The Bum’s Dispersed
I fucking hate it when I
feel the urge to write but
find it hard to reach out
and grab that something
that will create a poem:
I know it’s there,
somewhere within
like when I wouldn’t
back-down although I
knew I’d be beaten,
something inside, it
wasn’t pride it was the
moment itself,
daring and taunting;
how it ended wasn’t
important, but he,
drunker than I,
collapsed as he tried
to throw a punch my
way: he hit the concrete
hard and the crowd
of bums dispersed:
I looked down, his
head was bleeding
but he was breathing
and needed help: it
took some hassling of
passer-bys before an
ambulance was called
and I left the scene,
watching from a
distance,
hoping he’d be okay
and thankful I
hadn’t had my ass
kicked to hell
and back again.
The Same
‘Mr Robinson, she died,
literally, 5 minutes ago,
I’m sorry’ the nurse said:
I could see that she meant
it:
‘Oh, okay, can I see her’
I asked, my eyes
watering a little:
‘Yes, of course’ she said:
I stepped into the room,
closed the door,
we were alone together
again, just like it had
always been but this was
a different being together
and being alone and a few
weeks later, her sister and
I were the only attendee’s
at her eco friendly burial
in some woodland: the
rain fell harsh and
cold and relentless as
she was lowered in her
cardboard casket into
the flooded hole of
watery eternity, never to
talk of Marlboro smokes,
of Kerouac and
California, never to curse
again the shallowness
of this life,
‘be a king or slum
dweller, it’s all the
same’
she’d say.
The Hollow People
A large proportion of my work
is listening to people, sometimes
it can be captivating and
interesting, funny or serious and
heart breaking but mostly the
talk is mostly trivial, boring,
repetitive, an endless flow of
irrelevant bullshit: but I
listen. I’m paid to listen, to
hear words that are the lives
of the fucked-up and lonely,
to the lost and ‘don’t give a
shit’ to the help me, save me,
the victim, the scared and
hollow people:
and I am each and
everyone one of them, I
hear and speak their
language, know of their
needs and weakness’s,
I have come through it and
now hold the hands of
those who didn’t.
The Excercise
‘I wasn’t going quietly’ he told me,
a big built ex-martial arts champion:
‘there were 4 squad cars, 12 police
officers and that didn’t worry me
but I could see that it worried them:
but they were devious, I thought it
would be un-armed combat, but it
wasn’t: some officers were armed
and the first opportunity they
tasered me again and again, until I
was on the floor writhing around,
helpless and hurting: the road had
been cordoned off and small t.v.
crews were there and my mother
was standing with the police and
she was crying, a few of my friends
were there also amongst a
growing crowd: after a 4 hour
stand-off, it was all over, all
because I made a dumb-ass
call to the cop station telling
them that I had some explosives
and was going to blow my own
ass to kingdom-come:
I didn’t think they’d take me
seriously, I mean no one
ever listens to me: are you
listening to me man?’
he asked:
‘I am’ I said
as he looked out into a
lifeless exercise yard.
Much More
I felt something for her,
maybe a love, lust and
illusion: I knew that she
was going to die soon,
her skin yellow and her
body bloated and she
looked scared and scary
and I kept away and
one time she showed up
at my place: I was trying
to keep clean but gave
this up when I answered
the door to her: she came
in and we shared a
couple of joints: I could
feel something surging
within me, but she
wasn’t good and I let go
and we drank a couple
of beers and both of us
were thinking that this
would be our last
meeting
and it was
but I made her
funeral,
but we could have
made so much
more.
