Category Archives: 1, poem, poetry,

TOLCHOK 79

TOLCHOK 79

got clockworked by a plod
me and my droogs we did
 
just for
kicking a ball around
next to an old bomb site
around the corner
from
  Maine Road
 
behind which, in the distance,
the brutalist concrete Sauron towers
of Moss Side
speak gloomily, epitomize every
class-driven mistake in social planning
  (and now
we know for a contested fact
how easy these
vulgar monoliths have
the capacity
to burn)
 
 and all of us
United fans
the five of us
living in
a tiny
  terraced house
under the shadow
of the floodlights
just a stone’s throw
 
so we were
playing
celebrating
(me getting my Masters
droogs passing
their exams)
 
but then he arrived, breath of
freezing air,
  stripped that street of all its
June sun warmth
instantly
  shunting us once, twice, off
the street,
  threatening with (absurd as it sounds)
jamming the four of us into
his tiny British Leyland plod vehicle

taking us down
  to the cop shop, Star
Chamber, Guantanamo, Devil’s
Island
  to a place beyond the stars, or down
in the basement cold storage locker
of the Overlook Hotel
 
face
  pudgy, near featureless,

 harbinger of whatever V of Vendetta
police state future
  Thatcher revolution
waiting in the wings (waiting for
the killer pass
out on
  the outside right
position)
  back to the
future, no hope
of world cup revisiting
 
so
  fat blue referee in
car far too
small for him
 
bundling himself out
shoving himself
up in our
  faces
 
one fat dude with
thge power of State over
life and death
  and yet
 
could see from his face
 
one step too far
knew
 
all on his own
  this side of nowhere
tactically clueless
 
no cavalry
to call in
  rush, a la, Big Horn,
a la Peterloo, Starmer Met-style
to his rescue
 
having
pushed his luck
exceeded his mandate,
torn the heart out of our moment,
killed our day
 
no more
intricate dribbling,
magical ball wizardry
                     for us to
attempt
   imagine we
had mastery
 
just the trudge back home
  chance for the
justice
  of a people’s tolchok
 
gone
out of touch
fallen by the wayside
 
risked the red card
crazy courage
found wanting
 
guess like it is
for
everybody here
then
  and now
 
closer by the day
the Britain I was born into
to fate of dystopian state
 
  determined, as of old,
to close down everything, close
down spaces,
no space
  to play, no
place to be free
 
got to
  take to insane conclusion
the logic of enclosure
  no space to write, no
space to be
 
and me
 picked out from the gang of us
on account of my twangy
hybrid Mancunian
Souf Effrikan accent
 
marked for
interrogation, on
the spot cross question
 explaining to him

who I am
  what I am doing here
 
dissertation on satire, learning
my trade at the heart
of his fiefdom
 
bit by
bit

becoming
street smart about
finding a
special acumen,

learning the lethality
of every potential linguistic weapon
getting the
distinct hang of
how to dismantle everything
 
got
clockworked by the plod
once upon a time
me and my droogs
we did

DUENDE

DUENDE
“All that has black sounds has duende.”
Federico García Lorca, Theory and Play of the Duende_

drank (was drinking)
a glass of red
ate
(was eating)

a bowl of red
which was even redder

sat next to
a strange-looking man
with the darkest
of messages
    speaking German
with a moustache
that
   said everything

gave me a pine cone, bade
me take
good care of it
in a way
that seemed possessed
at which point, upon receipt,
my nose caught
(or perhaps just imagined)
an odour between
that of orchid and
that of hyacinth

whereupon
he disappeared with a
Schwarzenegger-style
promise to
be back

and now
the very Earth itself
seemingly keen
on swallowing me

whispering like
some seductress, that
she
    was a myriad planet
of so many styles
and forms
of death

and, if indeed I knew
what was good for me,
should write
    them before I myself,
as might happen
any day now, die

convert
      every
red taste remembered to
solid black
    
       point taken, like you
seeing myself, if just for a flash,
for a moment,
dead snake
      in my pocket facing
a firing squad

nothing ever found, Federico,
to confirm that fate

RAINBOW

RAINBOW

I was inside
a rainbow
playing
Chess

Queen’s Gambit Accepted
which I was
once warned to decline
but now,
as a matter if course,
of course always accept

the pieces shifting from
shade to
shade
    (fuschia versus turquoise,
lavender versus burnt sienna
never
     black versus white,
or, for that matter,
white
versus black)

and me, since we
were going
classical
         not blitz,

having time on my hands to
do a bit of devilish intellectual
handiwork and
imagine a
   world where
one might insult the law
savagely, force
a backrank mate in
the opening and
prance
    away, scotfree

living to fight
another way, show
the world a
better way

but then, as always,
with all your
vast YouTube tutoring you
indeed
   got the upper hand

gave me
your most gracious victor’s
handshake, and
indeed kiss
which was sweet, and fine,
and almost everything
but it was
not what
        I had in mind,
not the bearhug my heart
was set on

but so it goes
time passed, would be decades
before our rematch

revisit
that old rivalry, rekindle
what, if anything, left
of that
old desire

light that candle
point it at the heavens
aim it
at a star

one at the heart of a rainbow nebula
one that
     tells a different story

from those who string us along
with wild musical metaphors
of pitch
and tone
and, above all, resonance

everything connected by
what we cannot see,
simply
    too complex for
this dimension

and yet carrying this song
everywhere instantly, all
at once
    hither and thither

the game
already played, outcome
there in that very first move.

HONEY

HONEY

do not presume
to tell me
what
is forbidden

is the sky
forbidden?
the sea
the Sun
you

yourself
forbidden?

are all the things
in your book
of prescriptions
ultimately forbidden?

what of honey
is that too,
forbidden?

bees may sting
but the make it freely

as is the case
with honey, your honey

it is the sting
itself that makes it what it is
defines it as honey
not quite
the same
as venom

and so please
before you
close the gates
shut
the hive
lay the mines
string the wire

as a matter of gentility do
tell me what is forbidden
point to
what is forbidden
in all this honey

that I might discover
taste, feel,
judge for myself

TWO POEMS

AND HERE

and here we are
first time around
    or
back again

who can say?
nothing
      to tell

geisha, ninjitsu,
daimyo, ronin
or samurai
                 time
of
  sengoku jidai
and all that that means

your roles
will become apparent
as you step into them

and perhaps
in this version of
our eternal tale

you have
a destiny, you
have a future

and to
cap it
all

allay
your fears

that whelp with a stick
and bad
skin condition

will
  not be Musashi

thirteen years old and
lightning quick
knocking every
atom
   of life out of
you
with aforementioned twig

before
you might
unsheathe
your katana
slightly

adjust
your armour

****

WITH THE TREES

tried to
     share something
with the trees

but the afternoon light
scattered across
their leaves

left me
bedazzled
dazzled me

so much
to the language
that trees speak

SOMEONE

SOMEONE

someone
on YouTube complaining

the fish have
vanished, the
bugs have gone

the Sun which
he recollects as always
adhering to a
shade of
pleasure yellow

today has drained
to a harsh, and almost
abrupt white

yes, these people
on YouTube always
getting
  the wrong end
of the stick
terrestrially, cosmically, speaking

they take a

      look at that poor
dead stick

and immediately generalize
it to swathes of removed forest
leaves
     worse for wear
as the
   magnetic pole shifts, increased
radiation leaks

draw absurd, ridiculous conclusions with which
I entirely
agree

TERRA MYSTERE

TERRA MYSTERE

propped up and plodding on
trusting in my faithful
cobta-headed
walking stick

I head out for the first
of what I hope will
be many horizons

before
the door shuts;
time runs out

as it is everyday
I edge further and further
into the territory of the ancient
such poor progress
that I make
might as well be
in reverse gear

and  I had hope
to traverse them all
terra mystere after
terra mystere

find, envision
endless true wonders

no smoke
and mirror, no
trick of the light feeding
me mirages

for what else
battle like an ant setting out
to cross
    the canyons of Mars
our Earth’s Sahara

a realm my cobra
knows so well
            being (legend has it)
one of
   those stick-to-snake
transformers beloved
of Egyptian
magicians and their
relentless, legacy-
driven Pharoahs

in my mind
now a pyramid
conceives
of itself
in the sky high above me
descending, debating where to land

THIS ONE; THAT ONE

THIS ONE; THAT ONE

this one
a chess prodigy
playing a killer
opening
he devised himself
against the world champion

their hands a blur
as they smash time itself
on the regulation clock

a whole game done
and dusted before
you can
take a breath

and even
             in blitz
not a second-rate move
never mind
a blunder

that one
lives time differently
hopes for monotony,
exists as pure
duration

way down
the silo
     behind titanic
blast door

waiting for the launch codes
hoping they
will never come

knows
they are bound to come