memory

Sunday In ’74

in the jigger
behind nan’s house
among the dustbins
and mopbuckets
we once found a car
obviously stolen
a day or two before
driven or ridden for joy
by bigger boys
perhaps at some point
pristine and prized
it provided lovers
a safe haven
or rolled along the
prom prom prom
at Southport
on bank holidays
but to us
now burnt and battered
stripped and torn
its dead husk
lived again in glory
as a tank to fight
the jirmins
at El Alamein
like our grand-dads did.

Crimbo Lines

those weeks before Christmas
that dragged on like years
of dark Ready Brek mornings
in the thick December fog
before catalytic converters
that we’d cut through
pretending our breath
was cigarette smoke exhaled
on the way to the schoolyard
to boast our earnest belief
that upon Christmas morning
those fantasies we’d seen
in the back of your auntie’s
Autumn and Winter edition
of Grattan’s catalogue
would bulge the pillowcases
tied to the end of the bed

Broken Biscuits

In my head’s a biscuit tin
I keep unfinished poems in
there’s one about a robin
on the rails
and then there’s epic sagas
of heroes bold and true
on fated quests
destined but to fail,
sometimes on scraps and scrapings
at the bottom of the tin
there’s little bits of songs
I never played
librettos of rainy afternoons
when I hadn’t better things to do
and there’s folded paper animals I made.
The lid is not the best of fits
it’s bent around the edge of it
the years have took their toll
it must be said
but as a little library
of all the thoughts that sculpted me
I wouldn’t swap the biscuit tin
that lives inside my head.