old bloke in the pub says
he’s drunk on the unfulfilled hopes
of his youth
but in truth it’s the scotch

someone stops the road sweeper
to ask him the way
he says I do it this way

don’t get me wrong
I like trains;
it’s just getting on

some days my legs work better
than others look at me oddly
as I clutch onto the railings, the wall
and you, you most of all  ..

the first time we met
I loved her face
but I fancied her legs
and I know that’s
sexist and objectification
but we’ve been
married for thirty two years
so who cares

what’s with this whole twenty
first century internet
thing about having followers,
I mean I feel like a stalker

rather write detective fiction
than poetry but I wouldn’t
be any good at it, and what’s
the difference? she says

stevie smith was the
greatest poet of her
age, but what’s her
age got to do with it

just recently discovered
   christina rossetti on a second
hand book stall
  down the market there were
others shouting their wares so much louder,
   but who cares

use a stick since my stroke
approximately four years
ago it was when I last ran for a
bus, but I don’t miss it

aren’t as many second hand
bookshops on the charing cross road as
there were when I was younger
of course, so were they   ..

ate our sandwiches sitting
on the steps leading up to
the art gallery
it’s a matter of taste, she says

love museums full of stone age
artefacts, the odd roman sandal or two
and victorian pottery, and all
those insects skewered beneath glass cases
not solved by pulling faces
at what our ancestors got up to

can’t see a way out at all
     wherever one looks there’s just wall
    and yes, one solitary gate
      whereby they gather to await
    the old fool

most people around here
take democracy for
granted they vote for the fascist  ..

old bloke in the pub says
buy me a pint and I’ll be grateful
for ever mate, neither of us
have got that long       ..

the pub at lunchtime
is quiet, he says,
I’m eating

this is all knew
I’d find it odd
my dear

leaves him alone
in the wood
are all he has    ..

just a glove, which everyone takes off
with well honed mimicry,
knuckles exposed, brittle *****
in their lack of symmetry, groaned
as they all have a hand in correctly mocking
all the above

let’s do lunch tomorrow
not sure if I can make it
I’m not asking you to cook

light is the lilt
of a flute
at dusk
in a quiet square

dressed to ****
and well yes there was
blood on her
skirt but I know
that’s not what
you meant

o’hara should have
been a little more careful
on the road
perhaps wasn’t his thing