(AA) Canto 65: Lingerings
Maggie Dillinger
Know life is not what it seems
We strip the fat from the lean
And find the facts in between
Lebogang Mashile
Flying oer English fields… via Heathrow,
& Euston… same fields up to Manchester,
Moors around Rawtenstall skiffing with snow,
A strange sensation, home to Lancashire;
Drizzle-soak’d air,
Winds roaming all achill,
She aims a poignant stare, “Kids, that there’s Pendle Hill!”
Up Manny Road bi Shanks’ Pony,
Sees Trafalgar flats amaze,
Instead of tender history
Faded pockets of past days,
But jesting with her family
Invokes old jokes & ways,
The bungalow housing her mam & dad
Soon full of booze, soon riotous, soon mad!
Mam rocks her latest grand-child, Bern,
“Most folk don’t give a toss,
What people earn’s their main concern!”
“Aye, & the bleedin cost,”
“These days,” pipes Dad, “the neighbours would prefer us to get lost!”
Burnley
1965
Last Soldier
I have been studying the difference
between solitude & loneliness,
telling the story of my life
Richard Jones
The one-man War of Hiroo Onada
Comes to an end one honour-bursting day,
Wielding his war-flag at the surrender,
His sword still sharp, his hair now gushing grey;
With high-held head
He leaves a life behind,
Scores of unsoldier’d dead, the last lad of his kind.
Stepping into another age
He could hardly recognize
Fierce teenagers, crime waves a-rage
& women painting their eyes…
The sacred land wears new image,
Severing ancyent ties…
“Where is Japan? What devils walk the street?
Did we give up our pride with our defeat?”
He stood at the hurricane’s eye,
Twas alien indeed,
Noise drown’d a cry, the world flasht by,
At such terrific speed,
The lonely sole survivor of the empire’s fallen breed.
Tokyo
1974
World Cup
’Twas a present from the Dad.
I kicked it yet I worshipped it,
How strange a priest it had!
J. Milton Hayes
It seems mankind has found a safer War,
Better for conducting trials of nations,
Congeal’d, tarsticky pools of blood no more,
Just a ball & its country’s champions;
Gladiators,
With trident-studded boot,
Thousands of spectators stood breathless as they shoot.
Four years have pass’d since that great day
When Muller stunn’d the English,
Each Dutchman seem’d a new Pele,
A penalty to finish!
But puff’d-up by patriot bray
The Germans accomplish
A goal, & then another, turns the tide,
The final whistle hails a nation’s pride.
Max Stemmler bellows with the crowd,
Tho’ now an ageing man,
Proud to be loud, proud to be proud,
Beckenbaur in the van,
A golden globe is held aloft, the game had gone to plan.
Munich
1974
Imperial Soldier
I pass through trials all the way,
With sin and ills contending;
In patience I must bear each day
Hans Adolf Brorson
The very walls of Royal Priam’s town
Could not defy mi father in his prime,
Ennobl’d by a duty to the Crown,
He went to police the war-zones of his time;
Wild libido,
Good-looks unstoppable,
While mano e mano his ruck undroppable.
Pops travel’d out to Portadown
& on to bandit country,
Thro’ Crossmaglen & Beleek Town –
Where the latter’s pottery
Has won itself global renown –
Then on to Silvertree –
“Take down that tricolor!” his sergeant’s shout,
“No sir!” dad sens’d a sniper roundabout.
“Are you refusing an order?”
“Yes, sir!” Mi Dad replied…
Whose officer, an hour later,
Was dropp’d dead by his side,
“His common sense saved Bullen’s life, court
martial is denied.”
Northern Ireland
February
1975
Casualties
Let the storm that raves about us,
By our faith be kept without us;
Let us from our troubles cease
Joseph Gostick
A tip off & a farmhouse factory
The co-op mix – almonds, fertilizer,
Diesel & sugar – the British Army
Are forced to act, growing ever wiser,
Three hours they threw
Bricks thro every window
No trigger traps there blew, the order came to go…
Mi dad’s best mate stepp’d oer the sill,
Stood upon five hundred pounds,
That in an instant him did kill,
Mi dad to his best mate bounds,
Whose body bits lay strange & still,
In pieces thro’ the grounds;
& weeping terribly picked up a hand –
The coffin fill’d with naught but bags of sand.
Beyond blood, but bath’d in that blood,
The funeral becalms,
Mi father stood, a salty flood
Of tears did drench his arms,
Sad moment when the soldier’s life begins to lose its charms.
Huddersfield
July
1975
Hometime
But the key to the city
Is in the sun that pins
the branches to the sky
David Bowie
Dad’s final Christmas sporting soldier’s boot
Spent back in Belfast, dreaming of Burnley,
Far from these towns him paid to troubleshoot,
Impatient miscreanted vileynie;
With Santa’s hat,
Beef-butty & mince pies,
Aloof, alone, he sat, sad on the steepl’d rise.
While Pops watch’d streets for terrorists,
They sat & scoff’d their stuffing,
Sang Cath’lic carols nice & piss’d
While father supp’d on nothing,
Thinking, ‘I should be an artist
On a marlb’ro puffing,
Instead of handling steely killer’s gun…’
Right there & then he knew his tours were
done.
Well, they offer’d him promotion,
But he’d made up his mind,
No more “BULLEN!” bloodshed sullen,
Outlook redefined,
He caught the boat to Liverpool & left the lads
behind.
The Irish Sea
May
1976
Mi Dad
I sought an arrow, gone I knew not where
Which from my bow had sped
But found among the grasses wild fringed pinks
Kotomichi
My mother, pop’s fond lover, willing dame,
Did of a happy family conceive,
& gave me flesh & bones, & then a name
That’s written in the hearts we never leave;
My own dear dad
Spoke to me like a man,
“Vive ut vivas lad, & be the best ye can,”
Then placed me back inside the cot,
I dozed there, moomin-dreaming
Of Calliope & a plot,
With hopes for Earth’s redeeming,
But first I’d have to learn to dot
I’s that now are streaming,
With tears to feed me with my morning’s milk,
Upon my lips life lay as soft as silk.
As shut again these sleep-seal’d lids
He kiss’d my wrinkl’d brow,
My manly shield right there reveal’d
His tenderness, & how!
For still I can remember this all in the here & now.
Burnley
October
1976
The Last Reichsfuhrer
O God our Maker, give songs in the night
through the long watches of hope,
Till the shadows flee away
Eric Milner-White
Pearl searchlights comb the auld walls of Spandau,
Mann’d by Russia, th’Anglo-Saxons & France,
A point in time that is forever now,
Last firmament of a grand alliance;
Hospitable,
To strangest hermitage,
Solitary eagle squats in an iron cage.
Withdrawing from the living hell
Of a nightmare wax’d absurd,
Hess chooses shewing silent shell,
Weeks pass by without a word,
Holding his captors in a spell,
Like a lilting songbird;
For thro’ his soul melts runisch mysterie,
He was der Fuhrer’s friend & deputie!
The door slams shut, sweet midnight nears,
The Twentieth is come,
Counting the years, a rain of tears,
Saluting to the drum,
Tho’ slipping to senility, fidelis ad urnam!
Berlin
1981
When Mavis met Tommy
Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour ;
Improve each moment as it flies !
Life’s a short summer, man a flower
Samuel Johnson
Tommy Sumner shuffl’d with the old dears
Into the mini-bus outside their home,
The driver sets off to three rousing cheers,
All off to idle by the Irish foam;
An old penny
Was won within the hour,
Claimd by bingo Betty, first to spot the tower.
They book’d into a B&B,
Tour’d the same old streets & sights,
By-the-sea was far too windy
So they tram’d along the lights,
Then all the ladies left Tommy
For chips & early nights,
So he took a walk ter’ Winter Gardens,
& sat on the seat of Mavis Johnston’s…
“That’s my stool!” “Sorry, love, dint know!”
They hit it off at once,
Warm talk’s fair flow to long ago,
Rich in reminiscence,
When nights ran Earendillian, vermilion suspense!
Blackpool
1997
Mumble Words 