Noir four

Following on from here, the fourth (final?) part of this noir story-in-verse, each from a different participant's perspective...

Colour me Noir IV: The Suitcase

The click of my catch
is the revolver’s hammer,
thumb-cocked to snuff some poor dope.

The thud as I’m dropped
is the blackjack’s kiss on a sap’s skull –
hug that sidewalk, John Doe.

The first line of light
as my lid opens is the crack
of a KO’d boxer’s swollen eye.

Whoever I see,
witness, killer or corpse,
they’re all my victims in the end –
I am a mirror not of glass.

More noir

It's been a while since part 2, but now the story continues...

Colour Me Noir III: The Victim

The case weighs heavy in my hand,
Contents whisper
Greedy little suggestions,
It feels unwholesome –
Like this dank-walled back-alley,
All damp and mouldered cardboard boxes,
And discarded news-sheets,
Dead-beat inked,
But I gotta wait –

It’s late, he’s later,
Then the tell-tale click
Of slightly limping feet,
In spat-clad patent seg-heeled shoes
On night-wet sidewalk –

He approaches,
Slyly not-quite-smiling
(No doubt those are unsmiling eyes),
Coat long-sweeping, hat broad-brimmed
And shadowing,
Both dark grey like this city’s air;
He beckons, powder-twitch snappy,
‘Give it ‘ere’ –
‘Make with the dough’, he’s told –

We argue but I know
This hell don’t wanna pay his way;
He’s Red-hand Jack’s man OK –
I turn to leave,
He grabs, greasy-palmed,
A shrug – his hand slips from my gaberdine,
Now a push, a shove,
Fingers slip beneath the coat –
Not for the missing roll o’ bills
But a cheap and tarnished gun,
The old revolver fires,
Slug-smoke curls,
Gutted,
I fall blood-hazed – the case pulls free;
Vision dimming, still I see
A woman stop, jaw-dropped –
Who is she?

My story may be done,
But hers not so – not yet – she runs.

First time into the breach

Last night was interesting - the first time I've read at a poetry competition, and in a huge, splendid mediaeval barn. Though short-listed, I didn't win (the band liked it!), but it was an interesting experience, especially as the audience were very different from what I'm used to i.e. much more 'trad' Shakespeare fans (unsurprising as it was part of the Titchield Shakespeare Festival) - not like the audiences for the more contemporary fare I tend to go for. Saying that, I am partial to a bit o' Bard once in a while and I still like As You Like It, despite being taught it for O-level (not GCSE) English Lit, *ahem* years ago. So, with the competition themes in mind, and inspired by the 'All the world's a stage...' soliloquy, this is what I came up with and it seemed to go down well...

’69 – ‘13

Last year, prime-numbered age held sway,
since then some extra throat-beard grey,
shirt buttons slightly more tum-splayed,
maybe it’s time I was re-weighed.
Oh God, I’m 44.

On average I am past halfway,
it takes less beer ‘til bladdered spray,
and if hungover lose a day,
my liver yells at me ‘no way’.
Oh God, I’m 44.

These days, more trespass than affray,
older than pre-prison Krays,
once Dangermouse, now Colonel K,
or tatty-eared old tom-cat stray,
will my hair fall out with mange?
Oh God, I’m 44.

Docked my first iPod yesterday,
with Paypal not quite so au fait,
watched vinyl’s decline with dismay,
hookers my age carry change,
I fancy Bellatrix Lestrange,
Oh God, I’m 44.

Just twitched a rare Siberian Jay,
rewatched the Darling Buds of May,
but please no cocoa on a tray,
against the dying light I’ll rage,
find my As You Like It stage,
at least men don’t go through ‘The Change’,
Oh God, I’m 44.

‘Cos I still wield a wicked blade,
so far no urge to dress more staid
in crimplene slacks of dun-tan-beige,
I’d fear that mournful colour-change,
rather weekends spent in adult play
than tussling with cheap underlay –
I’ve never felt quite so alive,
I’ll soon be 45.

Here I am performing at the Festival.

On the polar parade

A giant mechanical polar bear - part of the Greenpeace #savethearctic campaign, as was the #iceclimb.

Arctic uproar

Aurora londonensis,
bigger than a double-decker,
solid-state roar
rumbles tarmac underpaw,
windblown,
rainswept,
driven by siege puppeteers
hauling like fjordsmen
overland to Byzantium,
she fears no melting floe
nor seal-blubber famine –
ice to the core,
her will is steel.
First Nations sing of lands lost
to oil-thirst,
crude greed,
pipelines drawn in the snow
to spill black bile,
bringing melancholy to the North,
fragmenting the white
for nothing more than
fatter spreadsheet totals
and dividends-in-suits.

de facto censorship

When the media decide what you should know...


No news is bad news

Iceland

Bankers jailed for gambling away
everybody else’s money on lame horses.
Government and economy reclaimed for the people
in a Norse perestroika.
Not in the news.

Brazil

Street protests dwarf those in ‘V for Vendetta’ fantasies.
Police driven into the sea,
police become refuseniks,
police stand with protesters,
tribespeople occupy logging HQs.
There’s more going on than football and beach-bums.
Not in the news.

Sri Lanka

Shelling of civilians, and summary executions,
soldiers jeer lewdly at the naked bodies of dead women,
war criminals pose for photos with corpses,
expressing their desire to mutilate.
Brown children press-ganged and killed by the hundred.
Not in the news.

United Kingdom

One whiteblonde child disappears,
a footballer hurts his foot,
a British tourist dies in a bus crash abroad (ignore the 47 others),
a Royal sneezes,
some Z-lister wears a new dress –
See the headlines scream and the column-inches multiply.
The news is full.

I tri to univocalise

ibid.

Bring crisps, chips, drinks in tins,
fight-night is nigh,
fit fists hitting chins, TV-bright –
Biff!
Spit split lip-bits, pink, thick.

I sit with misgivings,
sipping citric gin,
wishing it’d finish – tick tick tick,
minim-clicks.
I’m missing BBC’s rib-tickling skits,
sci-fi films, British fright-flicks.

Living with dimwits is shit,
six chimps igniting spliffs,
yipping, big-dicking,
swilling Pils (bits spill),
pissing Klimt-lit drips
(in mind: shivs, picks, flinging bricks).

‘Ring-ring, ring-ring.’
‘Hi’ – it’s Irish Jim with skins, trips,
limping,
flicking blim,
iThing whistling Limp Bizkit.
Inviting him in, civil-ish,
I skip-zip lightning-quick,
quitting this tip right-swift, midnight flit.

Kip in Tim’s Civic? Fritz’s Mini?
Siri’s ringing – it’s Jim, livid,
Tirpitz sinking in villi.
Dicing with risk, inciting plight - think,
climb in big bin,
flip lid,
piri-piri whiff,
filing piling high –
shitting it, chill-pills kick in,
silent, I rigid-digit Jim.

First thing, switch limits:
Hiding in hills?
Ritz?
Mississippi tipi?
Flight it is.
Sigh.

Perspectives

Scenes from a double-decker

Old lady with a black-dyed bouffant bald patch.
Roadside moorhen nest (punky chicks).
Ragwort growing from an upstairs window frame,
halfway to the sparrows living in the eaves.

Other top-floor travellers at eye-level
(if not eye-contact).
The little aerial atop a bus-stop
collecting estimated times of arrival.
The ubiquity of single shoes.

Some ummm… interesting views of cleavages.
The onrushing slap of twigs and leaves,
the approach of the next biro-jarring bump.
How the supermarket’s wall of greenery lies.
Men (only men) collecting train numbers,
shuffling like the walrus lumbers,
choo-choo-g’joob.

The texture of slate tiles and leadwork.
How people sometimes seem to know I’m looking
but not that, or what, I’m writing.
Teenagers smoking behind a hedge –
private privet.

The contents of that bin,
that drain,
that pram,
that garden.

Railway ballast, Hippo-bagged, Buddleia-hidden.
Scars on the head of a swaggering fool,
walks the monkey-walk,
talks the monkey-talk?

Sprigs of a green mohican
sprout like grass through cycle-helmet slits.
Cracked grave-slabs by a cricket pitch
next to where the ponies mooch
and crane-necked tradesmen
muse upon the old church roof.