Car park in the blanket of darkness.
Highlife fights the night.
Felix checks time.
“Twenty-three girls now,” he says.
Between eighteen and twenty-five, good.
Oseh pockets phone.
“Seven more. Thirty will do.”
Die-hard girls to convince the scared.
“Well-protected on this journey,”
Felix lies, or believes.
Motel lights hide trafficking.
John’s house is one prison.
This car park is the next.
i'm gagging
cursing the traffic lights
catastrophic sweat
i need that sensation when i pull into a decadent parking space
and walk from the car to the ticket machine
three hours early and stuffing my face back in the car park with watery meat juices
stationing the confectionary in the right cavity
memories of hot dogs and dr. robert greenberg
superb breakfasts and sparkling water
the lack of legroom in the upper circle
ushers and their laser beams into the back of heads like Predator
as they take their bows and the curtain falls and the applause ends
i yell to my son, "get to the chopper!"
As so many shoppers
consistently doing all manner of wrong
fail to return their trolleys
from whence they came to where they belong
it really irks when I leave work
drive my hybrid to the supermarket
circle the car park for what seems hours
and can't find a place to park it
the question may seem odd to some
and yet I have to ask it
why don't those self-same lazy people
do to it what they'd do with a shopping basket
I was lost after a night out and
couldn't unlock the screen for directions
you walked to the pub you can't be far just
ease yourself over this railing and
slide down the wall so you can take a
short cut through the car park
cursing all the while but
I know the tube station's nearby
and it must still be open
pushing the On button over and over
swiping this way and that
screaming with rage at this useless device
####ing this and ####ing that
now this isn't the way to the station
and I hear her voice coming through:
- is that you, why did you call me?
are you in trouble?
still the screen is black
- yes I'm just a little lost
- you sound very scared, in fact
it doesn't sound like you at all
I was so high I don't recall being high
I sat in the basement waiting to come down
I hung with a friend, hung with, who was that boy
We waited in the bar while he waited for the bus
I called my gran, my safeguard, she knew something was up
Something is wrong, something isnae quite right
I found out later she'd been dead since 1987
I was so high I crossed paths with myself
And couldnae tell which one to take back
Some say it was mushrooms, some say it was acid
Blu juice or lettuce were the other options
I lost a week there and then it was Saturday
Had no idea who to call or how to get home
There was no gran of course now there was no bus
Spent twilight in the car park trying to come down
Rehydrated but the water just made it all grow again
Early morning
and it is still dark.
An abandoned
shopping trolley stands alone
in the centre of the car park.
I take pity and return it back
to its home and the company
of its own kind where it
rejoins the others
in their long coitus line.
God and Austerity
The supermarket that calls itself Forum,
has a bell tower, but now, in time of
austerity, no one flocks to buy anything
when its bells ring every hour.
Sunday, when I drove my wife to church
the car park was full of vehicles
the bells didn’t
toll in vain; when I looked through
the window people were singing hymns.
When time is good, god becomes distant
But with economic times and threats
of a new war is looming, people turn to
an abstraction in time of an unsure future.
Mind, god looks after his flock, walking
around the car park, I noticed most cars
looked new, but if you have got it and want
to keep it a prayer goes a long way.
Apart from the worn stone-step
where drunks still topple,
or the hand-painted sign,
all has changed,
now a neon glow backlights a plasticized fascia,
all ‘local color’ painted over.
In the car park,
two frizzy blondes face off,
The smaller has plastic bangles,
she rattles like a Zulu warrior,
fingers stab through cusswords.
Youths shout
over the clomping-thump
of their car radios.
"I used to come here often"
I explain to my incredulous wife.
"Good times."
after doors close after hours when scarlet neon flickers out red-light nights fill voids of need my body is a ripped flower my throat tingles to the burn of vodka-fire gleaning the gleaming water-washed street for an answer to the latest outstanding bill sadly grateful for the slightest footfall twenty for oral forty for full car park dark steam-heavy dark not streetwalking but streetstaggering in hollow-pod hell anaemic-ashy and vodka-fumy amorphous shadows loitering on durex-dotted waste ground in secret alleys back to dank brick or deep throating down on my knees skirt around thighs fingers come-pearled and slick come quick after doors close after hours when scarlet neon flickers out cold glitter of streetlights gleam of cold hard cash cold kisses colder touch no eye contact look away the cold nothingness that we say
Knocking on doors, people to meet,
house after house, street after street,
keeping going, day after day,
whatever polls or trolls might say,
there's not much time for resting feet.
Car park selfies, the meet and greet,
sharing stickers and printed sheets,
no time to waste, there’s no delay,
knocking on doors.
Sunshine, showers, rinse then repeat,
change is never an easy feat,
when the future is all in play,
but we’ll turn corners, come what may,
walking, talking, to win this seat,
knocking on doors.
It was a hot day, I was on my way back from Spar, carrying a bag of groceries. I walked past the lilac bushes in bloom, past the annex to the medical centre with its small car park, rounding my house. From the side of the old red-brick typography building I heard an incomprehensible sound, like a tuba from underwater, the sound was muffled, even and deep. I immediately identified a C minor chord. Prolonged, devoid of modulation, the sound lingered in space as I walked across the ramp past the lilac bushes. It was impossible to make out exactly what it sounded like. As if from behind, there was some tenor sound in the background, but it was so faint that I could barely hear it. No one sat on the benches at the entrance to the house. The sun-drenched ramp area, the faded walls of the house, the bright blue sky. I went up to my flat, and went out onto the balcony. From the balcony I could hear nothing, there was the dead silence of a summer day. It's evening now, I'm writing this worthless story, but I can't get over the fact that I couldn't identify the source of the sound or its purpose. The only thing I could make out was an evenly sustained, deep C minor chord.
Deep breath in,
Deeper breath out.
There are no crowds.
There is nobody.
Crowds are unavoidable:
The ebb and flow of busybodies
Moves with and against you
Like a cluster of active cells.
Deep breath in
Deeper breath out.
Picking skin, exposing pink flesh beneath,
Shakes that won't subside.
Desolate high streets that,
Once upon a time, flourished
With people as their bright green leaves,
Now fall barren and edging death.
Deep breath in,
Deeper breath out.
It's freer now. It's quieter now.
The shakes subside.
Watching dragon's breath billow out
In the middle of an empty car park,
Muttering and humming to oneself
Without fear of being noticed.
Deep breath in,
Deeper breath out.
It's unusual; we all do unusual things
When we feel free.
The nighttime that once seemed frightening
Is now an inviting presence
That envelopes your insecurities
And shadows them from the world.
Deep breath in,
Deeper breath our.
There are no crowds.
There is nobody.
I'm glad I came to see you today,
since we last met, my life has been in a little disarray,
but there was something about the orange in the sky,
I couldn't help but think of you when I looked up high,
I was thinking about the fall when we made those crazy face pumpkins,
and how my heart quickened when your hand brushed my skin,
I was also thinking about those romantic picnics on the car park rooftop,
and how one night we were interrupted by a traffic cop,
they say absence makes the heart grow fonder,
but it's so hard when you're too far yonder,
so in the meantime I will visit you at this special place,
and in a sense we are face to face,
I don't mind doing all the talking,
and in my mind we're always somewhere walking,
you've got me crying again, telling me how I should be brave,
but I was going to cry anyway standing at your grave.
Someone recently said there was more discrimination
against blacks than Jews, travellers (gypsies) or the Irish;
for which an apology has been offered for all those lies,
an inacurate description for whom the beloved country cries.
The poor Jews who were driven from golden pillar to post,
what belongs to them, you wonder, maybe the holy ghost;
we should not berate 'the chosen people' on a green hill,
because they're still here, last time Hymie sharpened pencil.
The 'gypos'settled in my car park after a second coming,
from the south of France and God knows where in India;
I told my son - you don't want to spend the rest of your life
in a caravan do you? Cheaper but gradients may be steeper.
What have the poor Irish done - that's the problem - nothing,
no government - there must be better news that Mick could sing.
How I Miss You
By calling you on weekend
By reading your favorite novel
By eating your admirable dessert
By watching your left behind tv series
By trying to sleep on your sofa
By roaming around your apartment block
By cleaning your ever dirty sunroof car
By drinking your remaining bottles of wine
By walking on your office car park hoping to see you
By visiting the regular cafe of your choice in evenings
By admiring your favorite actresses with my friends
By writing letters to you never to be posted
By checking my emails wishing one to be yours
By praying to god to let us meet again
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