The Definitive Poetry Anthology Volume I
October 2017
As the date suggests, I wrote these about two years ago. Already, the sands of time, blown by the ceaseless wind of events, have blurred the lens slightly. That is, the lens we use to look back from now to then. The NAAFI pool hadn’t been handed over to the government, Jumpers hadn’t been refurbished and the Europa cricket ground was probably going to house the GFA stadium. Of course, the poems you’re (hopefully) about to read seem far less profound -to put it mildly- now compared to when I wrote them, though In any case, I hope they contain some longer-lasting themes. Enjoy.
The NAAFI Pool
Sitting by the NAAFI pool,
The children of the pool within,
Who maketh now the merry din
And ambience of pool NAAFI,
Oh what a lovely place to be!
A place where concrete’s to be found-
At NAAFI concrete’s all around,
And at the grey hard pool NAAFI,
Is where that beautiful concrete be.
Hot and comforting on foot,
With sense of sturdiness there to boot;
Comfort’s where the concrete’s found.
All around in greyish brown.
Stood above the aggregate,
Two factors there combine to make
The soul of one much aggravated;
The lifeguards, children sublimated.
One the solid, one the sun,
As in the heat the both will meet,
When two combineth making one,
The nosiness has just begun.
The children will jump in and scream,
And hear themselves as watery dancers,
And as the children wail with joy
They hear the whistles’ steely answer.
The whistle heard is far and wide,
To an extent that is absurd
For those be lying down below,
Have sworn to hear that whistle blow.
And thus goes on the wretched cycle,
Children screaming, lifeguards daydreaming,
To the users a serious misdemeanour,
The NAAFI memories I do not treasure,
The NAFFI pool, away from town,
Though lest not far from greyish brown,
As in mind doth cause a frown,
I await the day it closes down.
The ambience of pool NAAFI,
Oh what a lovely place to be!
The Line
The line, it runs straight from
South-West,
It scythes its way straight through
The sea.
The far horizon it’ll go, to
Meet an end,
That cannot be.
Dark blue on one side,
Green on t’other,
To symbolise winter
And summer
This blurred border on the sea,
Cuts through to infinity.
The breakers on the waves
Will crash,
And break and howl and cry
And smash,
A howling child birthed by
The sea,
A pure ephemerality.
The wind and rain hold
Counsel here,
And thunder, lightning cause
The fear,
One from one, cannot
Dissever,
The howling wind and waves
Cease never;
Their power carries on forever.
Jumpers Wheel
Scale of fish and eye of eel,
If both these things do appeal,
Then I’ll treat you to a meal,
At our dear restaurant, Jumper’s Wheel
In my mind I say “On no.”
Straight through the dingy patio,
‘Come on inside, come on, let’s go!’
Like the service, my feet slow.
First its by the broken swing,
Then the row of wheelie bins,
And as I start to hear the din
I don’t want to go in.
The smell in here doth smell obscene.
There’s toddlers on the slot machines,
At least in here they keep it clean,
Take in the bleach and Windolene.
All the furnishings seem bare,
As at a gaping fish I stare,
He sits there pouting- not a care,
Though for his end he’d not prepared.
I feel as if I’m on a boat,
Surely sinking: not afloat.
Toddlers ‘round me whinge and mope,
In a good time I’ve lost all hope.
I sit and wait there for the food,
Old men sat beside me brood.
Inside there’s not a happy mood-
I think that fish is being chewed.
All around me as I wait,
Gibraltarians salivate,
As that poor squid will meet his fate,
Served up cleanly on a plate.
All I want- a takeaway
But here I wait both night and day.
A funny little game they’ve played,
For forty quid I have just paid.
Jumpers Wheel, oh what a joy-
I think their food is just a ploy,
Though on the bright side, ship’s ahoy!-
At least we hadn’t ordered Roy’s
The Red-Taped Phoenix
Written in light of recent events.
The people and I,
If we’d fall’n from the sky,
Would look on to see
Orange ting’d flames
Burning high.
Above it in th’air is the
Pillar of smoke,
The thoughts of The Exodus
There to evoke.
As Jews wandered on in
The desert of haze,
Ex- residents find
Themselves now
In that maze
As all as of now who’ve
Reportedly gone,
As bright as the silvery
Cladding they shone,
Forewarning was there
But did anyone care?
A hideous sight on
The skyline’s repaired.
The seventy nines,
The ninety sixes,
Surrender themselves for
The quickest of fixes.
Though in all our memories
They will remain, lest
All of the punditry choose
To abstain; and until the
Time that this happens
Again, therein removed from our landscape a stain.
XIV — VI — MMXVII
Eulogy to a Mosquito
Written at Europa Point.
Dedicated to John Wilson.
There is a spot upon mine nose
A parting gift of mosquitoes.
Around me now another flies,
Though I am choosing when it dies.
As tiny as a thou-long gnat,
Beware though of its pronged attack,
It lands now on the table flat -
My book comes down; and it goes splat.
Out of it my anger’s bled,
The blood is seeping, leaking red.
Try it might; it hadn’t fled,
And now the mozzie’s been squashed dead.
A place in heaven, I hope it’s found;
The wheel of life goes round and round,
And one day to the grave I’ll go,
The same place as that mosquito.
“You can have any colour …”
Written at Rosia at night
Out there where the takers be,
The floating palace of the sea,
Shielding there their darkling wealth:
Lo, they go with stealth.
They sleep beneath the shining moon,
Beset in a silvery monsoon.
Seeing tankers there at rest,
And yet they move at man’s behest.
There inside, from side to side,
The fluid, gleaming cargo lies,
There so peaceful, in disguise;
Until the day it comes alive.
And as the tanker stilly sleeps,
The fluid inside starts to weep.
Out and out, and out it flows,
Into the sparkling sea it goes.
The line it goes on from South-west,
As waves continue, un-oppressed,
Those tankers, sitting two abreast;
It turns out they were not at rest.
