Atlantis

 

These stones hold memories

of captive fields and skies

before the land took flight.

 

Their coral eyes wink up,

reminding us that earth,

like time, is borrowed.

 

Ghost hands reach out to where

waves toss and fret; fish flit

aside like startled ghosts;

 

while overhead the spectre

of an ark floats by

in search of certainty.

World's First Joke

 

There was silence when I’d finished.

Imagine, the cave full of smoke

from Boglog Junior’s last attempt

to invent what he had termed ‘fire’.

 

His blackened bones lay strewn about

among the steaming turds and dust

mixed with titbits of mammoth fat,

which smelt exceptionally good.

 

Old Chief Boglog stared into space.

Eyes followed his hand as it tapped

his man-club (an ominous sound).

At last he grunted: “I get it!”

Shipwreck

• 

 

They said, tell us about your island,

whether you miss the palms

and mermaids singing,

rubbish like that.

 

Grant us in sound bites

some saga of shipwreck;

ignored by an ocean,

years sifting time.

 

I was unsung till they came,

armed with notebooks and theories.

Fame is when even the

dead shout your name.

 

Crusoe, they said, you’re back

from the deep;

tell us how wretchedness feels

(as if they don’t know);

 

what is it like to be saved?

I answered that exile

is stranger than fiction.

Rescue is not the promised end.

 

Loss doesn’t fade

when hope is sighted.

For some, there will always be

fresh footprints in the sand.

 

 

Return

We returned, after the storm,

to find the castle still there,

towers proud and pennants flapping.

 

Our names in the sand,

the giant heart you said

could probably be read from space,

 

Looking back, I saw

the curl of a massive wave,

green and white and grey.

 

You smiled and pressed me close.

That’s not a crest, you said,

just dolphins dancing.

 

Matchday

_{In memoriam - Hillsborough 1989}

 

Remember on the bus,

that lad from East Lancs

 

swinging a motorbike chain.

PC lass stretching her arm:

 

Give us - or else!

He did.                                                                 

 

On the way to the ground,

locals were chucking bricks;
 

almost a compliment.

Losers, you hissed.

 

We’ll slaughter them, you said,

just as the crowd caught up.

 

Stick with the rest;

there’s safety in numbers.

 

Passing the gates,

the mounted cops looked bored,

 

like cowboys counting sheep.

Crushed in the passageways,

 

that scrap of green beyond:

our promised land.

 

Heads in the stand,

parting like corn in the wind.

 

It’s just a fight, you said.

as we felt the barriers’ weight.

                                                                

Nowt happens here.

This is Sheffield.

 

Visit

Passing the barracks

in your dad’s old car,

I hit the mother of all speed-bumps.

 

I thought of your ma

kicking my chicken across the floor

(you’d said)

 

for making you mortal

and overdue

(you were five weeks late);

 

and not attending mass

since we’d met,

which was worse.

 

Bin lids were clanging

up on Derry Beg,

(once for a raid, twice for a riot).

 

Scouring the streets

for words that rhymed with home,

not bomb.

 

The sofa- jury stirred when I came in.

The TV was in flames

from some disaster movie.

 

When the Anthem played,

you upped and fled,

leaving us with the Queen.

 

As I gazed at the box, I sensed

that champagne that night

was probably out of the question.

Witness

The angels weren’t watching you

that day in LA,

just faces afraid to stop.

 

A shape by the road,

haloed in freeway smog:

your planet stalled.

 

A burnt metal rim

where distance had ruled

a Crusoesque universe.

 

She should have packed wings

for when superpowers fail,

their glass eyes said.

 

Tail-lights stretched back

to where emptying skies

still spelt out redemption.

 

Night stirred like a ghost,

and far from the stars,

the green sign read Laurel Canyon.