screams, my friend, and i

  know what to do.

  Have him put away.

  (Well wouldn’t you?)

  Solarium

  i own a solarium

  and when it’s cold

  i simmer in

  artificial gold

  i keep away

  from mornings grey

  my private sun

  smiles down all day

  i pity those

  whose flesh is white

  as bronzed i sleep

  alone each night

  Dressed for the Occasion

  I have enough jackets and trousers

  Though shirts I may need to replace

  A couple of suits I can oxfam

  As they take up far too much space.

  One overcoat, one jacket, leather,

  One linen suit for summer weather

  Hats of course, and a dressing-gown

  Should last until the blind comes down.

  Getting On

  The husk may crack

  The chalksticks creak

  The brain confused

  The pulse is weak

  But Time is your own, at least

  And that beast, Passion

  No longer screams to be fed.

  Getting Off

  I closed my eyes, held my breath

  and tried to lie quite still

  Refused to believe that death

  applied to me, until

  You may get the vote at eighteen, but you’re born with a price on your head

  blue sierra

  daguerreoscape

  echo echo

  in some moonfilled canyon

  as a rattlesnake

  tosses in its sleep

  Time to move on

  I kick out the fire

  and to the ground put my ear

  He’s still there

  getting nearer year by hear.

  The Bountyhunter

  who knows my price

  closing in.

  White bones gleaming like dice

  high heel boots

  dusty

  as sin

  My Shadow is but a Shadow of Its Former Self

  It was in Kalgoorlie last year, late one afternoon

  the sun scorching my back, when, there at my feet

  not a silhouette of anthracite, not a steam-rollered

  Giacometti, but a gauze veil. A finely pencilled sketch.

  I blamed the tinnies and thought no more about it.

  But this summer, while jogging in Battersea Park,

  I noticed that whenever I sprinted, my shadow fell behind

  and I had to stop and wait for it to catch up.

  I have also noticed that when the sunblock wears off

  so does my shadow. Am I becoming translucent?

  At midnight I play statues on the lawn. The moon

  sees through me, but gives the cat a familiar to play with.

  I fear that summertime when I will keep to the house

  and feel my way around darkened rooms.

  Dozing in armchairs, I will avoid the bedroom, where,

  propped up on pillows and fading, waits my shadow.

  Science, where are you?

  I started smoking young. The Big C

  didn’t scare me. By the time

  I was old enough to get it,

  Science would have found the cure.

  ‘Ad astra per angina’ was the

  family motto, and thrombosis

  an heirloom I didn’t care to inherit.

  But I didn’t worry. By the time

  I was old enough to face it

  St Science would surely have

  slain that particular dragon.

  Suddenly I’m old enough…

  Science, where are you Science?

  What have you been doing

  all these years? Were you playing

  out when you should have been

  doing your homework? Daydreaming

  in class when you should

  have been paying attention?

  Have you been wasting your time

  and worse still, wasting mine?

  When you left school did you

  write scr
ipts for ‘Tomorrow’s World’

  before being seduced by a starlet

  from a soap ad? Lured by the

  bright lights of commercialism

  did you invent screwtop bottles,

  self-adhesive wallpaper, nonstick

  pans, chocolate that melts

  in the mouth not the hands?

  Kingsize fags, tea-leaves in bags

  beers, bras, voracious cars,

  beans, jeans, washing-machines.

  You name it, we buy it.

  The Arts I expected nothing from.

  Good company when they’re sober

  but totally unreliable. But

  Science, I expected more from you.

  A bit dull perhaps, but steady.

  Plodding, but getting there in the end.

  Now the end limps into view

  and where are you? Cultivating

  cosmic pastures new? Biting off

  more Space than you can chew?

  Science you’re needed here, come down

  and stay. I’ve got this funny pain

  and it won’t go awa

  a

  g

  g

  h

  Poem with a Limp

  Woke up this morning with a

  limp.

  Was it from playing

  football

  In my dreams? Arthrite’s first

  arrow?

  Polio? Muscular dystrophy? (A bit of

  each?)

  I staggered around the kitchen spilling

  coffee

  Before hobbling to the bank for

  lire

  For the holiday I knew I would not be

  taking.

  (For Portofino read Stoke

  Mandeville.)

  Confined to a wheelchair for the

  remainder

  Of my short and tragic life.

  Wheeled

  On stage to read my terse, honest

  poems

  Without a trace of bitterness. ‘How

  brave.

  And smiling still, despite the

  pain.’

  Resigned now to a life of quiet

  fortitude

  I plan the nurses’ audition.

  Mid-afternoon

  Sees me in the garden, sunning my

  limp.

  ***

  It feels a little easier now.

  Perhaps a miracle is on its way?

  (Lourdes, w11.)

  By opening-time the cure is complete.

  I rise from my deck-chair:

  ‘Look, everybody, I can walk, I can walk.’

  Right as Rain

  Alan’s had his thingies done. You know, down there.

  Hurt like hell at first but now he’s fine.

  He told us all about it in the bar.

  The whole caboodle lasted half an hour.

  Tied tightly with a sort of rubber twine

  they drop off. Now Alan’s right as rain. You know, down there.

  Eighteen months ago he had a scare.

  Blood in the pan was the ominous sign.

  He told us all about it in the bar.

  Unlike women, men don’t really care

  to talk about illness, it might undermine

  the macho image. Especially when it’s, you know, down there.

  Making jokes about the bottom line

  he gets them in, four lagers, two bitters and a dry white wine.

  Alan’s had this thingies done. You know, down there.

  He told us all about it in the bar.

  Say ‘Ah!’

  It hangs from the ceiling,

  legs swinging. Zip

  unfastening. My little grape.

  Split uvula. Make a wish

  and the palate is cleft.

  Genetically a near miss.

  A hair’s breadth away

  from a hare-lip

  and thpeaking like thith.

  Bits of Me

  When people ask: ‘How are you?’

  I say, ‘Bits of me are fine.’

  And they are. Lots of me I’d take

  anywhere. Be proud to show off.

  But it’s the bits that can’t be seen

  that worry. The boys in the backroom

  who never get introduced.

  The ones with the Latin names

  who grumble about the hours I keep

  and bang on the ceiling

  when I’m enjoying myself. The overseers.

  The smug biders of time.

  Over the years our lifestyles

  have become incompatible.

  We were never really suited

  and now I think they want out.

  One day, on cue, they’ll down tools.

  Then it’s curtains for me. (Washable

  plastic on three sides.) Post-op.

  Pre-med. The bed nearest the door.

  Enter cheerful staff nurse (Irish

  preferably), ‘And how are you today?’

  (I see red.) Famous last words:

  ‘Bits of me are fine.’ On cue, dead.

  The Wrong Beds

  Life is a hospital ward, and the beds we are put in

  are the ones we don’t want to be in.

  We’d get better sooner if put over by the window.

  Or by the radiator, one could suffer easier there.

  At night, the impatient soul dreams of faraway places.

  The Aegean: all marble and light. Where, upon a beach

  as flat as a map, you could bask in the sun like a lizard.

  The Pole: where, bathing in darkness, you could watch

  the sparks from Hell reflected in a sky of ice. The soul

  could be happier anywhere than where it happens to be.

  Anywhere but here. We take our medicine daily,

  nod politely, and grumble occasionally.

  But it is out of our hands. Always the wrong place.

  We didn’t make our beds, but we lie in them.

  The Health Forecast

  Well, it’s been a disappointing day

  in most parts, has it not?

  So, let’s have a look at tomorrow’s charts

  and see what we’ve got.

  Let’s start with the head, where tonight

  a depression centred over the brain

  will lift. Dark clouds move away

  and pain will be widespread but light.

  Exposed areas around the neck and shoulders

  will be cold (if not wearing a vest)

  and there may be dandruff on high ground

  especially in the west.

  Further inland:

  Tomorrow will begin with a terrible thirst.

  Lungs will be cloudy at first,

  in some places for most of the day,

  and that fog in the throat

  simply won’t go away.

  So keep well wrapped up, won’t you?

  For central areas the outlook is fairly bright

  although the liver seems unsettled

  after a heavy night,

  and a belt of high pressure, if worn too tight,

  may cause discomfort.

  Further south it will be mainly dry

  although showers are expected in private parts

  and winds will be high,

  reaching gale force incontinent.

  Some thunder.

  Around midnight, this heavy front

  is expected to move in,

  resulting in cyclonic highs

  in and around the upper thighs.

  Temperatures will rise

  and knees may well seize up in the heat.

  And as for the feet,

  perspiration will be widespread

  resulting in a sweaty bedspread.

  And the outlook for the weak?

  Not as good as for the strong, I’m afraid.

  Goodnight.

  In Vain

  I like liposuction, I’ve had my lipo sucked.


  No flab to grab on my abdomen

  My buttocks neatly tucked.

  Implants in my pectorals, wrinkles all erased

  Nosejob and a hairpiece, both eyes doubleglazed.

  Zits all zapped by laser, cheekbones smashed and reset.

  But sadly, my days are numbered,

  I’m up to my ears…

  Remember how they used to stick out?… in debt.

  (For in brackets here I’ll mention

  A certain glandular extension)

  Penile, in fact, which increased my libido

  Though senile I act like a beast

  And the need, oh the greed,

  Oh those nights of seedless passion!

  Which will doubtless explain

  The cardiovascular pain

  And three-way bypass, alas, in vain.

  Wearing pyjamas designed by Armani

  A perfect body waiting to die.

  Bewigged, butchered and bewildered

  Am I,

  Am I,

  Am I.

  THE ELEMENTS

  Oxygen

  I am the very air

  you breathe

  Your first

  and last

  breath

  I welcomed you

  at birth

  Shall bid

  farewell

  at death

  I am the Kiss of Life

  Its ebb and flow

  With your last gasp

  You will call my name:

  ‘o o o o o o o o’