Martin Cook |
His jaw, once strong and square,
had become a withered gate,
it’s bottom hinge rusted away.
It was useless for ingress of food,
or egress of words and his breath fumbled.
His eyes were the texture of lichen
below grey-ash of his forehead,
and he could hardly see the blur that meant me.
Trapping saliva and air,
his lower denture rotated
round his gums and settled.
Who is it?
His words were barely audible,
as though they came,
not from his lungs but a pocket of air
trapped between denture and gum.
A nurse, in passing, said:
The poor man doesn’t know you.
It’s a waste of time.
The sea shone in his eyes,
the gate became firm
and his jaw was strong again.
Yes I bloody well do,
growled up from his wasted lungs
and his eyes were sunlight on grey sea.
Then in a small voice squeezed from
a pocket of air between denture and gum:
Tell her to fuck off.
The following week,
the same nurse summoned me
into her bare office.
Back in my car,
a gate slammed in my face.
Playing a barrel organ at Battersea Funfair
stretched me to the limit of my musical skill,
but I just about got away with it,
for nobody on the bumper cars, big dipper or carousels
gave a fig for the noise I made;
because I blotted out London’s traffic din,
unpleasantly woofing urban dogs
and cheekily tweeting sparrows.
Then I won first prize in a Billy Joel quiz
by knowing his album The Nylon Curtain
and the date of its issue, and so found myself
bound for the golden sands of California.
I’d spending money too so I bought Berrmuda shorts,
hired a bright red Cadillac and cruised down a sunlit beach
listening to a tape of me playing my barrel organ,
when two innocent-looking fellows
with long blond hair and spliffs
waved me down and asked for a lift.
And here I am, bound and gagged
in what they call the trunk.
They’ve switched my music off,
while making impertinent comments
about square Limey bastards,
and turned on boisterous rap
with woofers and tweeters
cranked up to the limit.
Just get me back to Battersea,
dodging woofing dogs
beside the murky brown Thames,
where cheekily tweeting sparrows
dodge in and out among over-fed pigeons.
But now the woofers and tweeters have stopped.
I’m stuck in this bloody trunk and the rising tide’s
wetting my brand new Bermuda shorts.
George first published in The Journal.
Trunk first published in Obsessed With Pipework.