Chip Shop Allegro

You are working well tonight

you girls

at the Chip Shop Allegro

this Friday evening

and

men, dark bears, stand

clawpaws

in pockets

waiting for service

issuing instructions

more onions please

to you three scurrying squirrels

who

shovel chips into paper wraps

shear

spiced meat coils from

gas flamed skewers

into warm split pitta 

toss

sausages battered and plain

and golden sizzling haddock and cod

into the glass-fronted hot cabinet

only to

tong them out again

moments later and

rest them

on polystyrene trays

piled high with fries

next to blue plastic forks

and jealous eyes

of the back of the queue grizzlies 

watch

while the vittles diminish

there behind

the steamed greasy panes

and they

lick their lips

as they wait for chips

at the shakers of salt

and the

bottles of malt and

small packets of ketchup

in plastic baskets

next to the Marie Curie

collecting tin

and your long hair in a lank

hank

multi-banded ponytail

protrudes from your baseball cap

and flaps

at your back

as you push your hot damp bangs

out of your eyes

with the soft white side

of your arm

House of Cards

I have found the

house of cards 

that you have

built.

It is here on the coffee table.

I can see that

you have taken trouble here –

(I will not say more trouble than it justifies.)

I can see how you have spent time

controlling your fingers,

staying their minute tremor.

When I stoop

hands behind my back

and cease breathing

I can see,

close to,

how you

have flexed each card

so that the slight curvature

might assist the delicate

pretence of strength.

You have been occupied in

buttressing suit upon suit

back against front

tip against tip

finding the balance

failing but

not being defeated

Found here http://sebtown294.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/a-card-house-life.html

edge to edge

one against another

faces to backs.

Your dedication to your task

is exemplary

and you have constructed a mighty piece

a temple

a castle of whimsical dreams

a fairy fortress

you have indeed

choreographed

this delicate dance of physics

and I applaud you

but can you clear it away now please.

We ar gowin on hollyday

Curtains

are pulled closed

then open

then closed again

as the security debate

sways back and forth.

Lights on timed switches

are plotted

for random hours

during each evening

and after dawn.

An occupied air,

a lived-in look is

carefully cultivated,

saying 
- we are 
here and we will always be 
here so do no think of entering 
here for we are 
here -

and neighbours

are informed who reassure

with their promised vigilance.

And as the final bolt is slid

and window locked

the daughter on the pavement,

the one dancing in and out of the car

while waiting for the parental juggernaut,

feeling the release 

from the anticipation of

these past weeks,

in her exuberance

finds her bold chalk

and in newly learned letters
writes her message

all along the garden wall.

Tankard

Brewer’s Gold

Left Hand Milk Stout

Modus Operandi

Dirty Stop Out

 

Down at The Two Brewers

on a hook above the barmaid

a tankard hangs

with his name engraved

upon it, ‘Ron’,

in a thin, unpractised hand.

A small plastic yellow clip

coils around the base of the handle

to distinguish it

from some other of a similar design.

It is a warm evening,

one that shepherds delight in, and

Ron trudges down to the Brewers

to take a nip.

Ron loves the ale.

Real ale.

Ale without hiss or fizz,

ale with honesty, brewed

with truth and taste

and sweet bitterness

that curls gently around his tongue

and dwells in him

for hours to come.

Black Betty

Smog Rocket

Neck Oil

Chiff Chaff

She sees him pass the small

window before he gets to the door.

She reaches the tankard down.

He walks in.

She knows his familiar time

and his familiar taste.

“Tanglefoot, Ron?”

she asks.

“Not tonight, Jan.

Bit too strong for

a school night.

I’ll have the Wadsworths.”

He knows them all -

specific gravity

hop mix

age.

Fursty Ferret

Black Sheep

Green Devil

Goats Leap

Three is his limit

on a social night

when Richard is there, or Tom,

but most nights

it’s just one that he’ll sip for an hour

stood up at the bar

waiting for someone to talk to him.

Nun’s Ruin

Warlock Stout

Bumblethwacker

Ghost Ship

So the week he died

and they brought him home

and we gathered

like elephants

gently moulding his bones

with disbelieving trunks

I could not bear to think of his tankard

hanging unused for months

before someone

there behind the bar noticed

how dusty it had become

and took it down and washed it with just

a short thought

for Ron and

rehung it in its place

for fear of dislodging some fixture

in time

and space.

And then to repeat the process

A few weeks later

and wonder again and

maybe ask

the landlord or the other staff

whether they had seen

him. Had Ron been in

recently?

I could not bear to consider

that outcome. And so,

one frosty afternoon,

a week after the funeral

I wandered down to the Brewers

and with my heart pulsing

in my throat and my eyes

burning with uncried

tears I asked

if I could have Ron’s tankard,

the one with the yellow plastic clip

as Ron would not be coming

anymore.

Jan was not there. The young

man who stood behind the bar said

“Oh, right.  I don’t know him.

Has he moved away?”

And all I could do was say

“Yes.”

And take the tankard

and flee back up the sobbing hill.

Dark Moor

Black Mule

Barnsley Bitter

Skullsplitter

And so

I’ve got it now

stood at the back of the cupboard.

The yellow clip has gone,

unnecessary,

there’s no mistaking whose it is,

the looped engraving

still names the man

‘Ron’

Fabarillo

Funky Pigeon

Fat Sprat

Nip

Smile

There has been a wild thrashing,

a water’s edge panic

and now this man,

with whom you have smiled and sung

and slept and eaten and swum,

lies unconscious, half-drowned

from grappling with the sea.

His life teeters on the edge of a decision,

his fading mind wandering

towards a clouded cliff

and you crouch there at his senseless side

pawing at the clammy body

in a passionate desperation

to claw him back from

the watery sucking in his lungs

to drag him back to this

gritty scene where sand

grinds between your hands and his

greying flesh.

But this is a holiday beach

and the moment

catches the attention of the Bugle photographer

who all afternoon has been

combing the beach for local colour.

She is already constructing a caption,

an alliterative appliqué,

as she raises her SLR beneath her sun-visor

and snaps the taut moment,

crystallising the image

within the expert beat of her eye.

And despite your anxiety,

your crass flailing to revive,

to re-engage the man with his breath,

you are conscious of this

sudden unexpected distraction.

You look up

as the shutter clicks,

and flash your applewhite teeth in a

dutiful smile.

You, in your skinny jeans

There’s a tautness

around the seams

that’s rather pleasing

a tensing of the fabric

as you move

the definition of your buttocks

is quite teasing

and of the creasing

across your thighs

we do approve.

We take pleasure

in the way

the cloth enfolds you:

there’s a harmony –

the touch, the look, the sound.

There’s a sense

that a voice inside your head

still scolds you

for wearing skin-tight jeans

around the town.

But please pay no

attention to its chiding

never change

don’t toe a puritan line

for there are some

the other side of living

who think

that you

in those

look rather fine.