NEW YAWN, NEW SQUAWK

After the last
Of 2012's embers
Dies away
In the grey grate
Of humantime's universe
To be swept into
Memory's ashcan
For collection by
The dawn's cold
Sober trashman
We see a new spark

Happy New Year
Happy newborn
Happy New York

THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT

HUSHABORN

You are here

Tear the membranes between cynics and me

Bunt our entrails out on the balcony

Pluck the cat gut incessantly

Even if it makes no one listen

To what shouldn’t be

You are here

Rip the branches from this year’s Christmas tree

Sip the sap of a dieback winter

Oh, slap a naked knee!

You are here

You have wallowed in a hurricane

So the walk on water was easy

Now you are here

And will ever be

YOU PUT IN A DEPOSIT, YOU GET A LITTLE CASHBACK

Ava Belle Murphy, 7.5 pounds, 21 inches at 12.23 a.m, 24th Dec 2012, Beth Israel, New York, New York. And my first daughter. 

xxxxxx

MIDNIGHT MASS

It was the night before Christmas

But only by minutes

Under the snow dusted dome of St. John’s

A congregation of celebrants

Some had started early

Not wanting to be late

Or come undone

Out of the slowed night

They padded and fluffed

Into the church

All a flicker

All golden and red rich

With sanctuary

Fat Father Unsworth

Huffed into his robes

Patent leather shoes

Unseen these years of his puff

When standing in his finery

Invisible eyes lost cheekily

Oblivious to the vestments and the routine

Assisted by little Sean Reilly

Scrubbed and squeaky in a surplice

Cassock, stole, alb and chasuble

A drapery green and gold

A pig stuck in a seasonal tree

But pumped up with pomp

Fat Father Unsworth had gravitas

That belied his apparent immobility

When it came to Mass

He floated

The drunks at the back

Plastered the brickwork

Those in the pews

Closed their eyes

And took advantage

The heavenly choir above

Boosted by Mrs. Kelly’s sibilance

Hissed out hymns to the tired

The merry

The downright pissed

And in came Father Unsworth

Little Sean Reilly

The altar boy behind him

Everyone stood

Nearly

And words were said

And someone snored

Sacrament was dished out

Duty was done

The ponderous affectation of the priest had been suffered

For another year some torture

For a while some guilt had been bought and sold

And so to home through the white soft streets

Humming their lullabies

Little Sean Reilly would stay a while yet

Help to divest the swollen body of the priest

As it sipped at something stronger than altar wine

Then clean the accoutrements

And back to the chapel

Snuffing out candles and

Have a dip in the molten wax

The pleasure of peeling at fingerprint moulds

There and then from high in the still church

Came a lonely cough

That turned Sean cold

Someone not gone

The echo fades

Sean’s ears

Deaf to the quiet now

His heart as a trapped rabbit

Though his blood pumped true

And his legs moved him on in his duty

The dossers must be cleared from the pews

But waiting for little Sean Reilly

In the balcony

White faced and prone

Masochistic on wood

Hugged into a coat full of holes

Was the shade of a man

Once known

Away from the safety of the vestibule

As fat Fr. Unsworth snorted his whiskey

To the gods

Sean went

Up under the Byzantine mosaic

Beneath the dead eyes of Jesus

To creak on the open minded stairs

For to do his duty

The scared child ascended

Wholly righteous

Towards feathered authority

To confront this shade

In his makeshift nest

Although thirteen years old

And still wearing his dress

The snow drifted like a crowd

Camped out on the doorstep

Inside

Sean had only his light

Hello

Who is there

The shadow had words

Come near

I need you

Sean did his best

The boy scout

Went to the man

Looked into eyes

Like fires in windows frosted

And Sean saw his father

And the mess

Shot through with politics

Killed by religion

And as he lay bleeding

He gave of his blood

A bloody lie and a gun

The Brits had got him

Right in the gut

Take this to O’Leary’s

They’ll look after you

Revenge us he said

And then he was dead

Wrapped up and done like Christmas

So Sean shot the priest in his arse cheeks before running

Put some holes in his chasuble too

Stole a chalice, a monstrance, the offertory box

And never did say god bless you

WHAT TO DO FOR DINNER

Maybe I will make a spam salad

I think I might

I would like that

Or maybe a macaroni salad

Ask her!

Hey ask her

If she would like a macaroni salad

Or if she would like a spam salad on Saturday

When she comes over to see…

Okay. Okay. I will text her.

I think I might make a spam salad…

She says she wants your potato salad

I was thinking to do spam salad or maybe macaroni salad… or…

She says that she only wants your potato salad

She doesn’t know what’s good for her

I was thinking about a spam salad

You wait here

I have to go in

She says that she only wants your potato salad

And nobody else’s potato salad…

I have to go in

Wait here

She’s so crazy

I know, wait though

Hey

So it’s all fine

I put on forty pounds

We just wait for the sonogram now

So I was thinking maybe I could do a baked ziti

Or the spam salad

You know

Stop doing that!

Okay!

Jeez!

She only wants your potato salad

Well tell her she’s not coming to Burger King

She can’t Have It Her Way

Ha ha haha haha ha!

Tell her

I will

Isn’t that McDonalds?

Burger King

Jesus

Have It Your Way!

Tell her that

She’s not coming to Burger King for dinner

And stop doing that!

Okay!

Jeez!

It’s not BK, you can’t always have it your way

She won’t understand that

She won’t get it

I am thinking baked ziti now

I think

Or the spam salad

She says

Queens

In Queens we always get it our way

See

I told you she wouldn’t get it

She’s thinking Brooklyn

She’s so crazy

I know

I’ll tell her

B-U-R-G-E-R  K-I-N-G

How do you spell moron?

M-O-R-O-N

THE BIG

Knockover
Sleep
Combo
Heat
Easy
Lebowski
Empty
White

DOOGDLES

?

STILL LIFE WITH ONION

THE NEW NICO

THIS IS NOT AN ABANDONED VEHICLE

I remember discovering Bukowski on paper

When his words made sense

I was not at art school but Barry was

I went in with cans of beer

To bribe my friend with imbibing 

Whilst his classes went on

I was there to share a vicarious part of student life

And to get a part of the more physical action

We had dreams and read or read and had dreams

Within which the girls became real

All did well for themselves

But I guess it’s a struggle

I didn’t learn much so

I became a postman

Who drank in

What else is there to do after a shift at noon?

The collection

The delivery

Is easier than the composition

I reveled as an ambassador

Presenting monarch embossed packages

After shakingly waking rude people in the a.m.
To be uniformedly approachable in afternoon bars 

It was not legit

To take a van home

Or on an errand

But we drivers did

As management had done before

When you needed to sneak off to the beach

The bookies or do a spot of shopping

A quick snort was forgiven
Or given for

The thing with a Royal Mail trucklet 

Is that they are parkable anywhere

Even on the double yellows

We were safe

Police would sometimes commandeer us for this hi vis purpose

And like-minded criminals in their surveillance knew

I took to abusing the technique 

My car slumbering overnight pubside

Displayed a sign that red

And yellow in its liveried elegance

Explained 

This Is Not An Abandoned Vehicle

But the Real Mail 
On Official Business