The Ballad of Bob and Mary

***TO BE READ IN A BROAD NORTHERN ENGLISH ACCENT***

Bob and Mary live in a semi.
They spend most every evening watching repeats on the telly.
Burying their heads in digital sand.
Bob sups his beer, thinks ‘Aint life grand’.
He belches, reveling in its echo, tone and strength
then half-heartedly apologises, to save the argument.
Mary is repulsed but merely gives a tut.
It’s not she doesn’t care, quite the opposite but
after all these years of chastising and nagging
her enthusiasm for home improvement is flagging.

Once Mary would have been described a dolly bird.
Now she is just bird-like with a faintly tinted perm.
She’s been smoking menthol superkings sine she turned 21.
They still make her feel sophisticated, though she won’t admit that to anyone.
It hasn’t been a bad life and she’s not one to complain,
but she thinks she’d do it differently if she had her time again.
She liked to have been an air hostess and travelled all over the world
or worked on one of them cruise ships, or been one of Pan’s People’s girls.
Just something a little more glamorous and less like egg and chips.
She gives poor Bob a sideways look and purses coral stained lips.

They’re a staple in their local. Bob drinks stout.
Mary likes a babycham and brandy when she’s out.
Bob’s not fond of Mary’s friends. He hates their gossiping ways.
Mary whispers too softly. He misses half the things she says.
At half past ten, habitually they totter up the road.
Arm in arm, step in step, it’s not a long trip home.
“Bob” says Mary, “do you ever wonder if there’s more than this?”
“Mary” Bob says, “I dearly love you, but you’re pissed.
When you’ve had more than three you know you get all philosophical-like
I’ve told you before about your limits, it’s too much at my time of life.”
He straightened his cap and Mary just sighed
then she looked up and saw how soft were his eyes.
“I know love” she said “and you’ve given me plenty
but sometimes I feel all used up and empty”.
“Oh, duck! We’ve had such good times, remember when we were young?
All those trips to the seaside, those summers full of sun?
Annual foreign holidays to the Costa this and that,
strolling, licking ice cream in a kiss me quick hat.
It’s only right you’re tired when you’ve lived as much as us.
That’s why they give us pensioners free rides on the bus”.

She squeezed his hand and sadly smiled.
They walked in silence a little while.
Then, as they reached their little front gate
Bob’s caught Mary’s arm and said “Wait.”
“What?” said Mary startled, spun into Bob’s waiting palms
“While there’s moonlight, we’ve no music but we’ve love and romance,
haven’t we darling?”
Mary’s heart flew like a flock of starlings.
As she lifted her arms Mary was glad
that night she’d remembered to wear her Tena pad.
She murmured “Let’s dance” and Bob stepped a tango
then screwed up his face and yelled “Ee! Me lumbago!”
Mary cried “Bob! You poor old thing!
Let me give you a hand. Do you want me to ring
for the doctor?” “No, no,” he said
“the best medicine for me will be us in bed”.
“Oh, give over” she playfully teased
“between your back and my dodgy knees
we’ll be lucky to make it up the stairs.
Thank god the hot water bottles are already prepared.”

She helped Bob to bed and fetched him his pills.
Unplugged the cords to save on the bills.
Locked all the doors and turned off the lights.
Got into bed and they kissed goodnight.
In well practiced harmony they both removed their teeth
put them into one glass and pushed it out of reach.
They snuggled into decades long impressions of their love
on a mattress worn equally below as above.
As Mary’s dreams encroached she saw flashes of her life
From after and before she became a mam and wife.
A joyful tear slid down her nose
and she reached her cold feet towards Bob’s warm toes.
“Bob, why don’t we take the grandkids out?
Down to the pier and tell them all the stories about
when you and me was courting
and the lido? and your car?
And that bar that you fought in?
Let’s see how they are.”
Bob just grunted but Mary didn’t mind.
She knew her face was laughter-lined.
For it hadn’t been a bad life, and she’s not one to complain
and she wouldn’t really do it differently

if she had her time again. 

Some Poem

We are all searching for some meaning.

This curse of consciousness silk screens our experiences
into something more than just living.
Day to day survival;
waking, walking, working, wanting, wondering, whining.
Losing all sense of time and season.
The essence of humanity- the power of imagination
coupled with thumbs is a peculiar quirk of evolving mis-creation.
For our corporeal inertia alongside technology based modern culture
means we’re species-wide suicidal.
Maybe I’m just ignorant and if I am, please let me know
but, what other species carries the seed of its own destruction in its genome?

It’s all very well searching for meaning,
but would we recognise it if it smacked us in the teeth?

Romantic notions of noble knowledge wrongfully endorsing assumed superiority.
The “something more than this”
paying, praying, playing, planting, planking, pining.
Mistaking physical reactions as divine.
We’re tragically misusing the power of imagination,
arguing over imaginary friends instead of maintaining our own population.
If we’re going to survive we need to change our lives
There’s too many of us sitting idle.
I don’t mean to brow beat and I know I do go on,
but we’re distracted by searching for meaning while hurtling toward our oblivion.

Whether the meaning you find is friars, fractals or pterodactyls,
can you not do something more practical?

Anachronistic  practices are both more active and better for the environment.
sowing, stowing, slowing, growing, fore going.
We have much to learn from bumblebees.
Thanks to us, very soon they’ll only exist in the imagination.
Just like harmony, altruism and human rights legislation.
Go back to watching the Bake Off; never turn your magic slate off.
You’ll never sacrifice your idols.
You don’t have to listen to this.
You’ll forget it by the time you get home.
For I am just some person.
And this is just some poem.

Still.

I hope you found some meaning. 


_________________________________________________________________________________

This is the poem I performed at the Manx LitFest 2015 poetry slam. 
The winner was Jennifer Davies with her magnificent tale of a teenage practitioner of the occult. Funny, engaging, richly written and expressively performed, Jennifer is a new favourite of mine. I can't wait to hear her again. 

Education

“Those who can, do.
Those who can’t, teach.”
is used usually at the end of a speech
in that tone of sneering smugness
reserved for lies
that have been repeated so many times
they have earned a patina of wisdom
to the unassuming eye.

The purpose of teaching is not to instruct.
It’s about introductions and opening up
a mind to possibilities.
Then gifting the tools
 to make the best of these.

The folk that sneer don’t hear about the stories of success

that come when students overcome feelings of powerlessness.

Perdita

As I woke the other day
the sky broke. Big, grey
splotches on concrete.
Each one a cocktail thrown by an ex-lover in defeat.

Dressing, dreading
resigned to a day of
unabashed antagonists,
washing, waking
this disturbing state
insistently persists.
I attempted to give the half squint that hair leaving the house demands
but could barely see the mirror for Kirby grips and hair-bands.
They had spilt off the shelf and onto the floor;
some in the bin, some in the drawer
this atoll of accessories, point of origin undisclosed
 was girt by the lagoon of lost socks and outgrown favourite clothes.

Confused, I clamour for caffeine.

Stumbling through the hallway,
bare soles bruising on abandoned ephemera
as pen lids, lip balm and bouncy balls roll away
care-slow moving like a long lost Lepidoptera.

Steaming kettle further blurring sleep clouded
eyes I turn and reach wrist deep into a tower
of teaspoons.
Withdraw.
To hullabaloo calamitous, I stir.
I slurp.
I stare,
trying to work out where I am.
Such stifling clutter!
It looks like a nutter
lives here, hoarding
all things
carelessly tossed aside.

This realization drove an elbow into my gut.
I checked the doors and windows.
Sealed shut.
Jellied legs delivered me to my cobalt velvet chair,
I sipped my tea most somberly, reflecting on my despair.
I finished, then straight-backed rinsed the cup,
head up high, jaw a-jut
then set about with mop and duster
until all of the items regained their lustre.
Gave each a home, it’s proper place,
put away pairs of briefs by the case
and learned to live through windows.
On tiptoes from upstairs
I can see a sliver of ocean.

I’ve chosen to make the best of it.
It’s orderly now. And quiet.
Some people would kill for this solitude.
I stoically abide it.

As for all the teaspoons, I’ve made myself a crown.
I accept I’m lost, for this is where I’m found

The Other Man in the Photograph

I got to the scene and wouldn’t you know,
there were people about, watching the show.
Squinting eyes under clammy palm,
I can just about see it.
A swallow.
A circle clears around me,
tainted by people’s realization of the role I am to play.
Unclean.
A hush.
Mine are the legs of a broken man.
The first step on the sand is a half-trip.
Drill Sergeant Duty barks in my ear:
“Get on with it son!”
While Compassion is left dry-heaving,
haunted eyes on the shore.

When I reached him, he was
half floating
hair fanning, like
hopeful fingers reaching for a
honeyed future.

I squat.
My shoes sink in sympathy and sodden sand.
My hands reach
Uniform baptized
I cradle him.
Skin puffy with salt
my teeth grit as my throat is assaulted
by the sickly coating of stench.
For him, I stand.

Valkyries do not ride for children who drown at sea,
but I carried him with professionalism and dignity.

Later, I went home, kissed my wife,
put my uniform in the wash.
Kissed my kids good night.
I stood under the shower for an hour and a half
scrubbing and soaping, but still got a waft
of wasted life every now and then.
Went to bed and tried to sleep knowing
tomorrow
I’ll do it all over again