One Thousand Nights and Counting Read online

they skated on the ice at the ice-rink,

  Elizabeth and a black-trilby’d boy

  who kept his hat on. I’d have hated that

  had I seen it. I hate hatted people who

  make such alert decisions to impress.

  I’d have him on his arse. Oh good, he is.

  Elizabeth, white-skirted (no more clues)

  swooped to sweep the Mayor’s son off the ice

  and pterodactyl-like he shook himself.

  Hat elsewhere, kicked on by a small bully

  and ruined by that friend of his. Once

  that would have shelled and reddened my idea,

  to see such fun. But nowadays I just

  cram it in with all the other eggs

  for omelette. Skate, skate, you’re crap at it,

  whatever your name is, you mayor’s son.

  The Mayor’s son and Elizabeth, oh my!

  The middles of my afternoons in England.

  Three simultaneous occurrences:

  a hump, a testimonial, a bomb.

  Back to the ice-rink, just in time, we –

  – There they are! Their two bicycles propped

  for vandals who’ll show up in half an hour,

  and off they go towards the library.

  Conveniences everywhere, a town

  complete with detail, and the gardens so, so

  green and tucked away! This is a poem

  of love, whose hero had to urinate

  and did so, while Elizabeth began

  to make a Christmas list, and left him out.

  The air began to gather, pointilliste,

  and the early lamp went to a sorry pink

  that wouldn’t last, was a phenomenon.

  They crossed roads, Beauty Gloved and the Mayor’s son,

  they made split-second choices that saved lives.

  The library was all a welcome cube.

  The library was full of walruses.

  Or people who resembled walruses.

  Or – no. The library was full of people

  I’ll never know. A man I’m calling Smith

  had borrowed Dante’s Purgatorio

  but not the other two. I had them both.

  A man called Dorman had a book on trees,

  and it was lost and it had burned regardless

  and it was ages overdue. A girl

  who’d stripped the library of sailing books

  had drowned in any case and was so slow

  to answer warnings that they’d phoned her up

  to ask politely for their sailing books.

  A dictionary had gone missing too

  but the Mayor’s son had other things in mind!

  How do we know? We don’t, but he had options,

  and watched Elizabeth selecting books

  on Archaeology, and choosing one

  to look at and put back. The Mayor’s boy

  nodded his head of ordinary hair

  and felt love making soup with the utensils

  he generally called his heart and soul.

  The sky was mauve, no other colour, mauve –

  and I was splitting up with Alison.

  I think it was that day, about half-six.

  The bully, meanwhile, read about a bike

  and mentioned it to his belaboured dad

  as a potential Christmas present. I –

  sometimes I hope he gets it, sometimes I

  devoutly hope it kills him. Anyway

  ‘the library is closing now’. The Mayor

  expected his son home. Elizabeth

  expected that as well, didn’t expect

  what happened next as they waited for the cars

  to lose their nerve and stop. He put his hand

  behind the head of this Elizabeth

  and bruised her with a kiss, a mad one! He

  receded and she reappeared, a girl

  with somebody to marry, and not him,

  her mouth politicised indignity,

  her eyes becoming tyrants, après-coup:

  ‘How dare you?’ What a question. How dare you?

  Because we don’t know what – because we do –

  Irrelevant! Elizabeth was off.

  The traffic-lights were either green or red –

  I don’t remember amber. The Mayor’s son,

  no girl, no hat, beneath the sodium-

  lamps of home. Oh hatchbacks of the time,

  oh buses, oh pantechnicons! Next year

  the Mayor – who now eats fillets with his wife

  and son, and fills a second glass with Soave

  and tells a joke that no one gets – the Mayor

  will be deposed next year: his son will choose

  a university, it will say no

  to him but take Elizabeth, for Maths

  not Archaeology, and Alison

  will suddenly, one day, in a Maths class,

  befriend Elizabeth, and find their friends

  are mutual, like me and the Mayor’s son,

  who I’d never meet, and in a stand-up bar

  all evening they’ll be there. Meanwhile the books

  will pile up in my world, and someone’s hat

  will find its way to me and I will wear it.

  We Billion Cheered

  We billion cheered.

  Some threat sank in the news and disappeared.

  It did because

  Currencies danced and we forgot what it was.

  It rose again.

  It rose and slid towards our shore and when

  It got to it,

  It lined it like a telegram. We lit

  Regular fires,

  But missed it oozing along irregular wires

  Towards the Smoke.

  We missed it elbowing into the harmless joke

  Or dreams of our

  Loves asleep in the cots where the dolls are.

  We missed it how

  You miss an o’clock passing and miss now.

  We missed it where

  You miss my writing of this and I miss you there.

  We missed it through

  Our eyes, lenses, screen and angle of view.

  We missed it though

  It specified where it was going to go,

  And, when it does,

  The missing ones are ten-to-one to be us.

  We walk the shore,

  Speak of the waving dead of a waving war.

  And clap a man

  For an unveiled familiar new plan.

  Don’t forget.

  Nothing will start that hasn’t started yet.

  Don’t forget

  It, its friend, its foe, and its opposite.

  The Eater

  Top of the morning, Dogfood Family!

  How’s the chicken? How’s the chicken?

  Haven’t you grown? Or have you grown,

  here in the average kitchen at noontime

  down in the home, at all?

  Bang outside, the bank officials

  are conga-dancing in their pinstripe,

  this is the life! But is it your life

  out in the swarming city at crushhour

  dodging humans, is it?

  Vacant city – where did they find that?

  Blossom of litter as the only car

  for a man goes by. When the man goes by

  his girl will sullenly catch your eye:

  will you catch hers?

  Snow-white shop – how do they do that?

  Lamb-white medical knowing and gentle

  sir, advise her, assure and ask her:

  do you desire the best for your children

  and theirs? Well do you?

  Take that journey, delight in chocolate,

  you won’t find anyone else in the world,

  lady, only the man, the sweet man

  opening doors and suggesting later

  something – what thing?

  Short time no see, Dogfood Family!

  How’s the chicken? H
ow’s the chicken?

  How have you done it? Have you done it

  with love, regardless of time and income

  and me? Who am I?

  I am the eater and I am the eater.

  These are my seconds and these are my seconds.

  Do you understand that? Do you get that,

  you out there where the good things grow

  and rot? Or not?

  Sport Story of a Winner

  for Alun

  He was a great ambassador for the game.

  He had a simple name.

  His name was known in households other than ours.

  But we knew other stars.

  He could recall as many finalists

  as many panellists.

  But when they said this was his Waterloo,

  we said it was ours too.

  His native village claimed him as its own,

  as did his native town,

  adopted city and preferred retreat.

  So did our own street.

  When his brave back was up against the wall,

  our televisions all

  got us shouting, and that did the trick.

  Pretty damn quick.

  His colours were his secret, and his warm-up

  rain-dance, and his time up

  Flagfell in the Hook District, and his diet

  of herbal ice, and his quiet

  day-to-day existence, and his training,

  and never once explaining

  his secret was his secret too, and his book,

  and what on earth he took

  that meant-to-be-magic night in mid-November.

  You must remember.

  His game crumbled, he saw something somewhere.

  He pointed over there.

  The referees soothed him, had to hold things up.

  The ribbons on the Cup

  were all his colour, but the Romanoff

  sadly tugged them off.

  We saw it coming, didn’t we. We knew

  something he didn’t know.

  It wasn’t the first time a lad was shown

  basically bone.

  Another one will come, and he’ll do better.

  I see him now – he’ll set a

  never-to-be-beaten time that’ll last forever!

  Won’t he. Trevor?

  Plaint of the Elder Princes

  for David

  We are the first and second sons of kings.

  We do the most incredibly stupid things.

  When we meet Elves

  We piss ourselves,

  When we see adults walking around with wings

  We crack up laughing and we take the mick.

  We wind up in a cloud or we get sick,

  Or turned to stone

  Or wedding a crone

  Or running widdershins and damned quick,

  Or otherwise engaged, up to our eyes.

  We brag, we stir, we mock and we tell lies.

  Upon our Quest

  Eight Kingdoms west

  We find no peace: nobody evil dies.

  No, seven Witches have a Ball and go to it.

  Our sweethearts meet a toad and say hello to it.

  We bet it’s our

  Brother De-ar:

  It is, we ask a favour, he says no to it.

  We are the first and second sons of queens.

  We have our chances and our crucial scenes,

  But it comes up Tails

  While Our Kid scales

  The castle walls with some wild strain of beans

  To make his dream come out. What about ours?

  We’ve wished on every one of the lucky stars:

  Got on with Wizards

  And off with Lizards,

  Sung the gobbledegook to Arabian jars,

  But no: we serve to do the right thing wrong,

  Or do the bad thing first, or stagger along

  Until it’s time

  For the grand old Rhyme

  To drop and make our suffering its song.

  The Fool implied that we were ‘necessary’

  In his last lay. This made us angry, very.

  Perhaps we are,

  But his guitar

  Has found a lodging quite unsanitàry.

  ‘Typical Them!’ we hear them say at court:

  ‘Brutal, selfish, arrogant, ill-taught!’

  They thought we would

  Turn out no good

  And lo! We turned out just as they all thought,

  We first and second Princes of the Blood.

  Dreaming of a woman in a wood.

  Scaring the birds,

  Lost for words,

  Weeds proliferating where we stood,

  But hell, we have each other, and the beer.

  Our good-for-nothing pals still gather here

  To booze and trample,

  A bad example

  From which the Golden Boy can step or steer.

  We’re up, and it’s a fine day in the land.

  Apparently some Princess needs a hand.

  It’s us she wants?

  Okay. This once.

  Show us the map. This time we’ll understand.

  Rumpelstiltskin

  ‘Your name is Rumpelstiltskin!’ cried

  The Queen. ‘It’s not,’ he lied. ‘I lied

  The time you heard me say it was.’

  ‘I never heard you. It’s a guess,’

  She lied. He lied: ‘My name is Zed.’

  She told the truth: ‘You’re turning red,

  Zed.’ He said: ‘That’s not my name!’

  ‘You’re turning red though, all the same.’

  ‘Liar!’ he cried: ‘I’m turning blue.’

  And this was absolutely true.

  And then he tore himself in two,

  As liars tend to have to do.

  Out of the Rain

  1

  The animals went in two by two, but I,

  alive elsewhere, had been in the loudest town,

  pleading. How do I start to explain to you

  what was lost, and how, and even before

  the rain that came and came?

  Yes, it was fun in town. We’ve never denied

  the length of the silver dresses, the babble and haze

  of Friday nights and hell, even Sunday nights,

  yes. I’d go into detail but I myself

  was bright with it all and tended to misting over

  if you see what I mean. My Ex was still around

  then, but she wouldn’t vouch for this, even if

  she’d made it into the line herself, and she hadn’t.

  I hadn’t either, and this – this is that story.

  2

  I do remember the last of the hottest days,

  because Brack and I were picked to play for the Jungle.

  He scored six and I was awarded the red.

  Some of those lofty brothers played for the Town,

  while their daddy hammered his embarrassing huge boat

  on a day like that! The crowd would watch our match

  then turn and laugh at the noise from the harbour. Ha!

  Some of their people were out like that, in fact,

  couldn’t concentrate, and finally

  conceded they couldn’t win. Gallid walked

  tensely to the platform for his shot,

  and split the green to a three’er, and in a suit!

  We linked our bats and danced to the Winners’ Bar,

  anxious for tall foaming Manzadinkas!

  3

  I know what you think: that meanwhile He held a trial

  of thunderclouds and picked one blacker than black,

  and patted its hair and said ‘Go On, boy, Go Back

  and Bring ’Em Hell!’ but no, it was just our luck.