Talking Poetry With Children Of The Rain

“Let's escape the past. The past didn't work. All we have is the future, and I'm the one who wrote ‘no future for you.’ Don't let the irony be lost.”  John Lydon
 
 
i)
 
There is no butterfly effect
When wings scream clipped.

Waiting for
Sunday morning rain
To grease cracked pavements.
 
Smell of 10 Woodbines
Sweat from ginnels,
Retreat the pearly dawn drops
Into gutters and hellish drains.
To enchant rows of grey slate rooves.
 
Pigeons feed on scraps
Of generation memories.
Bellies too swollen
To fly above concrete.
 
Frozen in (corner-shop opening) time
As music box ballerina bourree.
Hands primed to push bittersweet prams
The Beatles sing “Twist and Shout” on wireless.
 
Forever
In broken pirouettes:
Or so it seems.

Hymnal reflections of
Prayers to the God of dolls
First love, last rites
Plastic eyes buttoned close
When their bodies shaken.
Fed on barbiturates, puddles
And stories from the womb:
‘We’re here because we are here.’
 
But through it all,
The tomorrow that was yesterday
Glistens a peculiar kind of loving.
 
The girl who watched her Dad  
Burn the house to foundations
Wears Mum’s fake fur
With an awkward pride.
It stings her skin in summer
Slumps bones to rained ground.
Sleeves hide stolen war medals.

Teases the dresses of rivers, to be  
Fountains bursting towards heaven
Falling back as tears
Like leaves from a tree.
But though it all,
It’s a steeled case of living.
This peculiar kind of loving.
 
ii)
 
There is no home for our past
It just exists:
As mortality
Wind rushing though an empty house.
 
Wherever we walk
We walk on buried ground.

Silently, you slip into sepia photographs
Rebirth of an unfiltered generation
The shutter speed sleeps.
Bone splits bones in skeleton theatre
Dr Hook returns roots to softest soil.
It’s the Welsh, English and Romany
Which sailed me to Tamil shores.
 
On the dusty mantelpiece
‘Daddy Chinnery’ grins;
Flinted eyes as if  
Chasing Galway maidens.
Laboured hands reach
For the hearth below.
1382 Farenheit flamed.
Room smells of whiskey
And yet, my glass is dry.
 
Soon to climb into empty bed:
We are the night
Spreading moon shine
Between our thighs.
Erect to the call of the she-wolf
On edge of dream dalliance,
She bites her initials into my neck.
 
Send me the pillow the one that you dream on.....
 
 
#ERULGCT #6
 
Photo. Roger Mayne.