his phone rings
she says why don’t you answer it
he says it hasn’t said
anything yet     ..

I want to hear your voice
above all else, so shout, my
love, shout my love !

the records were mono
and the tv black and white

and we used to think that
tomorrow would turn out to be alright

but something went wrong

flicking his ash on the floor, fairly
certain
that nobody saw

and the more that he flicked, the more
he was gripped
by the urge to flick a bit more     ..

is the mousetrap still running
at the theatre, is there a donkey sanctuary
in st pauls
is there still the thames, the thames!
is this then how poetry
goes

chap in the pub says
are you going on anywhere after?
I don’t know

turns out he wasn’t talking about death
but a party he’d heard about

cue embarrassed laughter

they wore trilbys and overcoats
smoked all the time
and always voted labour
it was nineteen sixty nine

they were children in the second world war
they were my uncles
in woolwich south east london by then
in their thirties

they were worn, tired, always smiling,
great blokes

stevie smith was the
greatest poet of her
age, but what’s her
age got to do with it

wanted
to cry
but there’s people looking

worse off
than I

your dress
like waterfalls

young men fail to
notice the old bloke in the café
reading his paper
too busy with their phones
you can’t hide behind them
he says

a small bird sings
in the wind in the
trees in the wind
a small bird sings

the politics of brown sauce
on chips away at you
with a knife in your pocket
your pocket bleeds red

alas
a loss
unless
undressed
the poor old
chap was loved
I guess
her curls
in swirls
around his chest       ..

the angry knocking
and the insistence
I open the door

couldn’t help wondering
what was behind it

she’s always saying that I live
in the past
well yes, it is the only place I’ve lived
apart from now  ..

sitting in the pub
thinking of my wife at
home half past
four in the afternoon

you dislike
refugees in this country
is full of
****** racists       ..

old bloke in the pub
says you can’t throw me out
for topping up my glass of

whisky from my hip flask
how do you know
what’s in my hip flask     ..

it’s here
your
underwear
you left
it     ..

sitting at a pavement table
   of a turkish café
  near the gare de l’est

feel myself hunch
  like a dishevelled pigeon
over lunch, the waiter

asks for our order,
     naturally in french
and I ask “parlez vous anglais?”

     he enquires if we’re dutch,
               or quite possibly deutsch    ..
guess it doesn’t matter much

a girl in slacks
a cigarette
agape

a grape
aggrieved
relieved

and yet     ..

it either flows
or it don’t
and if it don’t
it ain’t going anywhere

as I get older people
get fewer and fewer

he said he loved the anonymity of the
city
she said on the other hand it would be
quite nice
to know where we actually are

been together
for

so long

she says
I’m off   ..

caned

come here,

boy

hold out your hand

I’ll teach you to smoke!

don’t show fear

ful of

flinching

in front of the class

don’t choke

don’t let ‘em see you

clenching

your ****    ..

act like a man!

they remained silent
over dinner, the gravy especially was
best not mentioned again

she said she needed to be
free
he said from what
she said from now on    ..











l

turned up at her door
     with a bottle of gin
  so what is that for ?
oh, it’s just a way in ..

most people around here
take democracy for
granted they vote for the fascist  ..

when
she
leaves
fall

café society meant
a bit of a natter
over a cup of tea -
we’re not french

my wife has done wonders with
the garden
it looks more beautiful than ever
just by her being there

people find me cold,
which is also
how they leave me

a sunday roast
washed down with a pint
got back on the coach
and belched.
what more do you want     ..

as chaucer’s pilgrims passed through south
east london into kent I like to think
they’d have passed close to our house but then
they told such tales       ..

called the waiter over
for the bill
he said what about coffee
I said thanks
but I don’t even know you     ..

often said wordsworth’s
poems deteriorated the
older he became perhaps
just like the rest of us

when I was a kid I got a sixpence
a week for
pocket money, plus the beano
every
saturday
and then, suddenly, they
brought in decimalisation
and a sixpence no longer existed,
and I’ve worried about
money
ever since   ..

used to hit the keys
on that old type writer
until it eventually gave in
and said what I wanted

feel unsteady, seems windier than
it used to be -
don’t know if it’s a climate change thing,
or just me

remember when your foot sank in
the mud and you lost your
shoe and I laughed and you never
forgave me? alright, I’m sorry   ..

let’s do lunch tomorrow
not sure if I can make it
I’m not asking you to cook

I’m going away
for a while he
thought she’d
be ok about it  ..

rather write detective fiction
than poetry but I wouldn’t
be any good at it, and what’s
the difference? she says

the pub at lunchtime
is quiet, he says,
I’m eating

the evening air is ripe and falls
to the ground and floats on the thames

you sip lager alone by the
open door and watch the harvest

at the bar and on the tables
fruitful words are piling their aims

into neighbouring laps and wait
to be watered with compliments

the kings road ripples unnoticed
you’ve not been picked by mistake? arms,

hands out, you pull the tide forward
and drink its juice without asking

                     …  

you drift through a wood of tourists
the blue tint in your hair the sky

penetrating through their branches
to the undergrowth of world’s end

where less than trendy natives drink
without bright clothes to catch the eye,

like petals, of the tourist bee
and so are never seen or picked

as all the punks and poseurs are
but simply hang around to die

an unromantic winos’ death
in winter when the migrants leave     ..

asked the bloke in the
market
where his apples were from
he said trees
said I just wanted to
know if they’re local
he said
they’re trees, mate
they tend
not to travel

ate our sandwiches sitting
on the steps leading up to
the art gallery
it’s a matter of taste, she says