MovieBuff
Poetry
Poemffice
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for Paula
It is empty now, this room
that hours ago was alive with your presence.
The musk of your perfume,
a single strand of your hair – these remain
in promise of your return.
The warmth of you where we lay together,
the tips of your fingers
tracing patterns on my skin, a calligraphy
in invisible ink, its meaning
bound up in the acceleration of our hearts,
the catching of breath
in our throats as we drew closer.
It is empty now, this room.
I keep its silence close, hold myself
to the promise of your return
when I will feel again your lips, their softness.
Under Construction
Two years or more, has it been? Cones, diversions,
heavy plant. The digging up of roads
and setting down of rails. I have become used to it.
Thoroughfares squared off into one-way. Posts
spaced out in a join-the-dots street plan
of proposed routes. Pantographs cat's-cradled
overhead, wires razoring the sky into halves,
quarters, eighths. These things have become the norm.
It's the tram stops that are doused in unreality,
like a movie set. This is, after all, Nottingham 2004,
not Berlin circa John le Carre. So why
does every stop, floodlit and capped with CCTV,
resemble Checkpoint Charlie? Propped against
an unfinished shelter, a victim of chucking-out time,
I'm a study in paranoia, waiting for a loudhailer
to bark, "Go back, Mr Fulwood. Go back
to your own side." Then a hail of gunfire.
(originally published in Obsessed With Pipework)
'Unmoved by faith'
Unmoved by faith, something nonetheless
draws you here.
So you enter, sheepishly, pretending an interest
in church architecture
or local history. Maybe someone you knew
was buried
in the grounds. You walk the aisle, pew by pew,
your steps unhurried
even as a dull sense of the inappropriate
starts to nag:
as unbeliever, how little right
you have
to sanctuary, how little claim on the stillness,
the repose,
the hallowed quiet of this edifice.
The echoes
of your footsteps begin to fill the silence;
harsh, atonal.
And now it feels wrong; an irreverence.
You turn to go,
feeling as awkward as when you entered,
and somehow guilty.
Behind you, angels frozen in alabaster,
candles burning coldly.
(originally published in Poetry Monthly)
Adagio
Already, while you are still here,
it comes upon me,
this ache, this loss
of something never owned, this low feeling.
Later, I will sit out the night, make it worse
with soft music,
fuel the memory
of the moment of your life's divergence from mine.
It is not something I could explain. Words
cannot contain it.
So I sell myself out
to small talk, keep my drink at arm's length,
try to make these last few minutes last.
The only alternative
would be to tell you
I love you. So I do the decent thing
and say nothing.
Nothing Else Matters
Never mind that it silhouettes
industrial works; this sunset
is uniquely ours. So forget
the trucks and vans; forget that these
loveless buildings are factories,
workshops, storage facilities
and sheet metal works; and forget
barbed-wire, chainlink and concrete-set
shards of broken glass on walls. Let
my whispered words set a new scene.
This, my script for the silver screen
of your mind: Fade in - a serene,
untouristed beach, the oil-dark sea
beyond, absorbing - eerily -
the sun's swansong. Together, we
walk the timeless stretch of sand
in affectionate silence, hand
in hand, and all I understand,
or need to understand, is in
this moment, this one flawless scene:
beach and sunset and oil-dark sea -
and all of them superfluous,
mere set-dressing. Your closeness is
all I need. Nothing else matters.
(originally published in Iota)
Trail Hand
Tired and saddled-creased, driving cattle,
he wonders when his time will come:
thrown and trampled in the high of the sun,
or crossing the afternoon waters,
cottonmouths pooled and brown by the river.
At night, by campfire, the fear of bandits.
Bad deaths,
snakebite or bullet.
In town, paid and needing release,
he wonders how it will happen to him:
hand sharply to holster from the turn of a card,
chance look or whisky-loosed word;
saloon girl's smile, a good man brought low.
Nights in the county jail, waiting on the noose.
Bad deaths,
bullet or hanging.
He has known men finish the job themselves.
(originally published in Poetry Nottingham International)
Imperfect Moment
Behind you, through the pane
that frames you, the night thickens,
setting the seal on itself.
We raise a glass, as friends,
to whatever has driven us tonight
to each other's company:
an echo of old times, perhaps,
or the short straw of solitude.
A change of heart would be too much to hope.
Too much by far. When we leave
together, as friends, it is only to part
moments later: you to hail a cab,
me to walk a half-mile of closed curtains.
Time enough for wrong thoughts, too deeply felt.
It is different for you:
turning back at the last with a smile,
you raise a hand,
your farewell offered lightly, unfreighted
by the things I could never tell you.
(originally published in Poetry Monthly)