Not forgot

This just called to me today - an old friend, gone but not forgotten...

Our friend Dickie

Our friend Dickie
Was tall.
Our friend Dickie
Was gangly and ginger,
His head was hard, his elbows bony,
He liked to cycle,
He fell off in a hedge or three –
Oh, how we laughed, but then –
He fell off in the road,
He fell off on the cycle-path,
He left his bike outside the pub
And fell down anyway.

You see,
Our friend Dickie
Liked a drink
And the drink liked company –
A quick one led to 3, 4, 5, 10,
He nearly disappeared but then
A fine, round, smily girl called Esther
Brought him back, gawd bless ‘er –
Love let him let the drink stay lonely.

They got engaged and all was tea and roses,
Chainsaws and posies,
Or would’ve been if only
A random passing fool,
All cheap-lager-sodden-cruel
And Saturday-nightly shirted-and-tied
Hadn’t picked a fight and hit him –
One punch, legs went, too punch-sober,
He fell,
Head smack-cracked on hard kerb-corner,
Brain-bled, he died –
It was all over bar the mourners.

Our friend Dickie
Wasn’t hard, but like I said,
We thought he had a hard head,
Our friend Dickie
Couldn’t be gone,
Couldn’t be dead
‘Cos he’d only just come back
From the soaked and rotten,
All-but-forgotten side of the tracks,
And if dead,
That’d be wrong –
He’d miss our wedding,
My Best Man’s wedding,
His own wedding,
But he is and he did –
A decade on,
He is still missed.

Linking the themes

Three interlinked stanzas picking up themes from a most poetical Sunday - modernism, yellowness, chalk-on-pavements...

Street art

I

Chalking round the sunspot dapples
Like a capella apples,
Eve spread out the tarmacadam
Unbidden on your drive –
“That’ll be a grand, mate” –
“Bite me”,
I don’t want your bitumen,
So bring on your gut-pouched lawyers,
Runaround and sue me,
Affidavits holding hole-hulled lifeboats,
Play the passing notes in full –
John Bullshit,
Rip up the writ
Throw down your cap
Tear off your coat
And draw out in pastel-pinks
The wartime tints of Goya.

II

Hints entrenched in dead-eyes stares,
Though shrapnel’s welcome here,
Throw freely and appreciate
The pigmented figments –
Binocular, binaural, never choral,
One makes it quorate
And so grants legitimacy of status,
Verbal afflatus –
You can’t make us, make me, mako;
Thus spake old fake old
Tsarovich,
A bob-a-job nabob,
‘Ave a cup o’ suzerainty
And a biscuit, ya baskit.

III

We beckon you inside with bourbonhomie,
Ignoring the custard screams of wheel-less wagoneers,
Broken-spoked,
Fragments campfire-smoked –
Outline the carbonate with charcoal,
Illuminate with low-lit rims,
Put up hoods or pull down brims,
Utterly fedorable –
I say, I say, an ice-age eyeshade,
Pretend the light’s about to fade,
Stop your barking
And walk out silent through the day.

Using information, or not

Following on from yesterday's swan-in-a-duck-gang, another bit of brevity about identity and awareness...

On being informed

Hoverfly buzzes crossly in my face,
Mimics a wasp –
It has no idea I am an entomologist
And know it can not sting,
But even if it did,
Would it repeat the exercise,
Just keeping up appearances?

Identity non-crisis

A short offering today... it's usually good to know who you are, but...

Identity non-crisis

Swan runs with the duck-gang,
Swan waddles with the duck-gang,
Swan swims with the duck-gang,
Swan doesn’t fly with the duck-gang;
Swan doesn’t know taxonomy,
Swan doesn’t have a mirror,
Swan’s never read Hans Christian Andersen,
Swan doesn’t care
As long as it gets sandwiches.

Fizzy sometimes-yellow stuff

Last night I went to see the marvellously funny and splendidly chaotic Yellow Show by Rob Auton at the also-wonderful Art House. Previously seen at the Edinburgh Fringe, and touring about here and there, it's well worth a look if you get the chance - really, it was the funniest and, at times, one of the most poignant, things I've seen in quite a while... Anyhow, one bit inspired me to do this...


What’s that fizzing in my glass?

What’s that fizzing in my glass?
No blue-painted Matchbox Volkswagen Scirocco,
And it’s not a maraca, they’re bigger and paired,
Nor, larger by far and all covered in hair,
Chewbacca won’t fit,
Unless it’s just a little bit –
A whisker or two, a fingertip,
Or a tiny piece of Wookiee poo;
A photo of a yuppie sipping at their mocha,
Drifting downwards through the water,
A blob of Knickerbocker
Glory, the memory of Mods ‘n’ Rockers,
A sock left in your old school locker,
A dropped fob-watch, wet ticker-tocker,
Nervous-calming beta-blocker,
A little plastic Airfix Fokker,
The ghostly scones of Betty Crocker,
A fag-end chucked in by a docker,
Maybe a fragment of your foot,
Grown warty at a swimming pool,
But no,
Verrucas never effervesce –
Maybe a vitamin tab’s best,
Or custard.