Hole by Peter Barns - HTML preview

 

 

Hole

Collected poems 1970 to 2004

 

Peter Barns

 

Published by Boddaert Books at Smashwords

 

Copyright 2011 Peter Barns

 

 

Smashwords Edition, License Notes.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

 

 

These poems are a work of fiction. The names, characters and events portrayed are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

 

 

 

CONTENT

Hole

Love

Lifeless Hair

Little Lacey

Thirty One

Distorted Echoes

Tiger - Tiger

A Peculiar Man

Pot Luck

Pretty Little Thing

Answer

It's Wet Out Again

Golden Birth

Sagging Seats

Super Babe

Uncle Bert's Last Tune

Deathless Caress

The Day the Hoover Bit Back

Rats In The Haystack

Little Mo And Gran Go Shopping

Some Thoughts And Feelings On The View South From Nigg Over The Firth Looking Towards Invergordon With The Mountains As A Backdrop - On A Sunny Day Last Summer.

Matriarch

Throw Another Bone On The Pile

Fly Me

Childhood's Playmate

New Stone

Silence

Sex - What Sex?

 

 

 

HOLE

A hole is nowt,

So what's about,

And then a shout,

"Oy mate, look out!

Too late John,

Poor bleeders gone."

 

- a comment on building sites -

 

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LOVE

Touch me lightly

For the pain I feel now

Is the pain of love

 

- those first few seconds of falling in love -

 

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LIFELESS HAIR

She split her eyes at ten am,

Shrugged her body out of bed,

Scuffed across the cold, cold floor,

Stood at the sink and nailed her head.

The coils hung down - limp and dank,

She knew it needed washing now,

She popped her tongue and told herself,

She wouldn't do it anyhow.

The coils slid round her dirty throat,

And as she choked upon the floor,

She wished she hadn't left it now,

Should have washed it long before.

 

- sylvia’s hair -

 

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LITTLE LACEY

Little Lacey Tickle tumbles,

Falling down gives a laugh,

Scooping suds upon her head,

Smiles at mum while in the bath.

 

- a friend’s first child -

 

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THIRTY ONE

There was a house, cor what a dive,

And a neighbour shouted, "Man alive!

What is this noise, this deep, deep beat,

That roars out over Dodson Street?"

His friend shouts back, "Don't worry son,

It's all those bums in thirty-one."

 

- my flat in waterloo, london -

 

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DISTORTED ECHOES

Last week I bought a pig called Peter,

a present for my wife, but she didn't want it.

Last week Peter bought a pig for a present

but my wife, she didn't want it.

Peter bought she, a present for my pig

but last week I didn't want my wife.

Peter bought the wife a she pig

and last week it was a present.

Then the pig ate my wife.

Now there's a fucking present!

 

- drunk & disorderly -

 

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TIGER - TIGER

The tiger's coming darling,

Cast your hearing over there,

See the sights - the black-gold stripes,

The eyes that seem to stare and stare.

See the way it smells you darling,

Look, the grass is moving there,

Smell the musk - the cat like odour,

See the claws that tear and tear.

Feel the way it wants you darling,

As it pulls you limb from limb,

You'll not wander anymore,

Now that you are inside him.

 

- that’ll stop her fooling around -

 

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A PECULIAR MAN

I like to walk in the woods at night

And sit by myself in the dark

I like to argue all the time

And stand on my head in the park

I like to dress in clothes so gay

And laugh and sing when I can

I like to do these things and more

'Cos I'm a peculiar man

 

- well that’s what all my mates say -

 

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POT LUCK

Me brother John sniffed glue like

Yeah, glue and gas and stuff

Trouble was 'e didn't know

When 'e'd 'ad enough.

Not me, I got more sense like

Don't want me nose to rot

Snotting lumps of Evo-Stic

Yeah, fink I'll stick to pot.

'Cause pot don't do yer 'ead like

That's what me mates all say

If only John 'ad smoked it

'E'd still be 'ere today.

 

- good ol’ flower-power -

 

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PRETTY LITTLE THING

She was a pretty little thing

Some said a genius

Who could talk to many nations

But I didn't trust her

For come upon her quietly

And you could hear her whisper

"Come quick, come quick, come quick."

She was a pretty little thing

Some said a mystic

Who could talk to long dead people

But I didn't trust her

For come upon her quietly

And you could hear her whisper

"This world, this world, this world."

She was a pretty little thing

Some said a Healer

Who could touch a person healthy

But I didn't trust her

For come upon her quietly

And you could hear her whisper

"Kill them, kill them, kill them."

 

- an idea for a short story -

 

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ANSWER

I wanted to see everything

I wanted to understand all

I wanted to be everywhere

So I built a cage

A large cage

A glass cage

And in the cage I sat

And as I sat I pondered

And the conclusion was this

If I am to see everything, I must be everywhere

So I built a nest

A large nest

A glass nest

And I slept within the nest

And as I slept I was devoured

Piece by piece

Fed into the mandibles of knowledge

And upon nine legs I walked

To roam and see with a million eyes

Viewing all in tiny parts

Which added together equalled one

And when my wanderings were done

I found I had the answer

 

- further education -

 

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IT'S WET OUT AGAIN

It's wet out again,

and your tears run down

the windowpane.

Touching them brings you back.

Damp patches on my fingertips,

cool receptacle of our love.

Your tears are salty

as I savour their memory.

Salty, soft and tentative.

This one, our wedding day;

your face is reflected in its shape,

framing your beauty from within.

Here, our child's first hurt.

You cried with her. I,

not being there, cried later.

The harsh taste of your mother's death;

as she gave up her struggle

and left you behind.

All things wiped away now

With the edge of a curtain.

 

- my first divorce -

 

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GOLDEN BIRTH

My incubation took aeons

for buried deep I was.

Deep in the desert sands.

Hidden away from sight in a hot, grainy bed.

And as I grew I dreamt.

Dreamt of a life when I would be free.

For three thousand centuries I grew,

flexing half-formed muscles within my shell

while above me the world turned.

Over the years life crawled,

ebbing and flowing across my land.

Many confusing thoughts carried to me,

hateful thoughts, primitive thoughts.

Urgings and longings that called me up,

straining for the sky,

so the sun might warm my golden skin.

My time is now, I feel it.

I am.

 

- a rather peculiar dream -

 

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SAGGING SEATS

Piled high in twisted surrealism,

gaping doors rusted and broken,

gutless machines brood;

broken dreams on buckled wheels.

The slow drip of oil,

as a split axle cries,

makes echoes of pain.

And all the while, the bloody dashboard

and broken glass

makes echoes of life.

Wind slammed doors move gently,

whispering stories on their sighing hinges.

Small pieces of scalp

flutter lifelike on the breeze.

What dreams were carried on these sagging seats

now spilling foam from gaping smiles?

What dreams that called with such urgency

none could wait to embrace them?

 

- scrap-yard of dreams -

 

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SUPER BABE

More dangerous than a speeding bullet.

Smellier than an unwashed tramp.

Able to disrupt life with a single smile.

Is it a dog?

Is it a cat?

Is it even a good idea?

No - it's superbabe!

Its five year mission - to boldly mess

where no babe has messed before.

More troublesome than a Poll Tax Form.

More noisier than a Lada car.

Able to redistribute food with a single puke.

Is it lovable?

Is it laughable?

Is it even worth it?

Of course it is - it's superbabe!

 

- that 4am feeling -

 

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UNCLE BERT'S LAST TUNE

The women work quietly in the back room

I sit with his life across my knees.

They laughingly wash his cold body

I lovingly stroke his worn and battered tuba,

And recall a resplendent uniform.

The women stand by his bed

While I place his life by his side,

His cold stiff fingers on warm brass stops.

Then his body settles and plays his last tune.

A slow, resounding fart.

 

- a friend’s funeral -

 

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DEATHLESS CARESS

Death caressed my face in passing

but didn't stop that night.

I sat confused amid tinkling glass,

A drawn-out silence, hot ticking metal.

I tasted the encounter in warm blood,