Sparrow

No perfection in struggled death,
Just the pellet tearing lungs, limbs, sinews
On an earth unforgiving,
And the gaping jaw -

Each shiver a reminder of the frailty of life
And death’s dark hunger
That will eat out raw each last breath.

Who could deliver the bullet who saw that private war ?
Death is no victory, but a bloodied mess.

November 2001

Cider Song

In the black night,
In the overgrown houses,
Old men sing their cider songs
Too tired to know that death sits by:

In the black night,
In the overgrown houses,
The old men sleep fitfully in freezing isolation
As a full moon sucks their breath
Then prods them to hard stone.

Tumour

I was in the room when the tumour was announced,
Though not so much announced as spared,
For breath was not around when that spare sound
Slipped softly into the room and fled:

Fled, for though I saw death all around
And imagined my soul there on that cross for all to see,
No one else had caught that sound
And it died on the still air.

Training Scheme

Lounging around, bored, I take my complaint to a man behind a desk
With a thin moustache and a weedy smile
Who mumbles, looks scared and says all the wrong things -
With ebbing confidence of bringing about change I leave him,
In his tiny room with the crowd of blokes all waiting outside,
Circle the workshop, blue-overalled, hands in pockets,
As a group plays cards, some chat, a few sit like statues.

At last, fed up, I leave, sneak out
And like a child from school truant along the road,
Soaring along on a motorbike with the wind behind my back,
Leaving today’s pointlessness all behind.

Mondayitis

Bad temper, misery, crying:
Half-choked sobs, stifled unhappiness -
Mondayitis, moving house, loneliness in a new city,
There’s not a lot I can do and I don’t -
Bright eyed and fluey you snuggle fully dressed into bed,
Reading, fire fully on, concentrating on the ‘now’,
Perhaps losing yourself
As I dash round in a ball of ‘doing’, half-tensioned,
Driving myself on as I cross out the points on my list -
Mend trousers, write letter, fix lock, make present ….
Funny how the list is nearly always the same length whatever I do.

Hospital Nightmare

Once you talked of dying, and my heart gave a heavy thump
As the blood drained momentarily from my face.

Death, yes, I can bear,
But not the thought of your eyes lonely in the white hell of hospital
As they bludgeon you with superficiality
And strip you of your essence,
Which is warmth, complaining, loving, needing and being needed.

I look down at your sleeping face, feel the heat of your body,
See your eyelids flicker, hear your deep breathing,
And know this is the way I want you to go.

D.I.V.O.R.C.E.

When my Dad left my Mum
They didn’t have a fight.

Not really.

Mum told him to go -
And he went.

Threatened to come back, though,
So she knifed him with her mind.

‘You get out!’ she screamed,
‘It’s D.I.V.O.R.C.E!’

Which it was.

That was a year ago,
And they still love me -
Or so they say.

But I don’t know.

Does love die just like that ?

Will they stop loving me ?

It’s made me look at this world just a little bit sadly.

July 2001

Moth

I watched a moth make ripples in a puddle as it drowned,
And felt aloof, detached, removed,
Stood distant from its suffering
As around, around, around
It thrashed in small tight circles but an inch away from stone,
So near to land and life,
Yet so distant, so alone.