You Shoulda Said Yes That Night

 

Hey, you remember that time when

you drove us home from the gig

and you were high on a pill?

 

And in the room I chased you

around the bed,

hard and horny,

wanting to fuck you so bad.

You had to fight me off coz you

didn’t want to cheat on your man.

 

So we sat up chatting for a bit,

but then he

called you on your phone,

wanting to know

where you were and

what you were doing.

And you went into the bathroom

to speak to him

while I

beat one out in the bed

alone.

 

And you came in,

just as I came,

and smiled and

shook your pretty head.

 

‘Thinking of me?’

you asked.

 

I wiped myself up

and just growled:

‘It seems the

whole world’s

thinking of you

tonight!’

 

_____________________________________

 

Away from our Mothers

 

‘Did you think of me today?’ she asked.

‘I’m a romantic,’ he told her.

‘What about you?’ she asked me.

‘I’m also into love,’ I replied.

‘Love, love, love! I never mentioned that!’

she screamed.

Me and him just shrugged at her.

We only wanted a quiet drink.

Then she said, ‘You’re both a couple of

mummies’ boys! You just come here,

get pissed up, stay a bit,

then wake up and run back to your

mummies!’

‘Our mothers are the

only women we can trust,’ he said.

‘Bah!’ she hissed at us. ‘Well,

what you want from me

this time?!’

We looked at each other

and I said,

‘Two pints of lager and

some money for

the pool table

please.’

 

___________________________________

 

Last Tango

 

Watching Brando give

it to that French chick

in Last Tango just

makes me wish

I was an old

man again.

 

Get me a rocking chair

in front of a fireplace,

a stranger

in Paris,

and a view

of your heart.

 

_______________________________________

 

Extinction

 

‘Men will die out, I know this,’ she told me.

She knew.

She was a girl I was temporarily obsessed with

one summer

and she lived in a flat

high up in a tower block.

She used to throw her empty fag boxes,

beer cans,

apple cores,

takeaway packaging

out of the window so it landed on the green below and

blew away.

She said, ‘It’s okay, someone will pick it up!’

And I didn’t mind this until

she got pissed off with me

and threw out a

3-page poem of mine called:

‘Men Will Die Out With The Dinosaurs.’

 

She laughed in my face and

I threw a bottle of wine at her face.

 

I never went there after that, and

I never saw her again.

But I wonder who did pick up

those 3 precious pages?

If they’re a woman,

then keep them,

forever.

If they’re a bloke,

then hurry up.

We don’t have long to go.

_______________________________________ 

 

Poem You

 

This poem was written on your back

while you were sleeping,

straight onto your dreaming flesh.

 

As if balanced there, kissing your pale skin,

it didn’t say much, just a note to you,

just a thought,

 

that I wanted to wrap you up in a poem,

to blanket you in some words,

to keep you cosy in the morning sunlight.

 

And I didn’t know if you’d see them

as you got up to get ready for work,

maybe just wash them straight off

 

down the plughole without noticing.

Then I heard you in the bathroom say:

‘Hey! What’ve you written on me?’

 

And I smiled to myself.

Just the words

on your body.

 

_____________________________________

 

Forming

 

A tall bottle,

a glass,

a room with

me inside it.

 

Forming the poem,

working it out.

Pouring it slow,

making it.

Just letting it all

come.

 

The wine makes

everything

easy.

 

Just me and this

precious thing

bubbling up

to the surface.

 

And sometimes

there’s a girl.

Sometimes she’s

in here

with me.

 

Sometimes she’s

enough,

she’s the poem.

 

But sometimes

she’s not

and

sometimes

nothing

is true…

 

______________________________________

 

Tally

 

It’s been 2 days since my last drink

It’s been 1 long night

It’s been a thousand sighs at the horizon

 

It’s been 4 hours since the last wank

It’s been 15 fags today

It’s been 10 minutes since EastEnders

 

It’s been almost 32 years alive now

and that’s a lot for some people

myself included, and

 

it’s been over 2000 years for all of us

on this surface burning

2000 years since the last good guy

 

And what am I supposed to do now?

Scream through the walls?

Stab this vicious silence?

 

Reach out and punch the sun?

Rip down the sky?

Pull out my heart and reconstruct

                                happiness again?

 

Ah, so what?

It’s been minutes since I wrote this poem

and seconds since I last thought of you

 

but who’s counting, eh?

 

______________________________________

 

Dawn

 

She lives alone in the dawn,

and the birds’ talk

when the sun comes up

forces me to wake,

to remember

her face,

rising.

 

____________________________________ 

 

Westwards

 

Depends what you think

when the sun bows,

the wind sighs,

and we are left to face

what’s happening in the west.

 

Gold on black horizon,

colour of evening bark,

heart hanging in a red-sky land,

everything dark,

almost.

 

Shadows creep, stretch, talk,

try to get in,

do get in,

enter the house.

Man, they touch everything!

 

Put on the lamplight

and don’t tell the moth.

He will die tonight

and I can’t warn him,

only watch.

 

Days shorter.

Nights longer.

Me older.

Season goes its way

and I can’t wait.

 

Now the stars are the guilty ones

for forcing us

to look up.

I forget what just happened.

Now I see the moon.

 ___________________________________

 

 Pregnant

 

She said, ‘There’s a human being inside of me!’

I said, ‘Whose is it?’

‘How am I supposed to know that?’

I knew it wasn’t mine.

I said, ‘So what you gonna do?’

‘Dunno. Gimme a drink!’

‘No way!’

‘Shit. What am I gonna do?’

We sat and thought.

 

I was okay:

I was a male and unable to be impregnated,

so I’d heard,

and could still take a drink,

 

but she looked worried now.

 

All them fast wild nights of hers,

now they’d come back to bite her.

End of the road.

The party’s over.

 

We sat and thought

about the foetus, embryo, egg,

thing,

whatever it’s called.

 

One life was beginning,

another was ending,

and I was still somewhere in between.