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?

bobby firmino is leaving

and even though i’m not in the business

of making heroes of mere mortals,

it seems to me that playing the way

that we’d want play— our David, with

slingshotted humanity, in the arena of

gods— is the stuff statues are built on.

but bodies break for the sake of

legend.

and when we cried, in that first true

afternoon of summer, it was not

because things didn’t have to change,

but, rather, because sometimes they do.

oblivious

two kids were sat on jackets in the front garden as the afternoon rolled into a cool spring evening. but they did not have time to notice any of that because they had never been as old as they were then and despite the soft cotton underneath them, everything below seemed only to exist to hold them up beside each other and they refused the inevitability of changing seasons, deciding instead to live in that moment forever.

modern problems #5

the pub condom machine man

walked his final round

with a distinct melancholy—

tapping firmly, one last time,

on the sides to see if the change box jingled

and lamenting the dwindling

prevalence of an odd loose pound

in the pockets of the hopeful

among the weekend crowd.

he finished up in the sterile light

of the tesco toiletry isle—

scoffing at the low multipack prices

and the lack of spring-loaded

levers in the whole affair.

he decided, finally,

that he much preferred

the colours on his machines:

the defiance in the muted tones

of the faded durex labels

and the twinkle of LEDs.

modern problems #4

After I’d put them all together—

Assembled all the songs that I could ever need,

The kind that hoist your heart up into your throat

to fill your head with it’s improbable notions.

And the ones that drown you in the thick euphoria

of some European club, as a heaving humanity flashes

between the pulsing strobe lights and LEDs.

Those songs that gnaw at the facade, built

over time to resist any vulnerability, until it reveals

the most exposed skin from youthful innocence.

The ones that suspend you in the soft light

of a small forever, between the balmy afternoon

and the night that will recede all too quickly.

And the songs that I would blast through my

foraged walkman, four years into the apocalypse—

the acidic air spreading the waves over the shore

where I sit amongst the memories of those lost—

and still feel grateful to have existed at all.

After I’d put it all together— I named the playlist

‘tunes’.

modern problems #3

pub, on a monday afternoon.

I find myself a quiet corner,

lower my drink onto one of those shelves

that jut out of dividing walls,

and perch on a stool.

I pick the one whose structural

uncertainty complains the loudest—

figuring that discomfort runs

parallel to authenticity.

another man nods towards me.

I’d tell him I’m a poet, I think,

drunk on the knowledge

that we will never speak.

the younger man behind him

slinks around the dark-wood bar

that is ignorantly blissful to its outdatedness.

he wears a waistcoat, smartly,

and his hair looks like it doesn’t

require the use of electric clippers.

I could kiss him— above the canopy of chatter

that dampens the fizzing playback

of radio 1 and the flat, synthetic

ring of a busy landline phone.

the table of americans beside me

nearly demystify the moment.

but I incorporate them in as

brash nouveaux-riches tourists

who i’ll charm with knowledge

of their precious hemingway.

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 .

the hotel bar

an untethered few—

all strangers to

each other— with final stops too far,

all rest their feet

in the mismatched seats

gathered there at the hotel bar.

one spends her night

with a dead tealight

that once flickered like an evening star.

but see a half-smile crack

in the carlsberg tap

at the end of the hotel bar.

old tungsten bulbs

light a couple’s souls,

their bags left sitting in the car,

weary chatter sings

til the barkeep rings

last call at the hotel bar.

all the world is there

in a three pint stare

and the shimmer off a room key card

but the morning sun

sinks the gentle hum

we left in the hotel bar.