Tag: People Poem
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Girl On The Bus
In the middle of a shabby council estate, a girl gets on the bus. She is wrong. Something about her is wrong. She is in the wrong place. She is in the wrong time. She wears clothes from the forties, fifties maybe. She is impeccable. This is a word I never use but it suits…
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I Remember You
One year gone, one year on, but I remember you. That little girl with a cherry red flame of hair that was to be the colour of your life, hot and vivid and passionate. I remember the fear in the eyes of the young woman you became when thay said you carried more life, and…
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If Not For You
What would I do, if not for you? Would I survive, or even thrive? Would I make do, and better, too? Would I do less, become a mess? What would I do, if not for you? What would I be, if not for thee? I would be sad, and oh so bad. I would be…
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Watching People Die
Watching People Die I sat and watched her as she died. My grandmother, Winnie. Her skin, always white and weather beaten, like leather by now, bleached right out by the fags that took her breath away, was wrinkled as the hide of some old beast, which is what she never was. Bright and true, she…
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The Drink Problem
People with the drink problem. I simply can’t stand them. Not the alkys or the winos, not the mothers in a ruin of gin, not the problem drinkers who are afflicted with too much affection for alcohol. No. That is addiction. The ones I hate are the ones who drink badly, and, sadly, you know…
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Unmark My Grave
Carved on the stone is a name long forgot Cut by the hand of a man we know not The stone all askew, the grave long untended, A small life lived long but long ago ended. Few are remembered, and many not known. Many will leave as we came, all alone. Even the great and…
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The Way To Go
Dragging on, drawn out and drugged up, demented or diseased, and probably both, the ending we will meet is not likely to be the one we would choose for ourselves if we had that choice. That is not the way to go. Go out kicking and screaming. Go out shit faced and swearing. Go out…
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A Small Man Belittled
She’d gone too far. This time, too far. She’d made a small man out of him, though he stood six foot something in his shabby cellar-worked shoes. This time, he’d seen her play around with one of the good old boys, seen her play him for a fool, which he was not. He had to…
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These Are Not My Hands
These Are The Hands Of My Fate It’s late. I’m reading a book, unlearning how to write, or maybe not. I see an old man’s hand turn the page. I see whitlows, ragged cuticles, little bitten nails, shiny skin, and wide open pores. Old hands. My mother’s hands, God help me.
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What Am I?
My hair is dirty. Dirty, greasy hair. Dirty with me, with the sweat of me, with what comes out of me, with what makes me, me. Am I dirty? Is that what I am? Is that all that I am? What am I? I’ve often thought about that, what I’m made of, what I am.…
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The Note Taker
He was an ordinary man, Ernest. He had an ordinary name. He looked ordinary in almost every way. He lived at my grandmother’s boarding house, a place for the down-on-their-luck and the damaged. He must have been sixty-something, skinny-thin and almost hairless, apart from the missed bristles. He wore spectacles with bottle-bottom lenses, made his…
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The Little People
Raking leaves, the little man hums hymns to him, alone. His little wife, washing pans, watches what she owns. They can speak by sense of touch, their kisses make no spittle. Neither needs or wants too much, what they have is little. Two lives made of little things, made smaller by themselves. Thursday morning shopping…
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A Walk In The Park
A walk in the park. Municipal green space, there for all to share. Somewhere to rest, to play, a grassy mattress on which to lay and daydream, or just to sit, not think of it, whatever it might be. Somewhere out of the house, away from the cares that are there everywhere, somewhere open, somewhere…
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The Downbeats
They make a fine day dull, a good day bad, the downbeats, the joysuckers, the miserable fuckers, the ones who moan and groan all day, who will not go away and bore the arse off others, pray, than me. These selfish shits get on my tits, the way they whinge about the things they cannot…
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This Is Modern Love
It begins with a barbecue. It often does. Out on the front lawn, with fold-up chairs and a puffed-up paddling pool, on a manky stand that is never cleaned, they cremate creatures and eat them. The lighter fuel stink and the great swirls of smoke they freely share with neighbours, who stare and tut through…
Writing Me Up 