My son and his girl sit
in deckchairs three metres apart.
It is his seventeenth Birthday


She left four gifts 


A cool white t-shirt
A blue mug for his tea
A silver Chinese dragon ring.


Tonight he sleeps 
in her Disneyland pyjamas.

Mr Henry Lingard was the Caretaker (Janitor) at my school.

Oi, Humpy! Ling-ers! Lingo! Lurch!

It’s Mister Lingard to you, son,
and don’t be fooled by this broom,
I could snap you like a twig.

The eye? I left it in Taegu,
it had seen too much, and yes,
I do grind my teeth and set my jaw

so hard sometimes the muscles jump.
No, it’s not a hump, walking bent
meant snipers chose the upright man.

My head is razored for remembrance,
and to help me think straight.
I know exactly who I am, 

not Humpy Jack or Notre Dame,
I’m Henry Lingard, but to you
it’s Mister Lingard. Got that son?

We make the same excuses why -
to not disturb a sleeping sister 
or miss a crucial moment on TV.
The truth is this feels best outside.
My son and I have made the flagstones hum 
with our nocturnal archery,
risking the disapproval of women 
who complain that we are dogs,
and shoo us to the compost, where
what we do would do more good.
They’re right to see the dog in us
as we compete beneath the stars,
together, breathing cool night air -
his water arches to the grass,
mine falls shorter year by year.

I am good with the creative stuff,
fiction and non-fiction, comprehension,
humanities and arts. I do quite well
with projects, understand area and shape,
love the science experiments, 
the messy fizzing explosions, 
me as assistant and cleaner-up,
happily contribute to half the colouring in
when she gets bored. I am hopeless 
with the formalities of grammar -
my reference points are wrong, 60s phonetics, 
and the rich colours of Cuisinaire rods. 
When the Xs and Ys appear I am lost. 
She notices at once, and zen-like guides me gently
through conversions, decimals to fractions 
and back again, effortless and elegant.
I struggle with finite facts but know that 
time is both vertical and horizontal, 
and time spent now will still be hers
when I am gone.

This replaces an earlier version here.

Lee Marvin was a drunk, it’s said, 
with a temper like a dog, a man
who could be hard to love, but was.
It’s also said one night he drunkenly refused 
to be driven home from the set 
of Point Blank, sat on the car
while his Director drove him almost there,
until stopped by a highway cop, who
asked if he knew that Lee Marvin,
the Actor Lee Marvin, was on his roof.
This story has been claimed by two people.
He said he drank to keep the dark at bay,
to cancel out the things he saw and did,
still fighting across Pacific islands.

Impossibly bright
the snow feet deep,
roads ploughed twice a day.
My Uncle’s Opel Commodore,
polished bronze, hides
inside a car shaped drift.
And he, cashmere elegant,
tall as a house,
buck toothed handsome 
stoops to lay his hands
on my shoulders
and smiles.
The light inside me
impossibly bright. 

Who is she? Who? Who is she? 
You’re joking, you are jo-king. 
Shut it. Shut. Shut. Up. Shut-up.
Creep, she’s cheap, creep, she’s cheap, she-is-cheap. 
Who is she then, who? Who? 
Mine, she’s mine. Mine mine mine. She. She.
Get-lost. Get-lost get-lost. 
Mine. Mine mine mine. Mine.
She’s Secret, se-cret, se-cret she.
Who is she then? Who? Who?

In all the news coverage
and the International Outcry 
concerning the Golan, 
Land grab settlements 
Rubbled families 
Katyusha rockets
The humiliation of checkpoints
Phantoms shuddering the hills,
there is a word that no one dares to say.
Its in your head right now.

In my late  20s, I saw 
Echo and the Bunnymen
at Rock City
in their faux military stage,
coveted the look, found it 
on a rack at my local surplus store
among Russian greatcoats
and Bundeswehr parkas, 
an ex-Israeli Army, over the head,
neatly patched-up jacket
in sand-camouflage.
The patching is so neat 
I hardly notice that
the conscripts name 
has been 
removed.

To Nottingham
forty miles out and back
in a battered Beetle, 
in early summer 83, singing
to Orange Juice and Marvin Gaye
parking up in Hockley where
the Carlsbro Music Centre 
( now gone) had found
a cache of 60s Burns guitars, hung
in rows strung up by their necks
but vitally alive, waiting for us:
Hank Marvin Custom
Nu-Sonic
Tri-Sonic
Vista-Sonic
and at the back, in powder blue
with a white scratchboard 
a Jazz Split Sound, 
whammy bar,
three pickups
with four way switching, 
Treble-Jazz-Splitsound-Wild Dog.
Wild Dog! 
It didn’t matter that we couldn’t play.
Wild Dog! 
which gave a snarling surfer twang
and looked 
so 
fucking 
cool
we bought it anyway.