Down

45/50 down, depending

on builder quotes. jesus:

I could live for two years

if I’m careful and have

a divorce. but instead

it’s two bedrooms

in a square by the courts

and disused market buildings

all listed and tumbling down.

and we can afford it

and still go on holidays

two times a year if we want to.

if you’d asked us two

years ago we’d rather,

we’d have said, have the freedom.

or I would, at least – think of poetry

flapping its wings in the light!

but this is a freedom

as well of a sort, in more definite

ways. and the dog likes a garden.

we could get a second dog.

a home built of bricks

and a south-facing garden.

love: break a stick

off ambition in splinters.

throw it into a fire and burn it.

~~~

Politics in Art

I saw him through the window

of arnotts on abbey st

eating a toasted cheese

sandwich. the most successful poet

remaining from my old college class

and lately a well-respected

critic of cinema too. I liked him ok

while disliking the work – he was too

sentimental, with the arrogant politics

that put words in the mouths

of bombed-out palestinian

children. the sandwich

didn’t even look appetising

and he’s never been handsome –

another bad mark for his poetry.

and he hadn’t seen me

so I happened to be looking

away when I passed, as if I

hadn’t noticed him either.

it’s one thing to believe

things that I believe also. it’s another

to believe them so badly.  

~~~

A moustache

my bladder is fat as a granny

smith apple. I sit, sip

my lager and I think about having

a piss. my wife’s on a stool.

she is tolerating bitter craft beer.

in the booth behind both of us,

a puppy is being trained

to the bars by his young woman

owner, helped by her older

man date. I don’t want to move.

the dog seems to want to make

friends with everyone getting up

from a seat for the bathroom.

in front of us, outside the window

we’re facing, a woman –

24, 25 or so – is filling her dress

like a bite of a granny smith apple.

her friend – 24, 25, thereabouts –

has a moustache and pencil-

mark of stubble beneath.

a lot of young men have them lately.

he mouth open kisses her

in front of their friends. we idly spectate

the reaction of the rest of the circle – it’s very

uncomfortable. there’s six at one table

and suddenly little to say.

~~~
Caught between scenes

the footpath is traffic as well:

rush-hour – this old man is struggling

in an ancient aluminium wheelchair.

he’s kicking with one foot

and moving the wheels with his hands.

one handle behind him

is bent down out of shape,

the other bent up

like kicking feet rising

from water in a warm swimming

pool. coming toward him,

a young woman

pushes a second-hand

buggy one-handed.

she pulls a young child

behind by the hand. and behind

on the other side a young

handsome guy on a bicycle

slows to make room for congestion.

the old man’s good foot

goes to ground as a pivot:

there is just about room

to manoeuvre. she looks at the space

while the bicycle guy looks at her –

she looks good for a girl

who looks tired.

on the opposite footpath

two old men in animation

converse – hands touching shoulders,

all gesture, catching each other

by the elbows with arms

made muscular with pumping emphasis.

they could have been there

for hours already. they could be there

three hours more. I am in traffic – am caught

between scenes. ahead a light changes:

I move in the tide of the cars.

if you give people time they’ll make room:

the girl gets by eventually –

two wheels off the verge

past the wheelchair, then in

to the wall for the bike.

the guy kicks down, adjusts

and moves forward

like a leaf on a current,

as easy as I do and faster.

he kicks, takes momentum and coasts

on his muscle’s results.

it’s all the way downhill for us.

~~~
I too dislike it

With apologies to Marianne Moore

she wrote something down

and she wrote on top Poetry

and went on in her typing

two pages or more.

revising in 1925

it came to just

fifteen lines.

the last version

was in Collected Poems

and clocked out

at three. she died in ‘72, which was

a pity. perhaps one day

she could have got it down

to four words only. the opener, functional

as foxgloves: “I, too,

dislike it.”

Poetry.