1

MEETING MR LYONS 3

UNION POSITIONS 5

MAGNETIC SOUP WAGON 7

RE:WOUNDS 9

EQUILIBRIUM 10

RING CYCLE 10

PAST TENSE 11

THE GLUE OF ALL THIS BRILLIANCE 12

THE ORACLE OF MY WEAKNESSES 13

GLASS 15

GOOD 16

SLEEPER 17

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED, LOVE? 19

THE LAST MOHICAN 20

GOD AND OLD NICK 21

EGYPTIANS 22

JAYNE SAYS 'GOOD MORNING' 23

GLOBES IN BOOKSHOPS 24

TOUR GUIDES 25

THERE WAS THIS MAN 27

CHRISSY 28

FAITH OF OUR FATHERS 30

SEEING THE BUSKER SET UP 31

INTERNAL COMBUSTION 32

THE THUG APOSTLE 33

WHEN THERE'S NO TIME TO BE ANYTHING B

ALONE 34

THE NURSE'S DREAM OF FLOWERSHOPS 35

THE NEWLY PROMOTED 36

TURKEY 37

MUSCLING OUR TENSES 39

2-D CUCKOLDS IN TV SOAPS 40

RONNIE AND RACHEL 41

WHEN YOU SAIL RIGHT UP TO A LIGHTHOUSE TO

ALWAYS END UP ON THE ROCKS 42

NEVER A GOOD TIME 43

BOOKS 44

2

MEETING MR LYONS

To begin with,

meeting Mr. Lyons

a decade after a decade

at St. Joseph's

Was a magical accident,

happening as it did

in an art gallery

framed by real coffee smells.

Words smelled too

and tasted and rang

and bruised and sparkled

in his classroom.

Language loved life

and I loved language.

Mr. Lyons cooked

the books over this flame.

Ten years on

he nodded the nod

of no name remembered

offering a hand.

He made a stab

at a contemporary

and accepted my

correction with no pretence.

3

That question came

to be answered by my

being a tour guide

in a TV theme park.

This monument to

ten years after the

written and spoken

won a readable silence.

This art gallery

accident was the

only time I ever saw

Mr. Lyons lost for words.

So I decided then

to write these ones

for him and afterwards

a million more for me.

4

UNION POSITIONS

The Chair

Is furnished with

the Facts.

The Shop Steward

Stews appeals.

The Treasurer

Has nothing to do with trees

- that would be the Branch Secretary -

But is surer of the treasure

Than The

Equality Officer.

Who, all things being equal,

Is redundant -

Usually a very bad thing.

The Publicity Officer

Lets everyone know

What pubs to meet in.

These are union positions.

So is fighting discrimination.

That's a union position.

And

Campaigning for a minimum wage.

That's another union position.

5

But these

Aren't filled with people

They're filled with

PASSION

And

BELIEF.

Which is why politics

Isn't boring

And why

People with no passion

Look down on unions.

6

MAGNETIC SOUP WAGON

Perhaps a fumbling shuffle

this promised shift to spirit.

A mistrustful nodding from

those who never made it to the party.

A reassurance like a magnetic

soup wagon among

A dereliction of bricks may

tease us from the cardboard night.

Light may come through a

proliferation of windows in

Ringbound schedules. Genuine

prayer mats flattened on floors,

Taken from walls, purchased

on tours of commerce. A piety

Attack like the reinvention

of running by joggers.

From us our atomic attachments

may be beaten by vanguards

Running ahead of tanks

with sticks and ideas.

We may sniff a gush of something

in the rush of heat round a petrol bomb.

Or reap a gift from the

cracked head of a hero.

7

Throw together a new vocabulary

tall as minaret and recharge

Our icons to topple tired economics.

Pick at the bones of old faith.

Strive for voice by unmuting

the still good of the past.

Will we slaughter the Sacred Dow ?

Will we choose Rome? Or

Stonehenge?

Then again some northern kids

may keep it safe from the magpies

Until we remember ourselves once more

And vow to stay awake this time.

Or, perhaps, it will be parcelled

in the fracture of promise.

Coded in the cold fear that for us

it may not come at all.

8

RE:WOUNDS

My tape recorder has betrayed me.

Played my music to you

But Judasly recorded

Bits of our Being Together Times

Without me noticing.

Now when I play PLAY

Each note carries your perfume.

Each beat is your pulse.

Between bars I hear

Our big time small talk.

Your ambitions.

My options.

You are in every song now.

No cassette is unpolluted.

Orchestras of you.

You B40

You 2.

You in jazz.

Choirs of

YOU

YOU

YOU

In MY music.

When I ask my Iscariot cassette for a tune

Without pausing it

Replies with replays

Of the love I once believed in.

The sort you can't erase.

9

EQUILIBRIUM

I have regained my equilibrium

And buried you in the symmetry.

RING CYCLE

Just phone.

That's all.

Call.

Ring to say you're not ringing tonight.

That's all right.

Just phone.

10

PAST TENSE

An act of violence

Like the killing of a bull

Was the pulling away of the coach

Into the blood red afternoon.

Separation.

Lethal as ETA,

Inevitable as crying and

The falling leaves of autumn.

Then,

Civil War.

Right Wing Reason and Fascist Foresight

Crushing what was left.

Your 'Dear Juan'

Sounded like a guitar string

Resounding for months.

My passion flailed like a windmill's sails

And I tilted at nothing for ages.

11

THE GLUE OF ALL THIS BRILLIANCE

She projects impulsiveness

Having seen Betty Blue

And forgetting the gore of insanity.

Embalmed childhood serves

As a symbol of spirit.

She lives for the moment.

The cause and effect

Of today and tomorrow

Are unconnected as

Are lovers from the

Bureaucratic tedium of

Committed emotion.

Her complications are

Wallpaper to bounce

Her jazz off.

Her high-handedness

Too often

Clenched into a fist.

Addicted to beginnings

She fads out her life

With found to be lost causes

And alone stands kindness

The unapplied glue

Of all this brilliance.

12

THE ORACLE OF MY WEAKNESSES

I ate herbs for you

And became

A man for all your seasonings.

You showed me

How a fiery temper

Could sometimes give light.

You shared that feeling of

Godlessness

And cried with me.

You're my best friend.

You know me inside

Out, creased, ironed, clean

And drunk.

You are the

Oracle of my weaknesses.

Knowing where I'm ticklish,

Fickle and vain.

Baby-bio when I wilt,

Pot-turner when I lean too far.

Prudent shears when my ego outgrows.

One word between us can be

A conference, a confidence,

A call for help or a joke.

You toss stones ahead of me

Into tempting groves and

Reveal minefields in intended intimacies.

13

I feel at home with you.

Not armchaired and slippered

But spacious and free.

I always have

Time

with you

Truth is oxygen to you.

Not the optional air-freshener

I've encountered with others.

Old Masters visit your conversations

And your sketch pads bulge

With the pencil muscles of

Shaded life drawn limbs.

You're strong.

You reject fictional barricades.

Yet a careless word or world can

Leave you nursing a

Perfect vulnerability.

14

GLASS

It was confusing -

Like breaking

One side of piece of glass.

A bad

5

Minutes.

Then she smiled.

A spark in the dark.

And we held on

To each other

Like a good idea.

15

GOOD

Your mother's outstretched arm

Was a weather vane

And your love the breeze.

'Over there is Dad's old farm,'

You move the hand again,

'And there is Ignacio's vegetable field.'

Hundreds of metres below us

The Babel of bathers sunglassed

And tanning. Facing the sky.

'Can we see the sea from here?’

'Yes, mum.'

'Good'

16

SLEEPER

She was asleep opposite me on

The Train That Stops At All Stations.

She snuggled herself awake,

Yawned and stretched

Then noticed me

With a lazy smile.

Perhaps a little embarrassed.

Her eyes were Wedgwood blue.

Her face oval.

Old Masters would have

Fought for my seat.

We chatted a while.

She was studying for a Ph.D.

I used to be a student.

Then we drifted into silence.

I read my newspaper

She let the green streaks

In the window and the

Rhythm of the carriage rock

Her back to sleep.

I imagined leaving

A note by her side

When I got off.

17

'You have the

Most beautiful eyes

I have ever seen.'

Cowardice in the face of

Her waking froze me

In my tracks.

I wish I had though.

Just once stopped

To let an impulse disembark

Instead of hurtling past

To other,

Maybe dreamed of,

Destinations.

18

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED, LOVE?

What is this thing called, love?

This grey sea

This crazy field of touchlessness?

This thing of beauty?

Ajar for ever?

You drop galaxies of distance

Into everyday conversation

Like a veteran astronaut.

The Milky Way is punctuation to you

And my friends call me 'Saturn'

Such are the number of rings

You run around me.

What is this thing called, love?

This grey sea

This crazy field of touchlessness?

This thing of beauty?

Its loveliness in creases?

19

THE LAST MOHICAN

The last Mohican

I met had a mat of

Crow's nest hair

Interthreaded with

Woolen strands

Bright as feathers.

'Thank you for stopping.'

Reservation in her voice

As the shopping non-stoppers

Stampeded by.

We enacted the ritual

Called 'Giving to the Poor'

'No-one stops anymore.'

She sat down on some steps

To suffers the bows and arrows

Of disgraceful disinterest.

Toting for some kind

Of change outside the market.

20

GOD AND OLD NICK

God strolled the cosmos

Bouncing a moon up and down,

Whistling a tune up and down.

Off his shoulder brushed a boulder,

An older planet, and sat on some

Sublunary sphere, thinking.

Old Nick picking his way

Through the Milky one stopped by,

All feather and leather and sulphur.

God looked at Nick

Saw stars mirrored in his pupils

And purple and bright was the night

Nick flew into.

Spinning a moon on a finger

He lingered and looked and

God strolled on through the cosmos.

21

EGYPTIANS

What are you waiting for?

This is it.

That shadow.

This voice in your head.

That car outside.

This evening.

The land mine of the day you die

Is already laid so you might as

well go

FiGhTiNg down the road as

dancing As well

dancing as

FiGhTiNg Or

Buy bricks to

Build rooms to die in.

We are little Egyptians

Weighing our souls against

Mortgages. See them balanced.

If you like.

If you can.

22

JAYNE SAYS 'GOOD MORNING'

Windows razor blades

icy and all steely ones

As a blind string pulls.

A jack-in-the-kettle

lid springer laughing one

Thwarts my alarm cup.

Bus stop barrel stops

nicotined and tinny one

Carting the horses.

Punch my duty card

thin as holy wafer one

Say ‘Here is my body'

Jayne says 'Good Morning'

bright one and everything

Falls into nearly place.

23

GLOBES IN BOOKSHOPS

When I see

Globes in bookshops

Fixed north and south

In the hooks of ?s

I long for

One good kick at the Pacific Ocean

Or a fingertip on Brazil

To save the world

In a penalty shoot-out

24

TOUR GUIDES

We do this for money.

This cheap lie is a pool,

A source of fuel.

Something to throw at the rent man.

Oases gather strange bed fellows.

Dancers, dunces and brides-to-be.

Centripetal from the compass' heart we'd fly

If this grand nothing giving ran dry.

Professionally un-American

We sleep talk hollow tours.

Break thirsty kids

If the PR is anything to go by.

Gobi throated dole avoiders more like.

A heart attack may touch us.

Children no longer do

And the old are christened 'crumblies'

Derided for being parched of youth

And cynicism.

This lay-by,

This sham

Is showered off nightly and at weekends

With galleries, concerts and things

We need to call 'valuable'.

Our hopes hand on pin money.

Hamish wants to bury the mortgage,

Claire wants to be model

Brian, who once believed all this

Wants out.

We take tours bored.

25

Grit our toothy smiles,

Tourism's draculas,

Leeching a corporate corpse

With uniform numbness.

We do this for money.

26

THERE WAS THIS MAN

'There was this man ...'

Uncle Louis always began his stories with

'There was this man ...'

Weary from the farm,

Stodge fed by a peat fire

He'd met tale worthy men all his life.

'There was this man ...'

A challenge not to lean forward.

A daybreak of an introduction.

Uncle Louis died quickly.

He did not linger.

He just died in his wife's arms.

He knew how to start stories

Did Uncle Louis.

And how to end them.

27

CHRISSY

Chrissy is a dancer

In everyone's eyes.

Memories of sequinned high-kicks

In cruise cabarets

Glitter her conversations.

Mondays are the ghetto

Blasted burns nights

Of her aerobics class.

But for me

She plays the guitar.

As if to remember

At work one day

She picked up my guitar

And some soft arpeggios

Strummed.

The ballet of finger and string

Reflected the barre-chords

Not the barre

She worked at when younger.

Unlike dancers guitarists

Practice alone when learning.

28

It's this

Solitude

I see in Chrissy.

The lonely choreography

Of music.

Not the noisy

Orchestration

Of chorus lines.

29

FAITH OF OUR FATHERS

My Dad's Jesus held

a sword in his holy hands.

Behind it the faithful of Tunstall

marshalled their One True Belief

Hatted parishioners whose shoes

crackled on the pavement

met the Nazarene like clockwork

and he smelled of roast beef.

They jostled for sacristy

duties to earn an old priest's

blessing. Genuflections

grew to arthritic stoops.

Then singly or coupled

the Catholic locals lay

mid-aisle. Hosting masses

for pews of singing kin.

My Dad's Jesus held

a sway over the Potters

whose children never knew

a sword or gun or Roman.

30

SEEING THE BUSKER SET UP

How many of us

see the busker set up?

Or hearing the music

think where it comes from?

We hear reflections

of notes on tube station

Tiles and believe the

walls are singing to us.

Because we have never

heard them silent.

Because the busker

is always there.

As if his song

is the only song.

As if we can't

make up our own tunes.

31

INTERNAL COMBUSTION

CSE Physics

Was all about

The Motor Car.

Only our school

Did not have

The Motor Car.

We had The

Diagrams in

The Book.

The 4 Stroke engine

Was demystified

In one stroke

Of a pencil.

But I never learned

The oiliness of oil.

It took a breakdown

In later life

To learn

That, while theories

Go a long way,

They don't get you anywhere.

It was

An

Education.

32

THE THUG APOSTLE

Bawling God's love like a threat

At the top of his voice,

He stood surrounded by a

Small curious crowd

Near the Peace Gardens.

Tall and bearded,

More centurion than martyr,

His witness press-ganged

Passers-By to be

Stoppers And Watchers.

Offering the King of King's shilling

He claimed the mark of the Beast

Was in supermarket bar codes

And that Satan was shopping for souls

In Manchester that very afternoon.

A beggar, enjoying the spectacle,

Heckled and laughed.

Like a lion the Christian roared

'IN THE NAME OF CHRIST BE SILENT!'

The poor man shrank back

In a baptism of fear.

Turning to the assembly

The thug apostle continued

'Beware of false prophets,

By their fruits shall ye know them ...'

33

WHEN THERE'S NO TIME TO BE ANYTHING BUT ALONE

When there's no time

To be anything

But alone.

And solitude demands

Your most urgent attention.

There is

Sometimes a

Pause.

A heartbeaten breath of tranquillity.

A pulse of calm.

The drop of a summer rain tear from a

leaf.

The last lazy fidget before a deep sleep.

Unexpected it comes.

Like a little laugh.

Gently.

From inside.

34

THE NURSE'S DREAM OF FLOWERSHOPS

On overfilled wards she wards off ills.

Pills and painted corridors,

Peeling and drab, flatten her hours.

From 4B's windows she sees the shop

Selling bunches and bouquets to visitors.

At the sink with vases she'll undress the blooms,

Binning the wrapping and return with the lie

'I'm no good at arranging. I'll leave that to you.'

Family semi-circles will smile gratefully at

The pre-op, post-op, no-stop nurse who has

No time for flowers.

But in some hospitable corner of her rented room

The lazy leaves of a parlour palm finger

Lavender in a wine bottle.

Her flowerbedspread steeps her in a

Wizardry of floristry where

All she could catch without gloves would be

A finger on a rose thorn.

35

THE NEWLY PROMOTED

All the forgotten principles

of the newly promoted

put me in mind of

The Smug Bastard At The Bus Stop

Who, on being asked,

'Is this the end of the queue ?'

Answers

'Not now it's not.'

36

TURKEY

You're all my

Christmasses

Rolled into one -

And I hate Christmas.

You're a dud fuse

Sticking out from

The mutilated stump

Of a cracker.

You're

What made the

Three Wise Men

Leave home.

You're

Boxing Day

In the land

MFI doesn't open on.

You're

Last year's tinsel

On this year's tree.

You're

The My Little Pony

In the manger.

37

You're

The tension

Round the table.

You're

A choking fit

On a sixpence.

You're

A wishbone

With no imagination.

You're

Streamers left up late.

And all the bad luck that follows.

38

MUSCLING OUR TENSES

(Or me and my Spanish girlfriend)

There is more to billing and cooing

Than speaking in pidgin.

Sometimes the words we don't have

Line up like defenders in an International -

Only the most skilled curvature

Of syntax giving us a lead.

Our exchange rate slows

So we adjust like

Astronauts on a Jumbo.

We are lucky.

There is a knack to it.

The accent is on

Not misunderstanding.

39

2-D CUCKOLDS IN TV SOAPS

I cry for the 2-D

Cuckolds in TV soaps,

Splash like a tantrum

In the Sundays and

Launder the nightmares

Daily in stout

When you're not here and

The intruding space between us

Is a half-done crossword,

A day with too many wasps

I favour curries in

Between the missed meals.

Sustain injuries from songs

Of love gone wrong on

The radio or remembered.

Tread acres and acres of aches

When you're not here and

The intruding space between us

Is 24 pictures of you in the sun

On a day full of English rain.

40

RONNIE AND RACHEL

Ronnie and Rachel

Are perfectly matched

Peninsula people

Barely attached.

Limelight eluders

Adrift in the wings.

The binary huddle,

Incongruous twins.

Like a tall priest

Like a short nun -

Of the same calling

But never quite one.

Makers of shadows

Haters of sun

Silent defenders

Of Penumbra One

Ronnie and Rachel

Are perfectly placed

Circumference people

Gemini faced

41

WHEN YOU SAIL RIGHT UP TO A LIGHTHOUSE YOU ALWAYS END UP ON THE ROCKS

The dullness of our days

Sharpens the victories of our nights

And makes simple things seem holy

And random things mean seem meant.

In the same way

You always love the brightest star

In your particular constellation.

And if it's cloudy

You love a foggy light.

Cloudy people

Following

Foggy lights.

That's the danger stranger.

42

NEVER A GOOD TIME

There's never a good time

for shrivellings and shruggings off.

Wet skinned rebirth seldom

glistens in a perfect world.

Giving up smoking,

ending an affair,

Dyings and death itself

come after commas

There’s never a good time,

43

BOOKS

Jayne, who humbles me,

talked of bumps and ate my chips,

Dipped in beans.

'The book gets better,'

- her modelling shots-

'The more you keep at it.'

´Like poems,' I said

she paused and nodded

Her black mop.

I spoke of poems

printed in magazines.

'Yeah,' she said, 'That's success.'

She told of 50 pounds a day

being just a mannequin

Wearing a dress.

'I'll never give up,' she said

to her third glass of water

Taking a drink.

I resolved to fail better.

'When you think,' said Jayne,

‘The book goes on forever.’