Facing Andrew

It’s not too easy

facing a boy

who looks at you sideways

without fear or anger

but softly and friendly

wiser in brainbox

and subtle in secret

hearing the feeling

rhythm and obvious

you and him here, now,

drilling no damage

softening edges

beating the beating,

tip, of your hardening heart.

Talent

Body and voice seem hunted

throughout a haunting performance.

Sometimes a song,

a joke and song,

an instrument, song.

Sweet and strange

to tip-up as dancers

(not minotaurs)

but as people from streets

with hands and prints

and, here and hopeful, an older man,

teenager spinning, a green

moment, lifting red

to blue; lifting them selves,

us, up, up and up. You’re on – you’re up.

Spreadsheet

Tap into a cell again

- far too hard for me, old chap, this sum

arithmetic is way, like, too much pain

 - I need to hit the wine bar, stagger home.

Subtract and multiply and add

 - I do believe it’s time - another round:

ask my PC, Apple, iphone, ipad;

move the cursor up - along - and down.

She is a rather super looking mare

 - Paypal up an order to the bar

and we can be what, we, forever were;

self important, humbled, pissed and poor.

Fool

About the tarot trumps, masters claim, the strongest

is the fool.

                        This morning, when a long-eared nut

confabulated out from my fingers into long, long grass,

away I flew! Oh no – my car – won’t start – the time! Come on!

Old melancholy whacked me hard inside like a pillow fight

and pity wrapped me in cloaks – like a sad, old clown

Andrew would laugh! In front of engineer, red king or purple pope

he’d use a fool’s strategy;

                                                dance or smile,

hugging forces – like a yellow rose

exuding the garden for a while,

innocent and knowing – nothing – zero- footloose,

free and funny, stranger, stronger stuff – more like – inside,

deeply inside – out.

Lewis Carroll

‘jump down’ said Alice;

‘here’s a colourless rabbit

I followed for hours’

Down's Before Birth

Down’s before birth

If you could change this life

for a real one,

 - say -  with a fuller story

wherein you have a new handle

marauding through a spanking world

maybe in a place more lost

-       would you go?

And how would you feel about your new life?

Imagine you’re ready,

standing moments before birth

in pounding rain

shivering with all anticipation

and calmly

turning down your little dial of mind

to nothing – wanderer -

with such a lot to give:

perhaps it’s not so dark and cold

as you fight your way into a sweeter handicap;

rebirth

as fool, magician, simple creature, king.

Are you going?

I put Andrew to bed

remembering without fail

to sing Scarborough Fair

eyeball to eyeball

head to head

and I know he’ll probe

– honest as a boy –

for one more burst

- a final verse -

of mutual joy.