Page 3

It's easy to
get change from a pound for a paper.
A pair of tits.
"But if she didn't want to do it she wouldn't"
"She makes loads of money."
"Strippers are canny."
"Come on, love, show us your fanny."
You've paid some money, and you deserve a product.
Let's not be reductive,
she looked seductive so it's - of course - alright.
At a certain time of night you have to expect
to deal with a knob: it's a pretty well paid job.
Like banking...except you won't have
a twat in your glass office visibly wanking.
We've got it better than ever before,
so these "feminists" should stop moaning,
drown out their shrieks with falsified groaning
and shaven havens. Splayed legs.
Let her go to the toilet and mop up your dregs
and you go home for the evening.
Believing it's normal, a stag night tradition.
A screwed up banknote equates to permission,
consent.
It was never your intent but you took it.
Fuck it, it's easy, it's across the counter
like buying a packet of fags,
and aren't they all just slags anyway?
Your missus would never do that,
wave her arse in the face of a gurning twat just for money.
Funny. Isn't it?

Neverland

I imagined myself a pirate;
a sea-conquering villain, instead of a hand I might have a hook.
I imagined sailing to - not Neverland -
but another place where they say
little boys can grow up.
There, they have the time to play
and they don't have to pine for the close of an
endless day.
Canons on pirate ships don't scare me;
They go BANG and a round shiny ball goes up through the air.
People know it's there. Not like the monsters
under our cars, in the streets,
who fight for the joy of inflicting defeat.
For this reason, I understand why
a shaking hand tugged me along
and parcelled me onto this boat.
We're all just trying to stay afloat.
Stay alive.
But an ocean presents a slight
challenge.
It's not like the stories,
but it might have a happy ending.
I'm told I might even make new friends:
that could work for me,
better than lurking in shadows and underneaths.
I could sleep for a while, once we
cross these thousands of miles.

But instead it's over before it began.
The ebb was too rough
and I just wasn't tough enough, a lousy pirate.
Fluttering down,
I don't know yet that in time I'll be spewed onto the sand.
I don't yet understand that
I'll be a martyr, a symbol, a "turning point".
In equal measure, my lifeless corpse will anoint and enrage
on page after page of tomorrow's litter.
It's enough to make you feel a
little bit bitter.
They'll question our motives,
my family's wealth,
my apparent good health is held up: evidence.
We had it okay,
we should have stayed, they say.
I'm clothed and fed and I've ended up dead.
Shame, clearly.
And such a worry that we very nearly ended up
joining those swarms, plagues.
Isn't it our sole intent  to cement
the image of your homeless and soldiers
sleeping under a park bench?
If I were a grown up,
or at least still alive,
I'd ask you why you think we fled..
to survive.
Tied ourselves to an unwelcoming vessel;
huddled but hoping
like limpets slipping off metal.
Even 'opportunists' know their limits.
If you live in a country with some kindness left in it,
you might remain in your home,
instead of washing up on a shingle beach,
a lost boy forever, on his way to Neverland,
alone.

Hero

You're a hero.
At least to me.
You're a watchman, a rescuer, a figure in the window of a lighthouse.
You speak of logic and reason but for a long time
our bond has been like spontaneous seasons.
Glaring sun and suddenly stormy;
tempests couldn't move us, we were that stubborn.
Instead of reality, there was worship, myth and a holograph figment.
You were an idol of my own depiction.
I thought you fell,
but as I got older and wiser as well,
the pedestal became a small step; one you skipped off.
Still, every single time you told me off I
blamed you.
I saw a tarnished knight, but I was jousting with myself.
It was me, my childish fairy tale need
to know who I was, who I wanted to be.
I wanted you to define me; that's easy.
I think I'm still interpreting "me".
Well, you're partially me,
but I have ownership and have gathered insight,
which might help us out.
Whenever we next inevitably fall out,
remember: I love you.
Not the you I imagined and adored.
The one I know is real, warts and all.
And heart attacks, death, slit wrists, cries for help,
they're rungs on a ladder that, in the end,
matters.
The love between us is really all that matters.
We've come this far, why not grow?
Even though you're no Prince Charming, to be honest.
Your lack of tact is
sometimes inordinately alarming but you're mine.
For the foreseeable future, or forever, that will be more than fine.
And now he needs you. More than I do.
Let's not skirt around the issue; some hurts
will take more than a tissue and a whinge.
Like a door that can't open without a hinge, he's shut.
So here's my advice. Tell him once, perhaps even twice
that you love him more than he loves himself.
Take the heavy objects off the shelf and let it hang there,
weightless. Our lives are a mess and you're the rescuer.
Never before has this ever been truer.
Age doesn't mean we don't need you as much.
Please wrap him up in that thing that you have;
this thing that I can't explain, but it crops up when I see your
name on the phone:
"Dad."