I missed National Poetry Day, I was ill, a bit of a couch back to be honest, I was reading some stuff about Lech Walesa in the early eighties and the main demands of the Solidarnosc movement for a Free Trade Union, one of them was a percentage of access to the state controlled media, because all the work of the solidarity movement was reported by the state – through the eyes of the state, who, if...

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Whinny

C.W.

That she wanted a horse more than anything –

that her father said – a horse – a horse – but where?

That they lived in the suburbs and had a neat lawn

and a garage with two ladders, three bikes, hardly room

for the car never mind a head swinging pony

with a blaze on the nose. That she decided

that she could have a horse and she would –

That she woke up at sunl...

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“Have faith,” he said, “Trust the process-

have you ever done it afore?”

I shook my head and he pointed at a hole

like a mouse-hole or the entrance wound

of an apple grub. “See yon? Ever wondered

how they sail the ship into the bottle?”

I shook my head – “Never mind,” he said.

I was dressed in green and red felt

with an oversized belt – my hat

like something a shoe-makin...

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I put the handset back in it’s cradle.

Wowee! “We’d like to offer you the job,”

he’d said, “Of a character in a giant snow globe.

Right – there’ll be you, a fir tree and a fairytale

house, kinda like a lodge, no uniform, wear

what you like, duffle coat, scarf, bobble hat –

something – anything Christmassy, snow globey –

as long as it keeps the visitors happy.”

“Yippee,...

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It’s no joke, when you’re at work

with someone who loves work so much

they can stand and watch it all day,

or should that be, slouch on a broom,

or a roll of carpet would suffice

as a seat or a bed for potato couch,

a slattern by all accounts, a slowback,

a slacker, a slowpoke, a loafer,

a skrimshanker, a wastrel, a skiver.

If not skiving he’s chucking a sickey,

or sl...

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There isn’t a coin in the pocket
of my jeans, to peel from my palm,
not a dream that can breed for us.
A scant mention in the guidebook,
twelve miles from the nearest fencepost,
The Wishing Tree, trophying currency
jewellery, French, German, Dutch
denominations and monarchs, sovereigns,
farthings, francs, rands, brass razoos,
a language I can’t quite fathom.

Ribbons of coins inlai...

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My dad used to take two cups int front room

and set them out ont mantelpiece, in his vest

or shirtless. There wor our mirror, good light.

One, orange plastic, t’other a broke handled mug.

And I can see him now, fingers spreading

white Gillette and yer broken handled mug

ud be for warm watter, plastic orange one

ud have boiling watter in, red hot. My dad

would shav...

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I can prove it. Most sensitive people read this title

and said, “No they don’t.” You see sensitive people

hurt easily. A misdirected piece of criticism

can languish, brewing like an abandoned tea bag

in a tea pot for days, and suddenly spiral out, like 3

wet shirts in the spin drier droning in metal banging

anger. Sensitive people, it is like they don’t have

an off switch, or ...

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It’s been a while since his fingers have twisted a spigot.  
When he thinks about it it’s like a bubble in his windpipe
trapped like a marble in a straw that he can’t cough up, 
or cough out and the sherry nurses his injuries
and the cider dresses his wounds. They’re bandaged 
and dressed and bandaged and dressed to the extent 
they can’t heal, unless they’re all untied to expose
a fresh wo...

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Chewing gum

To console myself I eat a kipper
with a slice of bread and butter,
the morning spent in a bit of a dither
waiting for the telephone to blether

my hearts not in it and I prod kipper
around my bowl, the skin and bones of it
and the phone didn’t sing, so now I’ll receive
a letter explaining how grateful they are

how they wish me luck and when I say butter
I mean margarine ...

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Ecoute L’Indifference

Mister Watts and I are struggling to persuade
the venerable ladies of Cottingham Library
to let us loose on the good book borrowers
of Cottingham and Mister Watts and I

are so very dedicated to our craft. That 
of poetry and our recitals even though I say 
so myself are very entertaining. We have that
Pizzazz. But the esteemed ladies pass on our

details to anot...

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The Sesh

When I get to the entrance I phone 
my wife, who is at the Urban Rap Stage,
I say where are you? and she says
I’m at the Urban Rap Stage. It’s raining
that’s why I’m phoning and she says
I’ll meet you at the pink caravan
selling candy floss, so without a map
or a programme I go to find her and the kids
I go past the Youth Stage, towards the Main
Stage past The Dead Bod Stage, ...

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Conkers

My dad used to make me play

in the yard in front of the shed.

He pushed huge holes through

with a clumsy tool that broke

some of the conkers in half.

For years I thought that tool’s

primary purpose was to hole

conkers, it’s secondary purpose,

to screw screws into walls.

He used to raise my abject arm,

“Higher,” I’d tense as he aimed

and brought...

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