Having changed his nappy
I attempted to pick my son from the bed
when I heard the click in my back
and felt the searing pain.
I laid him down gently
lay down beside him, motionless, unable to move.
We remained like that; babies side by side
until I felt movement beside me
and he sat up
then crawled from the bed
then stood for the first time
then walked from the room.
I heard furniture legs scaping in the kitchen
I heard the clatter of utensil on pan
he returned with a tray
and he fed me grey mush
with a plastic spoon from an ABC bowl
played airplanes entering the hanger
wiped my chin with a cloth he had spat on
smiled and coo'd.
Took away the tray
made more clattering noises before
turning on the dishwasher
while humming 'piggy on the railway'.
I heard bathroom noises
and a lavatory flush
then the clat clat clat of the nodding dog
being taken for a walk accross linoleum.
Returning to the room freshly powdered
climbing onto the bed
looking down into my eyes
He then said:
If that is what grown up is Daddy
I'm in no great hurry to get there too fast
so don't you push me too hard and get better
And bend your knees when lifting me up.
I replied;
If this is what growing old is like
I'm in no great hurry to get there too fast
So don't push me too hard and I'll get better
At bending my knees when you are here
He lay down silently beside me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi4Hv7iqZCM
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Romance
She was the most beautiful girl in the clap clinic
The first time I saw her I thought
She has been unlucky
She was the most beautiful girl in the clinic
The second time I saw her
that she had been careless
The most beautiful girl in the clinic
The third time
that she was promiscuous or worse
The girl in the clap clinic.
She was the most beautiful girl in the clap clinic
The fourth time I saw her
she was wearing a white coat
I thought
Stupid me, she is a doctor.
I approached her then and said
Doctor
You are the most beautiful girl in the clap clinic.
She replied:
I’m not a doctor
I’m unlucky
I’m careless
I’m promiscuous or worse.
But I feel that is about to change.
We left the clinic hand in hand
Separated by the thickness of a surgical glove.
Later, much later as we lay
Her head on my chest her hair in my face
the scent of hibiscrub filling the white room.
I said I love you
And she said don’t love me
I am unlucky
I an careless
I am promiscuous or worse
And nothing has changed.
The first time I saw her I thought
She has been unlucky
She was the most beautiful girl in the clinic
The second time I saw her
that she had been careless
The most beautiful girl in the clinic
The third time
that she was promiscuous or worse
The girl in the clap clinic.
She was the most beautiful girl in the clap clinic
The fourth time I saw her
she was wearing a white coat
I thought
Stupid me, she is a doctor.
I approached her then and said
Doctor
You are the most beautiful girl in the clap clinic.
She replied:
I’m not a doctor
I’m unlucky
I’m careless
I’m promiscuous or worse.
But I feel that is about to change.
We left the clinic hand in hand
Separated by the thickness of a surgical glove.
Later, much later as we lay
Her head on my chest her hair in my face
the scent of hibiscrub filling the white room.
I said I love you
And she said don’t love me
I am unlucky
I an careless
I am promiscuous or worse
And nothing has changed.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
SPIT!
Molly and John had been childhood sweethearts
Shared sodas at picnics
in the meadow by the Big Loving
as it snaked easily through the county.
Shared illicit beers beneath the bleachers
when she cut cheerleading and he cut track.
Shared moonlit skinny dips in the same old Big Loving
at the sand bar on the bend
where the turtles basked back in the day.
She had run naked laughing through poison ivy;
he had spat in his hand and rubbed it in the itching places.
Later she did not need the ivy to make the itch,
she had an itch of her own
and he rubbed his spit onto that itch
but that itch never completely went away.
Molly took that itch to New York.
John took his spit to LA.
Molly found music in the cafes at night,
revolution in the air.
‘New York City, imagine that’.
She wrote him - as she itched at a sidewalk café
– in an early westbound letter.
‘Yes I can imagine that’.
He had replied.
But he couldn’t.
So she itched in the city
closed her eyes to the viscous string of men
while he spat on the coast at a succession of starlets
who practiced the Stanislavski itch
tunelessly singing the Hollywood orgasm.
Fast forward…
The two of them came together again,
out of boredom most likely.
Boredom and guilt,
prompted on her part by the metronomic click of the clock,
on his part by the young guns on the boulevard
the fear that he was all spat out.
When they married the orange blossom was already dead.
The children when they arrived
trod the rotting petals into the floorboards
of their Chicago brownstone.
He made money; she spent it.
The American dream.
Molly sat on her itch for twenty years,
took a course in etching early on
never looked back and couldn’t look forward.
Her life etched itself into her face.
She got a part time job
filling condom machines at railway stations.
Twenty years of itching and etching on molly’s part
as she watched john occasionally drool diddle his secretary
(did he buy his condoms at the station?)
was enough.
Molly came to Spain
change of life,
change of continent,
change of tense.
for a week.
John had grudgingly agreed that she could take a vacation,
a break from the shattered life they now shared.
She would visit a friend in Toledo
maybe take in an El Greco or two.
On her last day of work prior to traveling
the itch had slipped a dozen condoms into her purse
then dragged her into Victoria’s Secret on the way home.
The flight was uneventful;
she sat between the two overweight boors
each airline is obliged to provide.
Marta met her at the airport.
The Spanish air crackled.
The bullfight was - to Marta - an odd choice
for an afternoon’s entertainment
but Molly had read Hemingway,
wanted to sit ringside
black beret scarlet lipped
as Eva Gardner had once done.
She had little experience of bloodshed save her own;
but blood in the afternoon held no fear.
Manolo arched his back,
flicked a disdainful cape
at the snorting bull
an ubiquitous sneer at the crowd,
stood in his black slippers
stained with blood and dust
hawked a glistening gob of spit
that sizzled as it hit the sun scorched clay.
The bull died bravely as bulls in such tales do.
The spit dried to a disc of mother of pearl
that shimmered against the blood red earth
as the bulls ear parted unhearing from the head;
arcing it’s way into the stands,
into the lap of Molly.
An unrecognizable Molly.
Molly lost, Molly found. Molly free, Molly bound.
‘Manolo.’
She whispered much later
when the sun had gone down
and the fiesta had dissolved itself
into the barrios and tourist hotels.
‘Manolo.’
I took up the dog eared copy of THE TIN DRUM.
It fell open at the chapter titled ‘fizz powder’
I read to her again of little Oskar
spitting into the navel of Maria.
Molly flew to Boston four days later
made her morning connection to Chicago
.....in good time.
The fire-fighter moved dazed
through the rubble of what had once been the World Trade Centre.
The dust was thick and acrid
he wished he had some kind of mask or respirator.
He hawked and spat into the debris at his feet,
onto a small black slipper.
A slipper stained with blood, dust and tears.
America.
Shared sodas at picnics
in the meadow by the Big Loving
as it snaked easily through the county.
Shared illicit beers beneath the bleachers
when she cut cheerleading and he cut track.
Shared moonlit skinny dips in the same old Big Loving
at the sand bar on the bend
where the turtles basked back in the day.
She had run naked laughing through poison ivy;
he had spat in his hand and rubbed it in the itching places.
Later she did not need the ivy to make the itch,
she had an itch of her own
and he rubbed his spit onto that itch
but that itch never completely went away.
Molly took that itch to New York.
John took his spit to LA.
Molly found music in the cafes at night,
revolution in the air.
‘New York City, imagine that’.
She wrote him - as she itched at a sidewalk café
– in an early westbound letter.
‘Yes I can imagine that’.
He had replied.
But he couldn’t.
So she itched in the city
closed her eyes to the viscous string of men
while he spat on the coast at a succession of starlets
who practiced the Stanislavski itch
tunelessly singing the Hollywood orgasm.
Fast forward…
The two of them came together again,
out of boredom most likely.
Boredom and guilt,
prompted on her part by the metronomic click of the clock,
on his part by the young guns on the boulevard
the fear that he was all spat out.
When they married the orange blossom was already dead.
The children when they arrived
trod the rotting petals into the floorboards
of their Chicago brownstone.
He made money; she spent it.
The American dream.
Molly sat on her itch for twenty years,
took a course in etching early on
never looked back and couldn’t look forward.
Her life etched itself into her face.
She got a part time job
filling condom machines at railway stations.
Twenty years of itching and etching on molly’s part
as she watched john occasionally drool diddle his secretary
(did he buy his condoms at the station?)
was enough.
Molly came to Spain
change of life,
change of continent,
change of tense.
for a week.
John had grudgingly agreed that she could take a vacation,
a break from the shattered life they now shared.
She would visit a friend in Toledo
maybe take in an El Greco or two.
On her last day of work prior to traveling
the itch had slipped a dozen condoms into her purse
then dragged her into Victoria’s Secret on the way home.
The flight was uneventful;
she sat between the two overweight boors
each airline is obliged to provide.
Marta met her at the airport.
The Spanish air crackled.
The bullfight was - to Marta - an odd choice
for an afternoon’s entertainment
but Molly had read Hemingway,
wanted to sit ringside
black beret scarlet lipped
as Eva Gardner had once done.
She had little experience of bloodshed save her own;
but blood in the afternoon held no fear.
Manolo arched his back,
flicked a disdainful cape
at the snorting bull
an ubiquitous sneer at the crowd,
stood in his black slippers
stained with blood and dust
hawked a glistening gob of spit
that sizzled as it hit the sun scorched clay.
The bull died bravely as bulls in such tales do.
The spit dried to a disc of mother of pearl
that shimmered against the blood red earth
as the bulls ear parted unhearing from the head;
arcing it’s way into the stands,
into the lap of Molly.
An unrecognizable Molly.
Molly lost, Molly found. Molly free, Molly bound.
‘Manolo.’
She whispered much later
when the sun had gone down
and the fiesta had dissolved itself
into the barrios and tourist hotels.
‘Manolo.’
I took up the dog eared copy of THE TIN DRUM.
It fell open at the chapter titled ‘fizz powder’
I read to her again of little Oskar
spitting into the navel of Maria.
Molly flew to Boston four days later
made her morning connection to Chicago
.....in good time.
The fire-fighter moved dazed
through the rubble of what had once been the World Trade Centre.
The dust was thick and acrid
he wished he had some kind of mask or respirator.
He hawked and spat into the debris at his feet,
onto a small black slipper.
A slipper stained with blood, dust and tears.
America.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
WHY THE MIDDLE CHILD?
When I was a child we had a goat
The goat was called Pumkin
We had a goat called Pumkin because my sister had eczema
And couldn’t have dairy products
One of my jobs was to milk that goat
So my sister could have goats milk
And avoid dairy products
And avoid the humiliation of the betnavate
She is cursed by the memory of betnavate
A storm tormented Shropshire that summer
Lashed about Pumkin’s shed
Thunder boomed, like Nabokov’s dinner gong, bronzily
Lightning lit up my fear
As I attempted to milk that damn goat
How I shudder still at the memory of those distended teats
How Pumkin shuddered with fear and with loathing
At my amateurish tugging of her dugs.
The milk squirting into the timid pail
And I thought why the middle boy
Why me
Surely we could just plug my sister onto those teats
And let her suckle Remus and Romulus like
And I imagine the unknown and unfabled
Older brother of those Italian twins
Who bravely milked the she wolves in their lairs
To feed his baby siblings from a bottle fashioned from bull horn and pigs bladder
And who vanished one night
The night that the twins were weaned from milk to meat
And tasted their first morsel of human flesh.
Flesh tenderized by lupine jaws in a darkly mountainside cave.
Lit occasionally by a flash of lightening and called to dinner
By Nabokov’s dinner gong.
The goat was called Pumkin
We had a goat called Pumkin because my sister had eczema
And couldn’t have dairy products
One of my jobs was to milk that goat
So my sister could have goats milk
And avoid dairy products
And avoid the humiliation of the betnavate
She is cursed by the memory of betnavate
A storm tormented Shropshire that summer
Lashed about Pumkin’s shed
Thunder boomed, like Nabokov’s dinner gong, bronzily
Lightning lit up my fear
As I attempted to milk that damn goat
How I shudder still at the memory of those distended teats
How Pumkin shuddered with fear and with loathing
At my amateurish tugging of her dugs.
The milk squirting into the timid pail
And I thought why the middle boy
Why me
Surely we could just plug my sister onto those teats
And let her suckle Remus and Romulus like
And I imagine the unknown and unfabled
Older brother of those Italian twins
Who bravely milked the she wolves in their lairs
To feed his baby siblings from a bottle fashioned from bull horn and pigs bladder
And who vanished one night
The night that the twins were weaned from milk to meat
And tasted their first morsel of human flesh.
Flesh tenderized by lupine jaws in a darkly mountainside cave.
Lit occasionally by a flash of lightening and called to dinner
By Nabokov’s dinner gong.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Knots in usage.
Rhys was in his sixties when I met him.
He had spent 42 years of his life in prison. He was not bitter towards the law or the police or the government.
He blamed his mother.
She failed to teach me the one thing that would keep me out of prison he told me.
He then proceeded to tell his curious tale.
When I was seventeen. He said. I was sitting on the bridge near our home in Tiger Bay. I was unrealistically fishing in the filthy, polluted river. There were no fish save brown fish. I was killing time.
One of my shoes slipped off; I had not tied the laces. It slipped off and into and under the chemical soup of a river. I took off my other shoe and threw it after the first in dismay. I set out to walk barefoot home.
In the high street was a rack of shoes outside a shoeshop. I surreptitiously took two shoes which appeared to be about my size. I put them on and ran. Sadly the shoes were both designed for a left foot and were two sizes too small and I had not tied the laces.
The police caught me easily in those crippling handicaps. I got four years in borstall for theft.
I blamed my mother.
When I came out of that place I tried my hand at armed robbery; crime seemed the only option, and I had learned a lot from my cell mates.
In the bank that I held up, (armed with my granddads army revolver, no bullets, I’m a pacifist. Or a coward. Or both.), the knot tying my mask came undone and I was exposed to the cameras. I got 18 years for that.
I blamed my mother.
12 years later (good behaviour has it’s rewards) I tried my hand at kidnapping. The ropes I had bound the child with came undone; she escaped and led the police back to my bedsit. I got 20 for that.
I blamed my mother.
In prison that time I attempted to hang myself… the knot came undone. I broke my ankle on the cells concrete floor.
I blamed my mother.
I have gone straight now, I joined the scouts; I am their oldest recruit, they have taught me what mother didn’t all those years ago. They have righted her wrong. They have taught me the one thing that would have kept me out of institutions, the one thing that could have changed my life.
They have taught me to tie my own shoelaces.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
The notting Hill Promise
They primp and preen like birds of paradise
mimic the sounds of endeavour and success
only to lead me to a bower
lined with tinfoil bindles
coloured straws
and bottle tops.
they talk of synopses and story boards
and wish upon a shooting script
sniff and blow into a napkin from e and o or the electric
they talk of diologue in monologue
they talk of accents gravely and acutely
and the real star is always 'ME'.
Their body of work buried under a drift of new blown snow.
A raddled would be rock chick
on hands and knees
in the ladies loo
hoovering up cocaine
from
a piss stained floor remarks:
'I despise you losers who have to work for a living'
as she mentally remortgages
daddies inheritance
to reinvest in her habit
and somewhere nearby
an imaginary cameraman smears
a pound of vaseline
on an already forgiving lens.
In the bars they tell me
'it will never happen
you are one of us
and we never succeed.'
And that woman
somewhere between the Priory and oblivion
quotes Raymond Carver and the things we talk about
when we talk about love
and I misinterpret self interest
for interest
in a real world that for her
no longer exists.
And i gently humiliate myself
through the floorboards of embarrasment
and then despair
and get drunk
and do a line
and join in, start the rotting process
'Material all' I tell myself
in that padded place called denial.
And my life has become nothing more than material
for my obituary.
mimic the sounds of endeavour and success
only to lead me to a bower
lined with tinfoil bindles
coloured straws
and bottle tops.
they talk of synopses and story boards
and wish upon a shooting script
sniff and blow into a napkin from e and o or the electric
they talk of diologue in monologue
they talk of accents gravely and acutely
and the real star is always 'ME'.
Their body of work buried under a drift of new blown snow.
A raddled would be rock chick
on hands and knees
in the ladies loo
hoovering up cocaine
from
a piss stained floor remarks:
'I despise you losers who have to work for a living'
as she mentally remortgages
daddies inheritance
to reinvest in her habit
and somewhere nearby
an imaginary cameraman smears
a pound of vaseline
on an already forgiving lens.
In the bars they tell me
'it will never happen
you are one of us
and we never succeed.'
And that woman
somewhere between the Priory and oblivion
quotes Raymond Carver and the things we talk about
when we talk about love
and I misinterpret self interest
for interest
in a real world that for her
no longer exists.
And i gently humiliate myself
through the floorboards of embarrasment
and then despair
and get drunk
and do a line
and join in, start the rotting process
'Material all' I tell myself
in that padded place called denial.
And my life has become nothing more than material
for my obituary.
After annie Liebovitz
After Annie Leibovitz
On the circle line I said
Let’s go to West Ruislip
Just because we can
And will you marry me?
Probably she said.
I will not ask her again
But just say
Let’s go to West Ruislip
Because we can.
On the circle line I said
Let’s go to West Ruislip
Just because we can
And will you marry me?
Probably she said.
I will not ask her again
But just say
Let’s go to West Ruislip
Because we can.
Portobello Road
Shabby chic houses
The street awash with the dirt and detritus of market
Lost shoppers dither in eddies
Tides of tourists sweep down from the underground culvert.
Under the gaze of the pike like traders eyes.
The steel drums talk in tongues half guessed at.
Shops I’ll never visit yawn
The odour of meat whimpers from the halal butchery
Serried rows of scarves that are my addiction
White tulips any season
Fish stall, fruit stall, household goods and more as
Young girls pan the retro clothing for nuggets of nostalgia
Vexed pleasurers in the shark filled Electric, A distillate of chagrin and shagreen.
Lovers floating down stream in their bubbles of bliss
In cafes women rabbit over their carrot cake
In bars men belligerate over their beers.
The street awash with the dirt and detritus of market
Lost shoppers dither in eddies
Tides of tourists sweep down from the underground culvert.
Under the gaze of the pike like traders eyes.
The steel drums talk in tongues half guessed at.
Shops I’ll never visit yawn
The odour of meat whimpers from the halal butchery
Serried rows of scarves that are my addiction
White tulips any season
Fish stall, fruit stall, household goods and more as
Young girls pan the retro clothing for nuggets of nostalgia
Vexed pleasurers in the shark filled Electric, A distillate of chagrin and shagreen.
Lovers floating down stream in their bubbles of bliss
In cafes women rabbit over their carrot cake
In bars men belligerate over their beers.
Art criticism
If we say it’s art, it’s art
Even if it ain’t
We have no preconceptions
Of canvases and paint
We don’t piss in our urinals
We don’t piss about at all
We’re so rich we don’t do much
In fact we do piss all.
We are the Brit art babies, we are the Britart pack
We only do cocaine now, we’ve given up on smack
We charge such stupid prices when half the world is broke
But we have to find the money to pay for all that coke.
If Jopling says it’s art, it’s art
Serota says hooray
Saatchi counts his money
While he discounts old Man Ray
What once was Dali’s lobster
Or Howard Hodgkin’s verve
Is now lost in a bucket of shit
The cunts have got a nerve.
We are the brit art babies…etc
Paul Simon said is Art in
Knocking on the door
Tracey said without a blink
Art don’t live here anymore
We are property developers
We are proper people now
Why don’t you try the stuckists?
Why don’t you fuck off… Ciao
We are the brit art babies…etc
Even if it ain’t
We have no preconceptions
Of canvases and paint
We don’t piss in our urinals
We don’t piss about at all
We’re so rich we don’t do much
In fact we do piss all.
We are the Brit art babies, we are the Britart pack
We only do cocaine now, we’ve given up on smack
We charge such stupid prices when half the world is broke
But we have to find the money to pay for all that coke.
If Jopling says it’s art, it’s art
Serota says hooray
Saatchi counts his money
While he discounts old Man Ray
What once was Dali’s lobster
Or Howard Hodgkin’s verve
Is now lost in a bucket of shit
The cunts have got a nerve.
We are the brit art babies…etc
Paul Simon said is Art in
Knocking on the door
Tracey said without a blink
Art don’t live here anymore
We are property developers
We are proper people now
Why don’t you try the stuckists?
Why don’t you fuck off… Ciao
We are the brit art babies…etc
Crime scene. For Madelaine McCann.
I know
I have seen pictures of the crime scene.
More wine?
How could they leave the children like that?
It’s so cheap. Yes they are so stylish
And they take their children everywhere, even to restaurants
I like to live like the locals
It’s fish baked in salt!
Mmmm the young ones are gorgeous
But they soon turn to fat
I wear different bikinis on alternate days
Your turn to check on the children
To avoid white lines
Loving them is easy when you are rich
I’m not fond of jelly fish
I don’t like to eat anything without a spine
Are they asleep?
More wine. You bet. I’m pissed.
Yes they are so stylish and they take their children everywhere
We like to live like the locals
They take their children everywhere
And they speak like three languages by the age of six
Help is an international word
Pepper with strawberries how strange
No you go darling I’m talking
Yes only five Euros in the market
Go on darling
More wine. You bet.
Yes they are so stylish and they take…
We feel like we belong
Fit in
Their children every where
That womans sunburn, the one with the kids, how uncouth.
Another bottle
Another bottle
The tennis pro is so hunky
No you go sweetie
I’m on holiday ha ha ha
We don’t have enough sex
Not since the twins
Goats’ cheese?
Amy Winehouse is a mess
Parents fault
More wine
They are so stylish and they take their children
Yes I’ve seen the photos
Everywhere
Of the crime scene
Even to restaurants
You go darling…
Christmas day
Christmas day in the cottage, Duncan was bleeding the toast
Granny was out in the potting shed insulting the family ghost
Mother sat in the kitchen sink basting the turkey with tears
Father was up on the window sill mending the socks with fears
Abby was under the table, the table was under the cat
The cat was under the watchful gaze of a slightly cornered rat
Fifi was high in the basement, weeping a lake of mince pies
The washing machine had gone for a cycle; the knees were hip to the thighs
The vicar arrived with a message from God, the message was coloured in Latin
My brothers and me mixed honey with glee to sweeten the chair that he sat in
The greens had all turned BNP the future had no new queen
The broccoli reeked of purple in a shroud-like pink shagreen
An alligator out in the hallway was weeping crocodile tears
While mopping the family bloodline with the absorbent parts of its ears
Penny was just a baby and did what babies do worst
Alistair alistaired over the shoulder of a pale and frightened nurse
I gave my mother some humbugs I whistled my father some bahs
They gave to me a pedigree and a serious interest in scars
The turkey tasted of ice cream the sprouts brutal as plums
All of us sitting on uncomfortable chairs under uncomfortable bums
The hats were hattily hatting the crackers were there for the crack
After lunch I went upstairs
And filled my veins with smack.
Granny was out in the potting shed insulting the family ghost
Mother sat in the kitchen sink basting the turkey with tears
Father was up on the window sill mending the socks with fears
Abby was under the table, the table was under the cat
The cat was under the watchful gaze of a slightly cornered rat
Fifi was high in the basement, weeping a lake of mince pies
The washing machine had gone for a cycle; the knees were hip to the thighs
The vicar arrived with a message from God, the message was coloured in Latin
My brothers and me mixed honey with glee to sweeten the chair that he sat in
The greens had all turned BNP the future had no new queen
The broccoli reeked of purple in a shroud-like pink shagreen
An alligator out in the hallway was weeping crocodile tears
While mopping the family bloodline with the absorbent parts of its ears
Penny was just a baby and did what babies do worst
Alistair alistaired over the shoulder of a pale and frightened nurse
I gave my mother some humbugs I whistled my father some bahs
They gave to me a pedigree and a serious interest in scars
The turkey tasted of ice cream the sprouts brutal as plums
All of us sitting on uncomfortable chairs under uncomfortable bums
The hats were hattily hatting the crackers were there for the crack
After lunch I went upstairs
And filled my veins with smack.
The fisherman
I’ve been trying to tell the story of the fisherman for years.
It’s a true story.
I know.
I was there.
I’d just got out of rehab, hitched back to my parents house in north Wales; a spooky journey ending in a mad drive in a police van; I had asked in a police station for a cell for the night; they were unable to lock me up but they could take me on a booze fuelled race through the night, Led Zeppelin squirting from the door panels, dropping me at my parent’s house.
Down on the killing floor.
My sister let me in, gave me a sofa for the night, told me to go with the morning sun on my back…
I hitchhiked south vowing to stop only when I reached the sea.
A photographer (I cannot remember his name. I later thanked him by having him do my wedding) gave me the final lift to Dartmouth, took me to a pub.
Introduced me to Pat who offered me a job on the condition that I could row.
I spent the night in a B&B, did a rowing test the following morning with Pat, got the job and got introduced to peter; owner of a Spanish schooner moored in the river, he gave me a berth for 5 pounds a week. I fucked a lot of girls on that bowsprit net.
Okay I’m settled.
This story is about Pat.
Every morning without fail Pat would leave his parents house and walk down to his boat on the quay, cast off, start his motor and look at the sky…and smile.
He would motor (I with him sometimes) the two miles up river to his fishing place. …….turn off the motor and drift into shore. Let the joy begin.
The morning tastes of oysters and samphire.
The water is still; like glass. He uses his oars for the last few yards, sip and plat as they turn the meaty water like spaded sods.
He beaches the boat dumps his motor on the foreshore and sets to work. I or someone like me would hold one end of a net while Pat would row like fuck out into the river trailing the net in a manic lazy arc bringing it back ashore some way downstream.
He drags his end of the net this way and, once met, we pull it in together. A few grey mullet, a sea trout or two but no salmon. Pat looks at the sky and smiles.
A fox quarters the shore. A heron waits. Eddies skitter across the water like war-wounds.
Pat does not under any circumstances want to catch a salmon.
If he catches one today he will naturally want to catch two tomorrow. He will become the victim of ambition (he might as well go up to London) so he is happy to catch none.
A fishing boat steams seaward…
The idiot, he caught one. The biggest fucking salmon you’ve ever seen… He rows back to town, sells his salmon to the fishmonger, goes home, packs his bag and leaves.
Becomes a pirate…another story.
It’s a true story.
I know.
I was there.
I’d just got out of rehab, hitched back to my parents house in north Wales; a spooky journey ending in a mad drive in a police van; I had asked in a police station for a cell for the night; they were unable to lock me up but they could take me on a booze fuelled race through the night, Led Zeppelin squirting from the door panels, dropping me at my parent’s house.
Down on the killing floor.
My sister let me in, gave me a sofa for the night, told me to go with the morning sun on my back…
I hitchhiked south vowing to stop only when I reached the sea.
A photographer (I cannot remember his name. I later thanked him by having him do my wedding) gave me the final lift to Dartmouth, took me to a pub.
Introduced me to Pat who offered me a job on the condition that I could row.
I spent the night in a B&B, did a rowing test the following morning with Pat, got the job and got introduced to peter; owner of a Spanish schooner moored in the river, he gave me a berth for 5 pounds a week. I fucked a lot of girls on that bowsprit net.
Okay I’m settled.
This story is about Pat.
Every morning without fail Pat would leave his parents house and walk down to his boat on the quay, cast off, start his motor and look at the sky…and smile.
He would motor (I with him sometimes) the two miles up river to his fishing place. …….turn off the motor and drift into shore. Let the joy begin.
The morning tastes of oysters and samphire.
The water is still; like glass. He uses his oars for the last few yards, sip and plat as they turn the meaty water like spaded sods.
He beaches the boat dumps his motor on the foreshore and sets to work. I or someone like me would hold one end of a net while Pat would row like fuck out into the river trailing the net in a manic lazy arc bringing it back ashore some way downstream.
He drags his end of the net this way and, once met, we pull it in together. A few grey mullet, a sea trout or two but no salmon. Pat looks at the sky and smiles.
A fox quarters the shore. A heron waits. Eddies skitter across the water like war-wounds.
Pat does not under any circumstances want to catch a salmon.
If he catches one today he will naturally want to catch two tomorrow. He will become the victim of ambition (he might as well go up to London) so he is happy to catch none.
A fishing boat steams seaward…
The idiot, he caught one. The biggest fucking salmon you’ve ever seen… He rows back to town, sells his salmon to the fishmonger, goes home, packs his bag and leaves.
Becomes a pirate…another story.
Stans song
I want to tell you about Charlie.
Diamond geezer Charlie, salt of the earth, my best mate
Do anything for me Charlie. And he did
I thought at first of making this an Haiku but I couldn’t keep it brief enough, not even when I was dying for a piss or writing standing up like Hemingway who always wrote standing up which kept his stuff to the point, terse even… He’d be dying to have a sit down but had to write something first so he kept it short and then he could have his sit down and perhaps stroke the cat that ate avocados in the Cuban sun.
Charlie is doing life now
In a way he gave his life for me
We are all doing life one way or another Charlie would say when I visited him
Except I’m doing it easier than most
The sonnet was another possibility but just that little bit too gay. Know what I mean. Not that I’m not in touch with my feminine side and all that, my inner woman is called Michelle and she is a fucking slut who wouldn’t know a sonnet if you shoved one up her jacksie.
Charlie is doing life for taking a life
I watched him take that life
And while he took it his eyes said:
Here’s your life back Stan
You are free
Free verse seemed apt… Freebird, I loved that song, still do, Lennerd Skynerd what a tragedy eh! Freebird, that’s a cracking oxymoron.
Charlie stabbed my nagging wife
In the heart with the butcher’s knife he called slick.
She was dissing me he said
Stan. Now you are free. He said
He wiped the blade as carefully as Shakespeare might have wiped his favourite quill then drove himself to Paddington green and put his hands up. Give me somewhere to stand and I will carry the weight of your world Stan, he once said... Archimedes was not lost on Charlie. But he often misquoted him.
Diamond geezer Charlie, salt of the earth, my best mate
Do anything for me Charlie…
And he did.
Diamond geezer Charlie, salt of the earth, my best mate
Do anything for me Charlie. And he did
I thought at first of making this an Haiku but I couldn’t keep it brief enough, not even when I was dying for a piss or writing standing up like Hemingway who always wrote standing up which kept his stuff to the point, terse even… He’d be dying to have a sit down but had to write something first so he kept it short and then he could have his sit down and perhaps stroke the cat that ate avocados in the Cuban sun.
Charlie is doing life now
In a way he gave his life for me
We are all doing life one way or another Charlie would say when I visited him
Except I’m doing it easier than most
The sonnet was another possibility but just that little bit too gay. Know what I mean. Not that I’m not in touch with my feminine side and all that, my inner woman is called Michelle and she is a fucking slut who wouldn’t know a sonnet if you shoved one up her jacksie.
Charlie is doing life for taking a life
I watched him take that life
And while he took it his eyes said:
Here’s your life back Stan
You are free
Free verse seemed apt… Freebird, I loved that song, still do, Lennerd Skynerd what a tragedy eh! Freebird, that’s a cracking oxymoron.
Charlie stabbed my nagging wife
In the heart with the butcher’s knife he called slick.
She was dissing me he said
Stan. Now you are free. He said
He wiped the blade as carefully as Shakespeare might have wiped his favourite quill then drove himself to Paddington green and put his hands up. Give me somewhere to stand and I will carry the weight of your world Stan, he once said... Archimedes was not lost on Charlie. But he often misquoted him.
Diamond geezer Charlie, salt of the earth, my best mate
Do anything for me Charlie…
And he did.
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