memory – Page 2 – poems 2 die for

POEM ANTI-CLOCKWISE

ASHTON

the track
curves like a scimitar

I remember
being in a park in
Ashton on the red
steel roundabout

overreacher
and fell

that roundabout went
on revolvng, spinning forever

that red roundabout
or maybe it was green

and talking of green
I waa distracted thereafter
by what
had happened to
the countryside

wondering where
it had gotten to
and so
forgot my poem
on the train

that train winding its way
forwards to the millennium
ot
backwards in time

through toytown stations
where they loaded
real soldiers

some soon
stacked to be buried
piled up in ossuaries

others, as is the nature
of war, simply evaporated,
officially disappeared

and my poem out there
with other poems lost
or forgotten
poems out there too,
be it
recalled recounting
the horrors of war

but train
is at the terminus, no
more huff-puffing, or
smooth
electric or
even diesel

the countryside chaning,
the poems
No longer speaking the truth
they could not escape doing

this picture fading
all
   those lines
yet unwritten, all those tracks
going somewhere
          having nowhere left to br

JOHN

Ah, John,
the smoke got you

did what German steel
and flame
could not do

I saw you with
my big little eyes
down in your cellar worship
a year or
so
before you died

those same little big eyes
fastened on a Vickers
belt-fed machine gun
fastened high up
to that tall wall

what tale of fear and bravery
life or death it might
have been
able to tell me

if it could speak
but you did not tell
me anything at all

whilst you found
wheels and plank and
purple paint for my push cart

coughing worryingly
as you worked:
such a together, purposive,
engineering man
given his
mission requirements by
his youngest
daughter’s eldest son

my single real
abidng memory

MIKE

great a Tae Kwon Do
(gang of young heavies
round at our little house
to claim money
owed them)
me smiling like Mr Niceguy
carving knife hidden
behind the couch cushion
behind me)

not so good at popping
ligjtbulbs with a airgun
in our kitchen
firing range
my sniper’s instinct
something we did
not share
(hope you do not feel
that I
am sniping at
you now

catching you for all
and suddenly in terrible
cross-hairs)

and you
always so ultra mod and style
and fashion and look conscious
didn”t ever
imagine members of
your sacred tribe could be
as narcissistic
as that

and that beautiful Tess of
the D’Urbervilles girl you
took into
your bedroom
moaning with
vociferous pleasure at
whatever you
were
doing to me

and me as per usual
univolved, unsatisfied
and she
exactly my type

and our little terraced house
in the collapsing inner city area
just a stone’s throw
from City’s
great storied ground (before
greener pastures
called
courtesy of Arab money

and the job you hooked up
for both of us guarding
the then
Polytechnic
lecture roomz downstairs,
unisexual residences
upper floors

place where
I had my David Bowman
2001 out
of the body experience

place where we
played football with
the cleaning
crew in
a basement corridor

place where you insisted
I read every page of
this book you
swore
I would swear was
“even better than
Ulysses”

never heard of Thomas Pynchon then
or his 1973 masterpiece
of apocalyptic
postmodernism

and the crazy way
that year’s cup final
followed
the track of the channel
we were watching

Arsenal
better (who would have
guessed!) on BBC
on ITV
United suddenly, magically,
with all the mastery

2-0 down at halftime least we
United fans could do
(with the muscle of
the biggest United in
the room
who just so
happened to
be younger brother)

was cool
all that Gunner ardour
and rampant triumphalism
down
a cold cold bath
up the stairs
strategically waiting

one night
at the Poly workplace
(Manchester Central
University now) they
left the
door to the upstairs rooms
completely unlocked

and there I wandered
taking in everything

finding myself on a balcony
looking out
into the night lights of
this
sleeping, dreaming
city of
my birth and
place of study

wondering where
this world was at and
where
I was heading

what
    other
      strange definitive friendships
would carry further
along
   whatever track

and which
friendships, to my shame,
I would
let disappear

DOWN TO SIZE

I have no memory
it has all gone

maybe
it was never there
in the first place

maybe someone
somebodies
came in
the middle
of the night

sliced
it out of
my head

did something
unspeakable

that cannot
be spoken

so many words
too many to cope with
need to cut
them
down to size

thing
not to forget

resist
not realize.

OVERLOOKED

I awake
fresh from nightmare

lost my way in a city
of memory spiralling upwards
into the mountains
totally transformed beyomd
all that I
can remember
wanting
to get home
needing to get home

but no sense of direction
as with every step
I climb higher
and higher
passing a giant cathedral
like structure, itself
like a mountain with
a trio of spires as
its peaks, its pinnacles

all the wonder
I should feel submerged
by the fear

and no way of phoning you
because I am
out of reception, do
not have
your number
so far for you
to drive
in the night to
collect me

your death three years ealier
somehow dream- forgotten
crucially overlooked

SHADOW

SHADOW

I misremember you

still
in your shadow

anniversary
of your departure

in size and proportion
shadow
is giant

sometimes you cannot even
capture it on
old cinemascope screen

and you were giant too
when in wonder
first saw you
peering into my cradle

wondering
what you were thinking
who or what
you were

still wondering
what you
were

what
you are (immortal
philosophical question)

what you were thinking
all those years
shrouded in shadow
what
you were thinking.

I remember you.
Trying to forget
does not come easy at all.