Slender neck without the rings seen in early sepias,
full lips neither enigmatic nor known,
eyes darker than her lashes
and blacker than the fountained braids
rising above her headband
and when you mimic me your accent is too strong
I am Zulu not Afrikaans and when you come
home with me at Xmas it will be very hot
but you must wear a suit to show respect
for my mother and you cannot sleep with me
A languid wisdom inhabits every glance,
every decision, and when music plays
she moves nothing except her wrists,
bending them rhythmically downwards,
casually clutching all the sex in the world
I am beautiful inside as well as out
and when I go back I even give them
my panties because we are poor and if
I were a virgin you would pay a thousand
pounds for me and when I was a child
I walked like an old woman but I am
holding my shoulders back for you because
I am glad you took me out though I don't think
you will come home with me at Xmas
I always look up to spot the good bits; the odd castellations
on top of an Edwardian hotel, the white pediment above high
Victorian keystones, the set-back top of a thirties block
like the bridge of a liner sailing out of an Art Deco poster.
Walk steadily, a straight line, even paced, disturbing no one
yet people stride across me, force me to halt, look down, frown,
I flick my shoe, catch their heel, they stumble, glare, as I shrug,
raise eyebrows, feign apology, smile.
There's been an accident outside the church, ambulance, police,
blue cordon siphoning traffic, a stretcher, oxygen mask, splint,
broken shoe, all that's seen through a rush of paramedics,
people lean on barriers, part of them wanting to watch death.
A woman runs in front of me, laughing, knocking my arm, trips
as my foot snakes out and I catch for an instance the black eyes,
blind to me, upon the road, and she isn't laughing but wailing
no no no as a policeman runs to her, guides her to a car, pushes
her head under the rim of the door arch, and the dreadful stare
trying to see the figure in the street under tight grey blankets,
turn my back, glance up at a Catholic Jesus, the gash of colour
on the lips, like the slice of red on the roadside tuft of hair.
I once read a poem written by a wall
and how the squeezed mortar felt
And one from a pond telling how
it was when a child drowned in it,
His mother churning my depths
with his name. And verses by
a hyena. I'm not laughing. A hyena.
I trot, I lope, I slaver.
I'd like to write one about being
a tortoise and what it's like
to have hares gallop past
and the triumph of just beating one
that started three days earlier.
Or perhaps some stanzas
from the Woolwich Ferry
as it diesels across grey water
and dreams of gliding into Rio.
I'm not going to though.
It's silly.
And anyway
I can't.
I'm a sideboard.
He flings my book at the living room wall with a hollering
You're always fucking reading! me wondering with schizoid
irrelevance what page it would land at, stare at the butler sink,
tin bath on the fence by the toilet. Settles on his chair looking
like a rabbit eating cabbage, bends his knife to harvest the gravy
lips tighten, swallows, leans back, wavy hair, tiny eyes that look
surprised when a joke is explained, East Ender, always buys a round
You're as good as Charlie prods mum. Takes me to Brick Lane
smug smiles when he grabs a bargain, endless Guvs to the landlord
postman, everyone, explosive fist once denting our biscuit tin,
photos of army days in India, tells me to get a trade in yer 'ands
I start an apprenticeship he never sees me finish, and yesterday
clearing out my life before I move, find the same volume,
dog-eared, torn, and in the early morning mist by his grave
place it carefully on the wet grass like a book of remembrance.
Tree-dotted land
like a Lichtenstein print
as banking over Barajas
I try to glimpse the Bernabeu
I think of Julie
and our dot-filled night
her face in close-up
tearsplashed cheek
lips a lateral heart
my indigo hair in profile
chiselled nose strong jaw
We gotta end it Johnny right now
Zeros coming in at twelve o'clock
cockpits hazy behind propeller circles
kerpow kerpow kerpow Bam!
Despite their stifled yawns
he tries to tell them about Marx
and to sum up his thesis in a sentence.
Our reality, consciousness, identity,
our political, cultural and economic systems
are determined by the ways in which we
technologically transmute the physical world.
What do you think then? he asks. Is it true?
You've got ten seconds to answer.
They look alarmed so he holds
his hands out, fingers cupping,
encouraging. Joke, he says. Joke.
You'd prefer a story, wouldn't you, he asks,
and their grins explode. Yes, they shout,
like sitting round a fire telling tales.
(He could see firelight flickering on their faces).
They're smiling now; tall, smooth-skinned
Somalians, gaunt Rwandans, gentle
full faced Ghanaians, gold bangled
Nigerians making their Victorian values heard
(not for them the two inch band of flesh
at their waist, tops of knickers showing)
and the two Dagenham lads, sitting apart,
asking if this geezer was a brother of Groucho.
He sighs. Smiles back at them.
Asks them how their summer had been.
I enter through a grudging door
into a room via the wall
sit in a chair and drift to the floor
as a small boy walks through my legs
and skips his way down the hall
to ask when I'll be here
a familiar key
soft treads quickening.
a passing blaze of hair
I stand mute in the porch
yet from behind watch her smile
as she embraces the figure on the step
and feel arms clasp my back
a head on my cheek
for she doesn't know
I am already home
I told him I was late because
when I woke this morning
everything in my apartment
had been stolen and replaced
with exact replicas
and when I told my sister
she said, who are you?
He asked me what skills I had
I told him I did abstract paintings
no paint, brushes or canvas
but I did buy some second-hand paint
in the shape of a house.
I told him I got on with colleagues
I'd just asked the typist out
but she said if I had sex with her
and she found out I'd be in trouble.
He asked me lots of questions.
I didn't get the job.
In a Barcelona street there are statues that aren't real
they're people standing still
till the chink of coin elicits an arrogant turn of head
from a marble veined Columbus
or a smirking salute from a copper cast G.I.
And there's a bronzed centurion who raises his spear
and a golden pair of potentates who bow
as pesetas rattle their boxes
whilst a man made from chalk with a guitar and a scowl
merely plucks a string as a grinning tourist drops a cent.
But it was the girl made from lead
with an errant wisp of hair, spinning her
grey rose and blowing slow kisses
who entranced me into daylong gazes
at her Eliza Dolittle face and small sweet waist.
I brought her home a month ago
but it's too cold to play statues here so she dresses up
and stands in front of our mirror perfectly still all day
until I come home and place a penny in her little box
when she twirls her drab rose and pouts her lips.
And when in bed I touch her leaded hand
she shrugs and murmurs in that Catalan way
I'm tired, I've been on my feet all day.
At dawn I draw the curtains and roll into bed
Where I dream till the previous evening
Of old trains sucking smoke from the sky
And stopping when the man
Lowers his green flag.
During the day my shaver
Plants bristles in my chin
And my teeth produce foam
Which I remove perfectly with a brush
After backcombing my hair into disarray.
Looking at where I've come from
I ease into a classroom
Where students ask answers
Before I give questions
And make notes before I speak.
And I feel the pain before I see you
Silently pass along the corridor
And remember that soon
I will bump out of you again.
Over the camouflage cloth south of the Alps
then the sting of sun at Ciampino and the
cab drivers shouting and pushing each other
as they wait for fares that never seem to come.
In the city an old aeroplane droning around with
a Vota Forza Da Liberta banner fishtailing above
the Teatro Dell 'Opera where the bourgeoisie
clap themselves for being there and the touting
accordionist hissing at his saxophone rival
outside the Art Deco feast of O'Brien's Bar.
Hearing the scooters through the shuttered window
and glancing at Rafaello's angels on the wall
seeing your questioning eyes as you
gave me a card on which those cherubs
gazed forlornly past me and now wanting
to send one to you wishing you were her.
He's found a mannikin that was skipped
on one of his walks where he stares at dogs,
it's male, but it'll do, can't afford a blow-up.
He's in the shed with it, shadows from neighbours
gardens are curling over the fence trying to look in,
It's lying there like a Christ, he folds its arms down.
He has an old bra, ties it round its chest
paints the scuff on the leg with Hint of Peach
washes the brush, spins it dry, a craftsman.
Peers through a cobwebbed window
getting dark, switches on the light,
marks the line between the thighs.