Not a poem yet ...
Returning to London (after time away)
Is like discovering an old favourite jacket
At the back of a wardrobe.
One of those great old
leather ones that your girlfriend made
you relegate to a hanger.
On putting it back on,
One admires one's reflection
And wonders why it was
Sectioned to those shady, packed confines
Of sartorial exile.
Six months later,
Or thereabouts. You might catch
the tired, sad reflection once again
And, with a sigh, realise it might be time for it to
Go back to the mothballed recesses
within once more. But until you have a new
jacket you'll keep wearing it just the same ...
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Paradise-on-Sea
Sussex shit. I'm still only in Sussex. Every time, I think I'm going to wake up back in paradise.
Shivering, collared up, sitting in the weak watery English sunshine.
Sipping powdery coffee
'Neath the dockyard chimney
jutting skyward from the
grey-brown Shoreham shingle shore.
Bacon-gristle soaks bleached white bread -
congealing quickly on the cold chipped china plate,
a fresh breeze whips soiled serviettes from green tin-tables -
its mad-drunk, fluttering, stuttering, flying-flotsam dance.
This should be hell.
And I, having glimpsed paradise,
Sucked down diamond-draught air,
Gorged on verdant emerald hills,
Lain back and stared at the soporific sapphire blue skies.
Yeah, I,
I should really know.
But it's not.
I'm re-assured by
The traditional, cyclical, elemental struggle of the Brits -
Where grey skies, sleeting, cold-showers are always just
A cyclone away.
And if I've learnt one thing,
Heaven's promises - burgeoning beauty, endless tranquility, peace.
Soon turn to trappings of a surreal, Hell.
After all,
Aren't forbidden fruits
Plucked to escape that constant, anodyne, endless, Eden?
England - grim land of opportunity.
Heart of a lost empire,
Who's disparate children have mostly flown the nest.
You still hold something for those that wander back;
But I wonder how long it will take -
Before once again, cloaked and clogged in the mundane,
An adventurer's dream pulls me back to Paradise.
Shivering, collared up, sitting in the weak watery English sunshine.
Sipping powdery coffee
'Neath the dockyard chimney
jutting skyward from the
grey-brown Shoreham shingle shore.
Bacon-gristle soaks bleached white bread -
congealing quickly on the cold chipped china plate,
a fresh breeze whips soiled serviettes from green tin-tables -
its mad-drunk, fluttering, stuttering, flying-flotsam dance.
This should be hell.
And I, having glimpsed paradise,
Sucked down diamond-draught air,
Gorged on verdant emerald hills,
Lain back and stared at the soporific sapphire blue skies.
Yeah, I,
I should really know.
But it's not.
I'm re-assured by
The traditional, cyclical, elemental struggle of the Brits -
Where grey skies, sleeting, cold-showers are always just
A cyclone away.
And if I've learnt one thing,
Heaven's promises - burgeoning beauty, endless tranquility, peace.
Soon turn to trappings of a surreal, Hell.
After all,
Aren't forbidden fruits
Plucked to escape that constant, anodyne, endless, Eden?
England - grim land of opportunity.
Heart of a lost empire,
Who's disparate children have mostly flown the nest.
You still hold something for those that wander back;
But I wonder how long it will take -
Before once again, cloaked and clogged in the mundane,
An adventurer's dream pulls me back to Paradise.
Leaving The Sceptred Isle
[A brief excerpt from a short-story written about my experiences of living in Dublin]
"I'm going to Dublin for a couple of months, do you want to come along?"
"Alright. Why not? It's not as though I've got tons going on here. Anyway, I can claim dole anywhere in Europe now thanks to the EU. Might as well claim it somewhere new and exciting rather than this grey sunken cunt of the world."
"Ok mate well I'm looking at leaving in 2 weeks time. Reckon you'll be up for it? Could be 3 months could be 6 - dunno yet?"
"Fine. The olds will be happy to get me out of the way anyway. Little brother's taking his A-levels this summer so fuck it I'm happy to leave well before Easter mate."
"Alright." There was a pause "Grey sunken cunt? Odd phrase - Pompey's not that fucking bad!"
"It's from James Joyce. 'Ulysses'. He said it about somewhere. Might have been Dublin - or the Holy Land. Can't remember which now! Not that I've read the whole bloody book mind - it's way too 'stream of consciousness' for me, but for some reason that phrase stuck in my mind. Not sure I've read much further than that to be honest. Starts well, but I usually get lost after a hundred pages."
"I'll lend you 'Dubliners' - it's a shed-load easier to read than that and will give you a bit of a feel for the place names at least! Anyway talk to you laters. Bye"
And then Greg rang off. I thought about it for a couple of minutes and then went down the Sussex Brewery with Uncle D and told him. He was pissed off because that meant his set designer wasn't going to be on hand for his Roaring Twenties version of 'Much Ado About Nothing' - but other than that he wished me on my way. Uncle D's always been a bit like that - he's been half way between a dad and a best mate, and he's probably single-handedly responsible for my knowledge of the theatre and all of Shakespeare's 37 plays. He was a bit of a player in his day and I might even have him to thank for my wayward urges with the ladies, but like all actors he's a bit of a self-centred old bastard and I knew that he was just thinking about his play at that moment. The folks seemed equally pleased I was actually going to do something and instead of sponging off them and was going to sponge off the Irish government. My mates were a bit less happy about it but they concluded I was just drifting aimlessly and it might do me some good. My brother barely looked up from his biology reference books as he sang along in a falsetto voice to Crowded House.
Two weeks later I was on the Holyhead Ferry.
"I'm going to Dublin for a couple of months, do you want to come along?"
"Alright. Why not? It's not as though I've got tons going on here. Anyway, I can claim dole anywhere in Europe now thanks to the EU. Might as well claim it somewhere new and exciting rather than this grey sunken cunt of the world."
"Ok mate well I'm looking at leaving in 2 weeks time. Reckon you'll be up for it? Could be 3 months could be 6 - dunno yet?"
"Fine. The olds will be happy to get me out of the way anyway. Little brother's taking his A-levels this summer so fuck it I'm happy to leave well before Easter mate."
"Alright." There was a pause "Grey sunken cunt? Odd phrase - Pompey's not that fucking bad!"
"It's from James Joyce. 'Ulysses'. He said it about somewhere. Might have been Dublin - or the Holy Land. Can't remember which now! Not that I've read the whole bloody book mind - it's way too 'stream of consciousness' for me, but for some reason that phrase stuck in my mind. Not sure I've read much further than that to be honest. Starts well, but I usually get lost after a hundred pages."
"I'll lend you 'Dubliners' - it's a shed-load easier to read than that and will give you a bit of a feel for the place names at least! Anyway talk to you laters. Bye"
And then Greg rang off. I thought about it for a couple of minutes and then went down the Sussex Brewery with Uncle D and told him. He was pissed off because that meant his set designer wasn't going to be on hand for his Roaring Twenties version of 'Much Ado About Nothing' - but other than that he wished me on my way. Uncle D's always been a bit like that - he's been half way between a dad and a best mate, and he's probably single-handedly responsible for my knowledge of the theatre and all of Shakespeare's 37 plays. He was a bit of a player in his day and I might even have him to thank for my wayward urges with the ladies, but like all actors he's a bit of a self-centred old bastard and I knew that he was just thinking about his play at that moment. The folks seemed equally pleased I was actually going to do something and instead of sponging off them and was going to sponge off the Irish government. My mates were a bit less happy about it but they concluded I was just drifting aimlessly and it might do me some good. My brother barely looked up from his biology reference books as he sang along in a falsetto voice to Crowded House.
Two weeks later I was on the Holyhead Ferry.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
