Frontman

The frontman from a band I used to like

Just showed me round a maisonette.

His hair was cut to that benign kind of length:

Short, but shy of a buzz cut kind of length.

Its previous looseness, that used to

Punctuate especially tasty indie guitar riffs,

Was reigned in with a handful of wax.

I’m sure it’s honest work at The Estate Agency—

Which, ironically, was an early candidate

For the name of the band—and

It would have been hard to generate much

In the way of savings, when half their income

Was paid in crates of warm, imported lager.

But do you still stake a claim to creativity?

Hear something like a drum beat in the

Two-bed-one-bath. Two-bed-one-bath.

Note down the word kitchenette for its

Evocative qualities and save it for future use.

Well, it’s partially my fault, I suppose,

Having only skimmed that last album and

Finding the both of us to be different people:

The kind who, in just a few years, would

Extol the virtues of a private parking spot.

glasses

That Specsavers is all a big scam, you know.

Not just because when they claim I’m short-sighted,

I detect a double meaning, and I swear last time the letters

Spelt out “P-R-I-C-K”— albeit split across three lines of the chart.

It’s not even the casual reminders that my eyes,

Like everything, will keep on getting weaker by the day.

It’s just that recently I’ve left the house glasses-less

So that I might soften the sharpest edges of the world.

I spotted our long-departed border collie, in the dim shape

Of a neighbour’s labrador, just far enough away— and

Where the grass bleeds between the bare tree branches

Looked something like the leaves of our last summer.

And I’d rather take another thousand split seconds

Of you, rendered in the blurry face of a stranger,

Than lose my hope to a so-called “corrective” lens.

Seasonal Vacancy

Seeking old acquaintance,

Brought to mind in the local,

On a roughly five-minute contract.

Hometown applicants only.

Mutual year eight lessons essential.

Spending Christmas back home,

Instead of in an otherwise empty

London house share, desirable.

Effective three pint communication.

Detail oriented: such as recalling

Recent insta stories of city breaks

To ease the occasional silences.

Has experience managing priorities,

Like balancing really needing to get back

To your mates with basking, for another

Few seconds, in the dying light of the past.

A bachelors degree in yearning for a time

That likely never existed or, at least, is lost—

Or other relevant practical experience.

Reports to: the old group chat. Though

Usually distracted by external stakeholders,

Has more bandwidth this time of the year,

Hearing murmurs of do you remember him?

the end of summer

and when the rain came,

which we knew it would,

we didn’t mind too much.

because what rose from

the tarmac was the smell

of those last days of summer;

like a breath—sweet and cool—

from the depths of the shortest

nights,

when we’d almost forgotten

the tired, midday heat.

modern problems #2

i had to give the taxi driver 2 stars.

he was pleasant enough when I got in

and the tired backseat upholstery rang out

the same smell of my parents’ old zafira.

but the rating was dropping the moment

he switched on radio 4’s science hour

as we crept past your mum’s house.

then he didn’t take that left-hand turn

near the church where you lost your faith

and towards the alleyway, stretching on into

the estate’s heart, where you found it again.

instead we moved through the pools of gold

that used to splash up onto our soft faces—

diffused, now, by his subtle window tints.

he couldn’t even set his heaters to breathe

out the same cool air that would roll over

our warm, aching skin as we held back the

summer evenings. and when i lent in and said

“here is fine”, the half-lit shapes in the mirror

kept sinking further into the misty night .

forgotten

i won’t forget you, i shouldn’t think.

although your birthday’s slipped my mind,

since culling facebook this past spring.

and i’m sorry that i locked you in

that anecdote— cut adrift from your name

and circumstance, for the saving of a second

or two in new company.

and i still find a trace of you

in a once-buried, thoughtless turn of phrase—

a story dropped someplace in the divide

that i’d sooner ignore than cross.

and i’m still drafting that apology, indefinitely,

in part for things i recall that i said,

but more for the things i don’t.

because i fear the ugly shadow that

the worst of me could cast.

but most of all i hate the end, where i’m

a ripple lost to the tempered sea,

because hidden in the promise that i won’t forget

is the hope that you still remember

carpet

they’d stripped everything else out;

pulling the debris of half a lifetime

from the living room walls and

doling out the foraged pint glasses.

all that was left was the carpet.

he went to work with a stanley

knife, cutting through the grip

of fibres.

he kept the whole second step–

the one she’d skip over on each

descent.

she went to the kitchen door,

tearing out the patch stained

by a kir royale, clumsily made

then baked in by the warmth

of tender conversation, now lost.

they retraced a dynasty of winters

walked through, to place a shoe

sole echoed by the back door.

they dried tears on the corners,

unexplored and unworn.

he tried to ring out the unkind words

soaked into the bedroom floor.

she took care around the tinted shape

amongst the light-bleached stretch;

a silhouette, as she was then,

when she cast her shadow, waiting,

in the dim hallway light.

they split, finally, the sunken spot

where their feet had intertwined

and worn away the threads

beneath them.

ghosts

the deepening of autumn dropped

a new darkness of the early evening

and turned these streets to a ghost town.

what an awful thing, we thought then,

to be a ghost when we were so full

of life.

but now I envy the unchanging spirits,

who chatter between the scrapes

of suburban tarmac under feet.

they are fixed in the youthful frame,

and misremembered to the point

of near-perfection in the minds of the

haunted, who conjure the feint forms

and are cursed to wonder where

the thought of them still haunts.

things change

sometimes you are borne away

on the mild tide of social entropy

and other times you’re split apart

in a searing flash like nuclear fission.

things change

and despite my hoarding tendencies

i know we can’t spend our time

arranging people on our shelves—

instead we are left to decorate

with memories in quiet rooms.

things change

but we should be kind to ourselves

to ease the very next heartbeat

because while those words fill our eyes

and scorch the earth of the past

they also cast the shadow of a promise:

things change

It’s okay

It’s okay, isn’t it, that we don’t mean

The same to each other? And does it really

Hurt that you’re something of a token for

A time, you may not even mark as important?

–

Because I don’t expect you to remember

When you read “Adlestrop”— your voice,

Above autumn weather, like a summer day:

Longed for and then slowly blown in.

–

And that faint impression of you is a part

Of a feeling now: the one that will arrive on

Quaint train platforms, or when I think of

The days kept for the scared and sentimental.

–

Then, when chance closes that useful rift,

You have the grace to nod in knowing recollection

When I bring it up to you. And, with mercy,

You say little more— a final gift to me.