(SR) 2: On the Road
ON THE ROAD
There’s gotta be a better reason for writing than some vague impulse to produce monuments
Reed Whittemore
WESTENDERS
THE GENTLEMAN’S ART OF GOOD WOOING
ROSIE’S SCHOOL RUN
CAMPING
TOO MUCH CANDY
THIS IS MY COUNTRY
THE WAY
TRAINING IN THE ART OF FARE EVASION
The Fader Code
50P BOOKSHOP
TRAINING IN THE ART OF FARE EVASION:
The Jedi Stare
TO MY CRITICS
CAMBRIA
EIRE
FLOWERSCAR ROAD
WESTENDERS
‘Twas a quintessential English evening
All about town & the capital’s core,
On my arm a wonderful flutterling,
Perfectly amenable to the tour.
We met in a wine-bar off Trafalgar,
To delve within a cosy eaterie,
Then took our places at the theatre
For the Mousetrap’s befuddling mystery.
O! The night brimm’d a goblet romantic
& our spirits, yes, they sparkl’d as the stars,
Rosie was a gentle alcoholic,
Floating, flirting, thro’ her favourite bars;
When to the chimes of Big Ben’s booming bells
We jump’d the last train down to Tunbridge Wells.
*********
THE GENTLEMAN’S ART OF GOOD WOOING
Sir, just as sea-galleons need proper manning,
To act like a stallion needs dapper planning,
Ride out in the morning, find snappy new shirt,
French wine & fresh melons for a private desert.
Whether up in the Andes, or by the Atlantic,
Reserve a nice table with view quite romantic
For dates in the city seek art, tho’ not too much,
Sitting still together allows two hearts to touch.
Sir, to get the best out of screwing,
Try the Gentleman’s Art of Good Wooing,
For a woman well-wooed in her bloom,
Is a vixen if moved to the bedroom,
So, strike like a cobra, then kiss like a man,
& undressing brings success to your plan.
*********
ROSIE’S SCHOOL RUN
OH MY GOD! I’m having a nightmare,
Fuck, look at the fucking time!
“SHUUTTT UUUPPP!!!”
The kids are doin’ my head in
With their school-stuff everywhere,
“Here’s yer shoes, here’s yer socks,
Heres yer fuckin’ sandwich box!”
“MUMMY… don’t swear!”
OH MY GOD! Its ten to nine now,
& my car-keys JUST AREN’T THERE!
Will it rain, will mum call,
Will I end up on the dole
O MY GOD! Its five to nine now
& the traffic’s hits a WALL!
*********
CAMPING
A few miles west of Winchelsea we found
A perfectly poetic spot called Fairlight,
Perched on a cliff-top, private beach below us,
The grey-green channel stretching out to France,
Behind us; lovely, swarming Down Country,
To our right a forested coastal hill
Dotted with extravagant-looking houses,
Homes of the wealthy, or the famous elite,
Like Paul Macartney’s crazy second daughter…
I whipp’d us up a campsite in ‘man’ mode,
& large pallet found, a few ninja moves
Broke it to firewood, I cook’d up a feast
Wash’d down with wine – to a hot, scarlet sunset,
Made love like lions on a tall cliff’s edge.
*********
TOO MUCH CANDY
As bakeries stock icing-coated treats;
Like danishes, cakes, stroodles, tarts & pies,
I sugar-rush to see thy brimming sweets,
& taste the jelly babies in thine eyes.
You are the dairy cream of an eclair,
You lips the berries of a bramble bush,
Like honeydew the gold locks of thy hair,
& with rose-milk your soft cheeks are aflush.
You are an hour spent bathing in the sun,
Another hour spent swimming in the sea,
But in warm rays the blazing skin grows numb,
& in seawaves salt-texture vexes me,
Like too much candy – so I’ll say farewell,
Loose cut, sweet Rosie, from your cosy spell.
*********
THIS IS MY COUNTRY
Good Morning Great Britain
Still great, still Britain
The sun is shining, 10:45 AM
£296.26 pence in my pocket
Time to bet it all on black & hit the road again
If time is a mere scratch & life is nothing
& nothing that occurs is of the slightest importance
From Aberdeen to Birmingham, Arundel & Deal
From Dullis Hill to Rotherham, Bristol & Peel
From Inverness to Liverpool, Leeds & Palmer’s Green
From Lewisham to Padiham & all the pubs between
From Badminton to Twickenham & Barton-in-the-Beans
‘Til my bardic breath expires
This is my Time,
This is my Rhyme,
This is my Country!
*********
THE WAY
There is a baton wild & free,
The ancient art of poetry,
That flies out from the mouths of men,
As tho’ them gods on highest ben,
By them the great tradition passed
That pins a sail to Poet’s mast
& carries them across the wave
To famous islands, glory’s grave!
The Poet never truly dies
Those fancy twinkles in their eyes
Are Muses, who like fireflies flit
In destin’d dance, from wit-to-wit
Stokes dragonsbreath in mortal clay,
Next Poet sets along the Way.
*********
TRAINING IN THE ART OF FARE EVASION
The Fader Code
1 Remain alert
2 Always keep your cool
3 Trust your instincts
4 Never show your money
5 Know your stations
6 Another five minutes won’t hurt in the loo
7 Know your enemy
8 Know your postcodes
9 The train’s going there anyway
10 When in doubt, clout
11 Trains always comes when ya skinnin’ up
12 It is every Fader’s duty to baffle & confuse
13 Always remember your free cup of tea
14 No need to rush unless you’re being chas’d
*********
50P BOOKSHOP
In the heart of the Maritime City,
On Albert Road, still trades the treasure store
Where first found I those gems of poetry,
Little jewels of literary lore.
As I disturb the silence of that room
Bookseller barely glances from the page,
The musty smell of leather-bound volume
After volume…
…shelf-stack’d, floor-piled…
…the sage
Deems sweeter than perfume of a lover.
I find, buried, a long-forgotten tome,
Blow dust in clouds from it’s sea-green cover,
To chance upon a book on sonnet form!
‘Tis such monumental moments as these
Which sets a craft drifting on time-shifting seas.
*********
TRAINING IN THE ART OF FARE EVASION
The Jedi Stare
I first learned how to Fade at sweet sixteen
Top of the M1, dirty Leeds in the rain
“Fuck that!” I huff’f & hopped on a train
Aint look’d back (or paid) since, welded to wits,
Like fa{are-eva}ding the Leipzig train outta Colditz!
Excellently ticketless & groovy!
Me-in-the-mirror the in-flight movie
Thorsten Veben once said,“He with sufficient
Means to live, Without gainful employment,
Is a gentleman!” “May I see your ticket?”
The Jedi stare: “You’ve seen my ticket mate,
I turn to my phone with a carefree shrug,
Bag the blag, settle in, check my facebook, smug.
*********
TO MY CRITICS
O! Let the poet ruffle feathers far!
When, wallowing in mediocrity,
Men mock ‘wyrd’ ways, the voice of vanity
Effected, like the gasp of Balthazaar
When first he saw messiah – Halley’s star
He’d follow’d blindly since Chang’an City,
On a lone barn shone – or the gritty gulp
When Brendan left from Earth by flying car;
This bedrock fog, this bog of grunting sland,
Where squirms opinion in its wormy dirts,
However clever, ‘credible’ & scann’d –
If ignorance is taken for a wit,
We laureates should rip aside our shirts
& smear best chests in festergripe & shit!
*********
CAMBRIA
I’d enter’d Wales along its southern shore,
Pass’d many breezy towns of prime bereft;
Like Newport, Port Talbert, Haverfordwest,
Dolgellau’s mellow stream, Harlech’s stoic stones,
Where, standing pois’d upon Glendower’s keep,
Cymru’s grey passes bash the flashing skies!
Like lanterns drawing phantoms from a fen,
I’m wrestl’d westwards with a restless pen
To tacklr Snowdon from the low Rhyd Ddu,
Infinite furlongs from her summit view;
The twinkling of the distant River Dee,
The rising lion of Aran Fawwdwy…
…Britannia’s Isles enwrap me, all around,
Tho’ up in Heaven, feet still touch the ground.
*********
EIRE
From Holyhead the British Isles recede,
Before another spreads horizon wide,
& soon we have entered the Dublin pale,
Divided by the sluggish Liffy flow;
Refreshment lifts us from the Temple Bar,
Thro’ Bray, into the gloomy Wicklow Hills,
To spend a week at gorgeous Glendaloch,
Then gallop west through Galway’s savage peaks
To Connemara, proof of God’s own art;
Braving the fierce, grievous Atlantic spray
I scale the heights some human mountain goat,
To pace the ancient battle cairns of Cong,
Then back to Dublin, back to Liverpool,
As soak’d in history as soak’d in rain!
*********
FLOWERSCAR ROAD
Pois’d, almost home, we hiked up Kinder Scout
In early April when the branches bare,
Or glittering with leaves just starting out
Upon their quest to fumigate the air;
Foxglove & thistle empurpling the trail
That modern man in motion wide discards,
Across the heights that shadow Calderdale,
My home awaits among the crude back yards.
About the wool & bones dull moorland spann’d,
& Burnley’s beddiness one walk awaits,
Where first my spirit felt its mother’s hand
Entangl’d by the fibres of our fates;
But now… a moment settl’d on a stone,
A breath of wind, the heather… & alone!
Mumble Words 