A lad with learning difficulties says

‘What you doing? Eh?

 What you need?’

‘Er Money! Sex. Ah Stuff!’

‘What else you need?

‘A drink, a talk,

 to boss, fight, swear, win, sloth,

 to rule, to dig, to leap,

 in fame and fashion, debt and hope.’

‘Thanks very much.

I say more:

Friends, Food,

Stories, Games,

Music, Smiles.

Thanks very much?!’

Afterwards

Out come words - tiny spurts - with a spirit, tumbling,

sliding into the tall Spring air; rippling the Rubicon

of normal people, clumsy keys

hammering at a door that’s locked

- will we ever hear and feel a passion deep inside?

 

Shall we play? Shall we cry? Shall we arise and sing aloud

words that line-dance into laughter:

clear your throat and jump the escalator.

 

Andrew’s words are happy ever after:

ever after the dancing laughter after.

 

Walking away

A childlike life will get you all the fun;

when to rest and when to jump and play;

what’s in a wrestle, settle, dance or run,

what makes a small adventure every day.

 

Of how he talked, ate, mullocked, slept at night,

worn out, stayed superconscious in the eyes,

no dusty schoolbooks, more a dancing light;

his pain was shadow for the rest of us

 

but now’s a time when children leave, vamoose,

a moment when we say goodbye, ta-ra,

and when we stare towards the vanishing point

all hearts are aching, every head is faint.

 

He glances round and says ‘merci’, ‘au revoir’

and quickly turns his back, you’re no more use.

Sound

The note he makes vibrates away;

an eager dance, transforming

ear-drums and thin air.

The composer wrote down a dot

but hear – don’t reckon – leap to art.

 

This note is a fine one, invites

your flesh to action through the veins

when body and voice,

instinct, sense, come out and pounce.

A note arrives, molecules dance.

Stars

Another late train,
empty.

I sit and softly touch my temple
then interlock fingers
like armour
stopping human touch.

Out I gaze now, up and into
a cradle of stars, disconnected.

You have no warmth, distant sparks

but I remember a son
who knows the worth
of a twinkle, hug;
a pull towards
True North.

Self Image

I keep seeing a flat guy who looks like a mural

but he moves away quickly whenever I glance.

 

He’s a person in 2D, a pancake-like monkey,

a plane of a character, ghostly cartoon.

 

You could call him a doodle on a smooth piece of paper;

it’s like he’s been ironed and left in the frost.

 

I glimpse him in mirrors, from glass in shop windows

and other folk’s spectacles, catching me out.

 

Look

above the special card

  a hand but chubby and with butter-fingers loose

             the pen like a small bludgeon

 and lines

from unstable tip gross erratic drawled

and no Big Word

                            but truth

                       full of kisses funny

                           wobbles  “ Happy Day!! With lots of Andrew!”