Famous Men

One rule for us, one rule for them.

That’s how we cope with famous men.

At age thirteen, they drew a scene

of Venice with its Grand Canal.

By fifteen, they had met the Queen,

had fucked Mae West and Gore Vidal.

At twenty one they’re having fun

with Alice Toklas on the Seine,

then off they go to Mexico.

They hopped the Albuquerque train.

By twenty two they owned a zoo

and sailed beam-ends to Borneo,

sat in with Miles on Kind of Blue,

composed an oratorio.

At twenty four, they went and saw

the Hindenburg come crashing down,

then fought the Spanish Civil War;

knew Orwell, Hemingway and Pound.

At twenty eight, they found a mate.

They took a princess for a wife.

With two plays opening at the Gate

they settled in to Dublin life.

At thirty four, another war!

They’re on the beaches on D-Day.

They’re liberating Sobibor

and flying on Enola Gay.

They joined the nascent OSS,

assassinated diplomats,

beat commies at a game of chess

on Berlin Alexanderplatz.

At thirty six, they got a fix

with Burroughs at the Beat Hotel,

sold Berber jewels to hippy fools

at Maxims with Coco Chanel

and in Jamaica, took the sun,

a novelist at forty one,

a chocolatier by forty three;

they’re in the car with Kennedy.

Then Christmas nineteen sixty three,

they turn their hand to poetry.

It’s simple, fun and worldly wise

and wins the fucking Nobel Prize

and then begin the salad days,

the soaking up of endless praise,

the selling-out for millions,

the literary brilliance…

and now I turn to my own life -

a dog, three children and a wife.

It all seems petty, routine, small.

as though I sleepwalked through it all.

While others travelled wild highways,

I settled for mere holidays.

They seemed to live a hundred lives -

ten children, half a dozen wives.

They met with passion each sunrise

while every dawn I compromise.

So much time I feel I wasted.

So much spice I never tasted.

All the chances I have missed.

My whole life’s on my bucket list.

I try to think I’m happy now

and justify myself somehow;

those other men had different tools

and played their game by different rules.

They had more fun. They did more stuff

but I suppose I’ve done enough.

That’s how we cope with famous men.

One rule for us, one rule for them.

A Gift From the Sun

Your father taught you how to change a tyre

and how to fall and climb back to your feet.

The spark he breathed on grew into a fire.

I held it for an instant and the heat

rewarmed the frozen sun inside of me;

a star which spins alone in empty space,

that tiny unseen singularity:

the lover’s heart beneath a father’s face.

Now gravity is pulling us apart

and draws us back towards our hearths and homes.

Your fire flies to warm another heart

while I shall supernova on my own

for Nova always stands for what is new

and I am old and old dreams don’t come true.

The Story

There’s a story I have to tell.

In galleries we stand alone

to watch the angels holding hands.

We finance more machine gun nests,

proclaim ourselves the self-made man.

With golden hearts in burning fields 

we talk about the gorgeous flame.

When alleycats play cards with mice,

we all pretend we’d do the same.

In blinding light toward the sun,

we search for Heaven one by one

as though our life’s a race to win

and fellowship’s a mortal sin

as every leaf shakes loose its tree

and every lonely honeybee

looks happier than you or me

but none of that is true. You see,

there’s a story I have to tell.

Your toaster says you are alone.

Your money says you are alone.

Your trainers say you are alone

but there’s a story I have to tell:

that every heart you’ve ever known

is just like yours. You’re not alone

and every hearth and every home

is somewhere you can call your own.

So let’s hold hands and try once more

to find the rose above the door.

As time unravels, we’ll ignore

the smiles of those who won’t explore

or come together; who cannot see

that I am you and you are me.

The Dream

I held you in my dream last night -

a dream of overwhelming bliss.

Two lovers in the fading light,

I stole your heart. You stole a kiss.

A dream of overwhelming bliss

that made me sorry when I woke.

You stole my heart. I stole a kiss

then watched you fade and my heart broke.

That made me sorry when I woke

and so I chased you back to sleep

but watched you fade and my heart broke.

I’d held you tight and kissed you deep

and so I chased you back to sleep

and found you there at midnight’s stroke.

I held you tight and kissed you deep

and found you with me when I woke.

I found you there at midnight’s stroke.

I’d held you in my dream last night

then found you with me when I woke,

two lovers in the fading light.

Devil’s Night

Tonight the Devil’s here and God is small -

a night for sinners who have never sinned

and out there in the dark I hear your call -

the welcome gift of words placed in the wind.

You sigh another spell, oh sorceress

whose magic echoes somewhere in the night,

and wear your darkness as an evening dress -

it falls in waves to keep you out of sight.

Yet from your throne of skulls and ragged fur

tonight I hear you whispering for me

to cast my spell, to be your whisperer

of things the lighted world must never see.

I sing this song to darkness and I pray

this devil’s night shall never yield to day.

The Mummy

Forget for once the stupid mummy’s curse,

that lame-brain bane of Egyptology,

for mummies have to deal with something worse:

our ignorance of their chronology.

I know you know in abstract that Egypt

was long ago and went on for a while

but did you know that Tutankhamun’s crypt

got covered up by flooding from the Nile

a thousand years before the Romans came?

Or that the Sphinx was more removed in time

from Cleopatra’s Ptolemaic reign

than Cleo is from me writing this rhyme?

I’m hoping that these fourteen lines of verse

might go some way to lift the mummy’s curse.

The Fox

The snow drifts down like gently falling stars

as cars illuminate a cardboard box.

I know this town will leave its mental scars

but scars become this sleeping urban fox.

His dream brings him an image of a girl,

a swirl of words surrounding her in streams;

extreme emotions gradually unfurl

and curl around them both in both their dreams.

For somewhere in the night you’re sleeping too

and you are dreaming of the urban fox.

You somehow need the fox to dream of you

those nights you want to curl up in his box.

When snow is falling from the sky above

you know this sly old fox will dream of love.

White Lunar

The more I see of you the more I miss

the hand I cannot hold, the more I see

that we shall never lean in for a kiss;

the more I see how much you’re missing me.

I am that lesser bird

who paints in blots and clots,

who paints the blood-soaked moon

upon your door.

You break into my poetry again

decode a line of sanguine semaphore.

“The more I see of you the more I miss”

then briefly, softly, sadly speak my name.

Quatrains

Her portrait forged in fog and smoke -

a dancer dancing just for me.

The gentle taps of her pen stroke

echo metronomically.

The withered leaf, the nightly pain -

November brings her some relief.

She listens and transcribes the rain -

her symphony, her masterpiece.

And in my hand I find a note

which she has written long ago:

“Don’t love me but don’t love me not.

Don’t hold on but don’t let go.”

Grace

Those lunatics who stare into the sun

or shriek at pigeons in the local park

are childhood friends who we have left behind

when all the games they played stopped being fun.

We know they wander somewhere in the dark

but keep them out of sight and out of mind.

We eye them cautiously when passing by,

say ‘There but for the grace of God go I’

as though God chose us as His favoured son

and opted for His other son to die.

We notice as the ambulances come

and yet we never stop to wonder why

we didn’t help or what we might have done

instead of looking down and walking by.

Love Affair

I write these lines as if in prayer -

on bended knee, I choose a pair

of rhymes I think will be okay

and suitable for smart wordplay.

This endless game of solitaire

is one I play with savoir-faire

and, though I see you’ve ceased to care

what unloved online poets say,

I write these lines.

I’ll call this rondeau ‘Love Affair’

and post it here without fanfare.

It’s not a prayer and yet I pray

you’ll notice your sad protégée

and understand that in despair

I write these lines.

The Fox

The snow drifts down like gently falling stars

as cars illuminate a cardboard box.

I know this town will leave its mental scars

but scars become this sleeping urban fox.

His dream brings him an image of a girl,

a swirl of words surrounding her in streams;

extreme emotions gradually unfurl

and curl around them both in both their dreams.

For somewhere in the night you’re sleeping too

and you are dreaming of the urban fox.

You somehow need the fox to dream of you

those nights you want to curl up in his box.

When snow is falling from the sky above

you know this sly old fox will dream of love.