(g4)

i've noticed a few
stray greys for some time - autumn
draws near in my beard

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 1st August 1990

Publication

Next Exit (Canada)

*****

Notei alguns fios brancos
ja algum tempo atras. O outono
vai chegando a minha barba.

GERALD ENGLAND

translated by Teresinka Pereira

Publication

1992 International Poetry (USA)

I Have Never Acted my Age

I HAVE NEVER ACTED MY AGE

I have never acted my age;

I was always the young one,

paid half-fare on the buses

nearly three years over the limit.

One summer I served

behind a Highland hotel bar

but back in Glasgow my age

was challenged in an off-licence.

For twenty years

I haven't appeared to age,

still seemed to be

in my late twenties.

A few stray greys

I've noted for some time

but today I saw my face

in a huge, enlarging mirror

that showed the grey hairs

even in my beard

almost out-numbering the dark.

Someone once said

I'd be bald before thirty.

I rightfully scorned them

yet I will be grey

before fifty.

I have never acted my age

but will wear my grey hairs

with dignity

scorning all caps

and hair-tints

Maybe I will no longer shout

at the children or mutter

at the dog,

nor tear my hair out

when clients cancel

else I'll be bald at eighty.

I cannot count the grey hairs

so will put away

the calculator,

live each day

four and twenty hours,

leave the acting to others.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 27th July 1990

Publications

1991 The Affiliate (Canada)

1991 PENNINE 25 (Heckmondwike, Fighting Cock Press)

HOMER'S LOST ODYSSEY

Tempus cart sin lunar seen

einmorrow when

auld Willie fuck mule up et true

rex land umap

Et set la mare of pacmac een

we matter Pen

chick et pig peas sweden too

may sud it hap

Od sammed an arm oot hug aleen

tres bitter men

nine doll not farting fickle few

et nivver nap

Gaga mamda rumba fit latrine

gnash tee moren

daun blood bit achshit new

circumvent wrap

© Gerald England

Composed:  Gee Cross, 1st July 1990

Publications

1992 Inkshed (UK)

2004 Chanticleer Magazine (UK)

Greta Garbo on the Blackpool Bus

GRETA GARBO ON THE BLACKPOOL BUS

Elsie Williamson

met Greta Garbo on a Blackpool bus

going to visit a friend

in Poulton-le-Fylde.

"Ee luv, you do look like her;

I've seen all her films, you know;

I think I must be one of her biggest fans!"

"Have I many fans in Blackpool ?",

biting her lips at the utterance of "I".

"O hundreds, luv, and I reckon on

there must be at least a million

in the whole of Lancashire -

will you come to tea with me tomorrow?"

She scribbled her address

on the back of a brown envelope

that had had her gas-bill in;

"Must dash - this is my stop -

see you tomorrow".

George told her she was daft

but enjoyed the ham and ate the cake.

Two weeks later

a letter arrived

with two complimentary tickets

for the film premiere in London.

Elsie wondered

where she could find

the money for the train-fare.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed:  Gee Cross, 6th June 1990

Publications

1991 The Vincent Brothers Review (USA)
1992 STEALING KISSES (Hyde, New Hope International)
1994 Current Accounts (UK)
1997 Pickings (Internet)

My Last Poem About Snow

MY LAST POEM ABOUT SNOW

I shan't write again about the snow
telling of icicles and drifts.
I won't again write of how my mother
put me out in my pram
in the deep snows of '47,
the only time, she said, I would sleep.
No more will my pen reveal
the secrets of the snowmen
my brothers built by the railway line
and how the heads melted
when the steam-trains came.
I will not tell again of that December in the 60s
when I walked out of Glasgow in a snow-storm;
a promised lift to Annan at 5am broken,
I thumbed my way South.
In those pre-motorway days the route lay
through the slush-strewn streets of towns -
Hamilton, Lockerbie, Carlisle, Penrith, Kendal,
Settle, Skipton, Ilkley, Otley, Wetherby, Pontefract -
the snow reflecting the civic pride of each
as festive lights brightened the grey day.
Not again shall I write about snow
nor again tell of the return from Liverpool -
when going up Rushup Edge in my old Anglia
I skidded, ending up at 45 degrees
with a dry stone wall an inch away.
It was dark before the grit-wagon came.
They were only going as far as Edale
but towed me out and I returned
to overnight at the Kings Arms in Chapel-en-le-Frith.
The next day I dug out the car
and joined the convoy of lorries
shuffling slowly over Peak Forest toward Chesterfield.
I will not write again about snow
nor tell of the winter of '74
when the world drowned in white,
when the weathermen talked
of temperatures rising towards freezing.
I will not tell of the weeks
when travel virtually ceased
and the drifts blocked
even the entrance to the cemetery.
I will not write again about snow.
Snow is not chaste, unsunn'd
as Shakespeare would have us think.
Snow is not forgetful.
Snow is not a white-wool blanket
Snow is not ice-cream topping for a mountain cone
It does not melt like a retreating army
but swells streams and floods drains.
Snow is simply cold crystals of ice
that fall from a cloud-thick sky.
Eskimos have twenty-seven different words
but there is only one snow
and I shall not write of it again.

Until the winters of yesteryear return
- les neiges d'antan de Villon -,
until the icebergs no longer drift South,
until the earth's warming ceases
I shall not write again of snow.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Hyde, 1st May 1990

Publications

1990 Crooked Roads (USA)
1992 STEALING KISSES (Hyde, New Hope International)
1999 Unlikely Stories (Internet)

Me and the other Gerald

ME AND THE OTHER GERALD

Yeah, yeah, I know what I said

I don't write poems about poetry

I don't write long rambling

discourses on all and sundry

but hell when it happened

something had to give or else

or else or else or else or else.

Karl Heiss started it -

sent me a copy of HIPPO

and there I am listed as contributor

but I'm not - Gerald Locklin is

and there are his biog. notes

under my name - it won't do will it?

And the same day

I get sent a review tape from SLIPSTREAM

and it's Locklin rambling on

the way he does about the minutiae of his life

how he fucks his students

and makes poems out of non-events

sure he raises a laugh or two

and some of it isn't that bad at all

Well I stuck the tape in the car-cassette player

and listened to Locklin as I went to work

I stopped at Mrs Jones'

she tells me how her washing-machine

won't do what she wants it to

asks me what my wife would do

I know what my wife would do

but I'm not going to tell that to Mrs Jones.

Back in the car Locklin is laughing at himself

Mr Iqbal wants to find out if the maturity value

of his endowment that comes up next year

will be enough to pay the dowry

for his daughter still back in Pakistan.

Locklin is talking shit about Donald Duck.

Miss Prendergast says she can't pay me this week

the Social haven't sent her her giro

and she's had to buy little Gareth new shoes.

As she bends to pick the baby's dummy off the floor

I'm treated to a clear view of her floppy breasts

and she smiles at me.

Does she want me to screw her in lieu of payment?

Well I've fifty more calls to get through today

Locklin is wondering if he can afford another divorce

He thinks he's living life, hey

Let him try selling insurance in Oldham

The tape ends.

By the time I've finished my round

I've got through two more tapes

but these are "Dolly Parton's Greatest Hits"

and "Brass Band Favourites"!

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Bardsley, 14th April 1990

Publications

1991 The Plastic Tower (USA)

1992 STEALING KISSES (Hyde, New Hope International)

1995 Boggers All (UK)

1998 The Bohemian Forest (Internet)

(55)

              here we go round the
              block again walking the dog
              for the umpteenth time

              © GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 4th April 1990

Publication

1990 The Old Police Station (UK)

Incident in Oldham

INCIDENT IN OLDHAM

they come over

the bridge

from town

SHUT UP

she shouts

you've got yr fags

you've got yr booze

you've got yr wallpapering

you've got yr tea

WHAT

   MORE

     DO

        YOU

          WANT?

she pulls

her warm lined coat

around her

stalks off

shirt-sleeved

he moves

the sagging plastic bag

from hand to hand

the young lad

tags

on to the empty hand.

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Oldham, 3rd March 1990

Publication

1997 Lateral Moves (UK)

WALKING THE WALL

a man sits in a cave knitting

far into the middle of nowhere

shepherds freeze beside their sheep

train-smoke trails the horizon

in the days of the nine suns

there was no resting

in a flight of forward motion

a child is raped by a needle

not walking but measuring

even together you are alone

even together you are alone

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 22nd February 1990

Publications

1994 The Third Alternative (UK)

2000 Unwound (USA)

2004 Raw NerVZ (Canada) 

Not a Haiku

NOT A HAIKU

the simple writing

of seventeen syllables

doth not haiku make

© GERALD ENGLAND

Composed: Gee Cross, 2nd February 1990

Publications

1992 THE ART OF HAIKU (Hyde, New Hope International)

1994 POEMS ABOUT POETRY (Hull, Psychopoetica)

1997 The Haiku Archive (Internet)

2000 MIR (USA)

[5n]

Composed: Gee Cross, 20th January 1990

 Publications

1990 The Affiliate (Canada)
1991 Purple Patch (UK)

The Three Lords of Materialism

THE THREE LORDS OF MATERIALISM

(from a painting by Peter Rogers)

I

I carry the weight of the world on my back.
Shielded from the glare of the blue sky
I think
I devise new ways of creating wealth
I sell the land back to its people
Their own oil, water, natural gas.
It adds to this weight my back shares.
It has grown heavy since we took it from Stonehenge;
The weather it shelters us from
Has rounded its edges.
I fear it might one day
Skim the ocean and I
Have no assets on the sea-bed.

II

I do not think
Like he who also shoulders responsibility.
I straighten my back,
Keep one hand planted firmly on the ground.
I build there,
My factories are not monuments
Though they will stand forever.
Diversify, accumulate,
Keep one hand free to speculate.
I fear only that should I ever try to stand
My back might break.

III

I keep these two in check.
I scan the lost horizon,
Keep the wheels turning,
Give a little here,
Take a lot there,
Never let the workers think we do not care.
I fear these two
Might one day let the pebble crash,
But when that happens
I'll be far away.

Lower foreground woman I

They're up there
And we're down here.
He isn't looking
But I feel his eyes.
I have not smiled for thirty years.
They've taken everything I never had.
They even own myself.

Lower foreground woman II

I follow you
But know by my flowing hair
A wind is blowing;
It is coming our way.
No-one has
Nor will ever own
Me.

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 2nd January 1990

Publication

1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)