Making good progress
as I regress up the road towards a childhood
of frozen toes
The grounds are empty but for the white blanket
embracing the slope and the winding path
No longer an uphill struggle on mornings like this
to remember the fun to be had
from frozen toes
If only I could write like Glenn Patterson
nothing else would matter then
need not rejoice in the ghost of James
coursing through my veins
as Samuel rests and downs his pen
the sheets lie empty, then
I curse his name and cry
“feck it!”
It was conceived in a moment.
For one short, utterly glorious, bliss-filled interlude his head was filled with the most emphatic and thoroughly resounding air of superiority.
“Wow!” they would respond.
“I never knew!”
“You’re such a dark horse!”
“Really?”
And after the acceptance and accolades and adorning acolytes he would flatly retort, “No. I was just seeing if you were paying attention.”
It sits and reminds me
the memories numb
the pain of that race and the fall
from sobriety
Like a prodigal son
with a modicum of talent
I strayed from the path of righteousness
singing “I the mote in your eye”, aye
singing “I the mote in your eye”.
Twenty years on
pedestrian and spent
I stopped by the shores of Loch Ness
still singing “I the mote in your eye”, aye
still singing “I the mote in your eye”.
Scrambled egg and Markévitch and housework
on my knees
No longer, the papers to mark
in the rain
But time to give and to take from Górecki again.
The form has been sitting
and using up space on my empty hard drive
for days.
An unwelcome reminder
of a relentless absence of aptitude,
a relentless penchant for procrastination.
So it sits,
taunting, teasing and trying to test
whilst I, in turn,
turn the other cheek and check
if the kettle is ready for another brew.
And while I drink, I stew some more
on what could have been,
what should,
but for the lack of application.
A bit of hyperbole goes a long way. A local theatre company accidentally stumbling across Shakespeare and careering on to the national stage. Played out like a sociological case study of structure and action; all experienced through the comfort of the laptop keyboard, the visceral assault of the monitor and the unnerving disquiet of the telephone ringtone.
the jericho roads 