Woah…woah…
Calm down, mate.
I think you’ve had enough, son.
I reckon you oughta get home.
Do you want me to call you a cab?
The doctor’ll call if there’s a change.
You can come back and see her first thing.
pissed up?
Filed under Poetry
letting go of prejudice
My darling sister, only 19, has just started a degree in Advertising and Media (or something like that) at Bournemouth University. I have found my own prejudices against such things rising like bile in my throat. However I have realised that not everyone shares the same prejudices as me. So I’ve been working it out in my head i.e. getting over it and not being such a judgmental prick.
I’m still right though.
***
My sister, who I love
like a sister
is going to Bournemouth
to learn to be a marketer
or do marketing,
something…I don’t know…
it’s kind of sickening
that she’s learning
how to sell things
in Bournemouth.
What’s there?
what’s wrong with her?
Have I failed her?
She was going to be a painter!
Is it ever since I bought her that easel,
that she believes all artistry is evil?
She must do, ’cause she’s learning about marketing -
which we all know is taught by Satan
in Bournemouth.
Maybe I should let go.
little old taxidermy
Every day I look out my window and I see this little old woman walk past, with her dog. She’s ancient, or maybe not, maybe just wizened. She never smiles, but sometimes compliments my girlfriend on our front garden. “It’s good that you take care of it, so few do!” She seems lovely I suppose, if serious and quite sad. Still, I cannot help but feel slightly afraid of her. I think it’s the lack of smile, and the thousand yard stare. I often wonder if that is how I will approach death, gazing off into the distance as if trying to see past it.
She walks her dog, also an old lady, a bit like Snowy from Tintin. She (the dog) is very slow and tries to socialize with the cats. They won’t have any of it and either hiss or simply turn their backs. A strange parallel with humanity. I remember being horrified at the living mummification of my dad’s mother and being barely able to look, turning my back and smiling and nodding. Death in my nostrils.
Forgive me Gran.
When we’ve spoken to this lady she speaks of her family in the past tense: “My daughter-in-law loved gardening, bless her.” “My son had dogs, bless him.” “My husband used to love cats.” Then she walks on, her strange, ancient dog waddling along, legs barely moving, about twenty feet behind her, as if pulled on invisible string. “Come on, girl!”
She is sweet and sad, but I can’t help but be wary. This is my prejudice aganst old people.
***
Round the corner
there’s a lovely old dear,
been widowed for nearly twenty year.
Everyday she walks her Afghan
down the hill to the park, and up again.
It is stuffed,
like her husband.
Apple Day: Here Comes I!
hey you! stop pumping up my tyres
I’ve got places to go
Recently it was Apple Day, when at Stanmer Park the celebrate the apple crop. There was a fair on the village green, with plenty of stalls and activites. There was also plenty of cider and apple and pear juice. I was there with the Brighton Mummers. We were performing the Sussex Apple Play in whch King George (a sausage or “greasy old banger”) is troubled by indigestion and therefore an enormous apple is grown to cure him. This apple is invaded by a worm who is defeated by Admral Lord Nelson (a ghost) and who then marries the King.
Nonsensical you say? Well yes, but a lot of fun.
I played good old King George, which involved being in a giant foam sausage.
It was very hot in there. But it was fun! We performed the play three times, processing down to the green and then around it, band in tow, before leading interested people back up to the orchard where we spoke the play. Fuelled by very strong cider and expensive boar burgers we made our audience swoon and sigh and giggle. They even joined in with our Apple Song which called on the fruit to appear. The apple in the play was enormous, made from wicker A really fantastic invention, as were the costumes. Mine, and the worm’s were fabulous, if hot. I am glad the heatwave hit this week and not then as I’m not sure I would have survived.
More photos:
There are more, I shall upload them at a later date as they are on my girlfreind’s camera.
I am certainly enjoying this Mummers lark. I love the ritual of it, the history, and the fact that it celebrates the earth and the passing seasons. It is close to a kind of magic, the closest one can get I suppose. Unless you take psychedelics I suppose.
Our next project is the Christmas play, and then a Wassail in January where we howl at the apple trees (kind of) and a Mummers play set in the FUTURE. Robo-Mummers, eh? Find out more here:
Filed under Uncategorized
breaking up is hard to do.
Once we were friends,
Now we are not.
And there’s not much more
I can say.
So I’ll end it with this,
blown like a kiss:
You’re a Shit.
Now please go away.
Filed under Poetry
dead air
They say time heals but
the silences stick:
long gaps where once stood
conversation.
Long talk about stuff -
what I’m doing now,
who I’m seeing now
are you alright for…?
Longer, longer still,
like an ancient wall
crumbling into the past
the further it goes.
When it is rubble
only old men with
fusty jackets and beards
will remember.
Old men who knew your
parents when they were kids.
Who were the same
when your parents were kids.
Forward we go -
free of him, and that,
free of long silent
phonecalls.
living on what could be
I knew this old sot -
pink-faced, pock-marked, shaking hands,
stood on shifting sands
his whole life.
Always announced “I love a good Guinness shit.
Y’see the thing about it
is the release.”
I knew this old sot -
pock-marked, pink-faced, had a growth,
shaking hands -
used to dance around Turners with eyes shut,
breath held deep
as if he could keep
the whole world out.
Always said “I love a good Guinness shit!”
As if we cared, “The thing is release.”
Pint after pint after pint after pint.
the black stuff,
the crack.
“I’ll never give it up.
And that is fucking that!”
Ah, me old sot -
pock-marked, pink-faced, shaking hands, had a growth
(lost the use of his mouth -
cancer!)
He was alive for a flash, every week.
Then went out.
What was his name again?
Filed under Poetry
