older poems

OIL WORKER

Leathery skin from a relentless hot desert sun, hard as nails attitude –

don’t give a shit what you think. Work till I get rich or die

doing my job, black gold.

Now just like my daddy, a legend of a man he was,

created me in his image

to work the wells, day and night.

For what it’s worth, I love this job, my life, my black gold.

Cost dad his life when the wellhead blew, fifteen years ago.

Now in his memory I do my graft and put dollars in the bank.

My son will be an oil worker and he’ll remember his granddad,

never met, legacy of the oil fields. Tough work, black gold.

YOUTH TRAGEDY

Many millions strong, an army in the making

of powerful emotions and thoughts.

What is my generation to think of this?

Young in my own eyes, two generations under me

are rising above me right now.

Some make it, some don’t, some are good and do it right,

some are bad and do dark deeds.

They better do it right as soon they’ll be running

this damn country, coming into jobs

and careers – responsible ones.

Laws of averages, rise and fall,

what do we make of the crazy ones?

Stealing cars, selling drugs, mugging pensioners.

What comes around goes around

but right now many fall and some don’t make it.

Teenage suicide, hard times, cost of life.

Only so much prison some can take.

White, black, asian, all creeds.

All the same and an island of emotions,

let loose in an uncertain world.

Good ones are separated by a dividing line,

doing apprenticeships, finding jobs,

a new career. How the gap widens, of no in-betweens,

just people who live their lives and in their own worlds.

NAKED CONCRETE

I lie against the concrete floor ninety degrees to the brick

wall, red brick, naked I am – to the bone.

With darting eyes I stare at the windows above me –

menacing black bungalows.

Will you all see me and point and look, call the cops?

A naked man in our yard – oh my God!

I feel the dust and grit under my ass, blown

to my corner by the unfeeling wind.

Can I become unfeeling? How did I get here?

Is it drugs, a crime, or am I twisted?

Naked I am against the wall, hard concrete

and shrivelled cock, lost.

WHAT MAKES A MAN DO WHAT HE DOES?

The man who almost boasts I’m up for attempted murder

as I knifed a bloke who attacked my wife. Does this make me bad?

What about the bomber pilot who does his mission and bombs

a city, killing the enemy in their beds. Is he bad?

What about the woman who abuses her own son, 6 years old?

Is she bad, does she have a reason or is she so deranged?

Ask some shrink and what will they say? Why, it’s all cause

and effect – life made them like this and will continue to do so.

I make my own opinions and I do my best to be a decent bloke

but my past hovers so near and far, I move on and do my best.

Tell me… Can a murderer become the man he was before?

Or should he be condemned to death, an eye for an eye?

Answers are hidden…

SEA

Water, very deep to immense depths, no sunlight pierces

down here – blackness.

Coming to the surface, sunshine sparkles magically,

a myriad of dancing points of light.

Sea monster curling in the rip tide, powerful muscles

gracefully propelling him seawards – for food.

Salt water covers so much, two thirds of the globe, all this wetness.

Drown if you breathe it, don’t you dare unless you’re a fool.

To be a fish, man enjoys the sea, diving, sailing

or simply watching.

HONESTY

Now it seems years on and countless actions later,

I have finally learned the meaning of one word

with so much meaning – honesty.

My deceitful actions of the past, my past, are distant

memories and I’ve moved on in life to where I am now.

Yet I know one person who will never know

the meaning of that word, honesty. He cheats and lies

his way through life like the best of them.

Lying to me, manipulating girls so he can fuck

them, deceiving his girlfriend who trusts him explicitly.

This so called friend has so many skeletons in his closet,

all alive and kicking, not old and dusty like mine.

He won’t listen to me, it’s not my job to tell him

the do’s and don’ts of life, I know he will never learn.

He is a lost cause.

Of the girls I met, I don’t want to be with them

due to real reasons in my head –

honesty puts me on the right path, not messing

my life or anyone else’s up.

No wrong reasons here, honest I am in my life

here, unlike some others whose names will remain with me.

LOSERS

To all of those unbelievers I say this. “Fuck you all!”

and I look you in the eyes, up close. Now what will you do?

C’mon, fuck face, criticise me and do your best.

I’m better than you, you’re a prick, a fuckin’ nothing.

I’m a writer, the best. A published poet, you’re a prick

and a loser. Tell me, what type of name is Lorca?

A fuckin’ loser’s name! I think of you when I have a shit.

My poems were deleted but I achieved my aim, got myself noticed.

To the ones who liked them, very nice, to those who didn’t,

I say kiss my fuckin’ ass, get out of my face and get some respect.

CAUSE UNKNOWN

From day number one it has been like this, all the same

from the earliest days, of men being men, oh so strong.

To prove to the world ownership of it is theirs –

for now.

Next generation coming up, hey, we are tougher

and you’re weak, not like us.

Old men talk with venom and of old fights –

we kicked their asses!

Youths of today listen and nod –

we do that harder and rougher.

Romans to Germans, all a fist in your face,

street fighter to scally, nothing changes.

Different years, different people, yet pride is pride

and violence is just that –

violence, cause unknown.

I’m cruel and I’m evil –

I just killed a beetle.

ALMOST ASHES

A room, just a room. Feel the sense of history

here, heavy as lead and as poignant as pain.

Aspects come into focus, heavy thick carpets,

waxed English tables. Silence. Total.

A view on a room, from the doorway after.

What went on here? What decisions were made?

History’s biggest gamble, to fail paid in blood

and men and tears.

To succeed glory for a generation,

stories to tell your grandchildren.

Onto foreign beaches defended by Nazi steel,

many are slain, boys not yet men.

Yet the cost to be paid, the only way to do this,

both simple and complex all at once.

Looking back now, it all worked out,

the Nazi hold on Europe shattered,

millions freed from tyranny and despair and death.

History is kind, to some. D-Day worked,

Hitler’s back broken. If it had failed

would our world be black as ashes?