This collection of semi-autobiographic themed poems covers Self,
Places, Children, Religion and Drinking/Pubs.
Issues dealt with include various aspects of Michael's family life,
growing up in Liverpool with a predominantly Irish working class
background, then returning as an adult with a family of his own.
The written style is often mannered and elliptical but contains verbal
and rhythmic virtuosity, a force of imagery and brilliant wit.
Places, Children, Religion and Drinking/Pubs.
Issues dealt with include various aspects of Michael's family life,
growing up in Liverpool with a predominantly Irish working class
background, then returning as an adult with a family of his own.
The written style is often mannered and elliptical but contains verbal
and rhythmic virtuosity, a force of imagery and brilliant wit.
Other Recommended
Reading;
Reading;
SELECTED POEMS
Unexpectedly in the morning there was mist,
and sun through limited visibility lit
the brushed brown of the dead leaves that lay twisted
near the old walls of the gardens bitter
and withered with dull gold. Oh, it was cold
enough make ears ache as I told the boys
of juvenile delights: but being older
even at their age, I soon found their joyous
scuffling in the recently invisible
near each corner irked my urgency
to get them safe to school, and started bellow
usual threats to show how serious
my intent. Got drunk at lunchtime (air
was clear) and waited swaying outside playground
till they ran be taken home with new books, careless
in this, the beginning of wisdom where all youths founder.
Lacking axe, unwilling to use his hands,
my father called each hen by name to poke
a bent head through shed door I slammed on neck
after jerking neck till all were dead,
but doubtless happily so, anticipating
usual food, agog with feathered memory,
lacking morality or distrust in width of image
might suggest the wealth of death.
I have since boyhood days of birds’ eggs
and a failure breed piranha or dalmatians,
learned play blues piano, draw a passable
likeness of a fruit bowl, date with accuracy
a passage describing nuns’ medieval underwear
or doomed Victorians celebratory flux:
I’ve played some cricket, and there are women elsewhere
might boast at least of leaving repartee.
But I view doorways that I pass
with some suspicion, knowing that sooner or later,
named or not, I’ll met unwilling dark
without the carelessness or style of those go dumb.
Children’s Hospital
I
Sometimes they count your fingers: always heads
and the more important impedimenta assembled
on trite blue cards are checked. The rules do not
provide for the dead or bicephalous here.
As in jail, they provide the clothes. The regulations
state, moreover, that jumping out of windows
is forbidden, as is the burning of effigies.
Better smile, no matter how tight your trousers.
And if you don’t bite, they’ll say the usual things
and slice you open, realign those accidentals
of flesh that gave you migraine or threatened your sex life.
My word, they’ll say, you do look suave in blue.
II
And later, with all your proper heads and things,
they’ll come again, more subtly. Girls in lingerie
adverts will take your temperature, experts in latin
your pulse. No smoking permitted doesn’t just mean
you’re allowed not to smoke, in any language.
They’ll say the usual things again, and try
to slice you open. The cardinal, or the third
old man, the ritual bride from the decorators,
will stitch your idiosyncrasies’ caesuras, and say
my word, they’ll say, you do look suave in grey.
III
As well without that foible of pain from late
t’ang verse as gallstones or lycanthropy, maybe,
painwise. But pathologists have been known to be wrong,
particularly in pararimed late t’ang verse.
Some pains are better kept: and crenelations
of teeth and stairs to fall down better each drunken
monday than bills from a tailor who’s never heard
of purple jockstraps. Inheriting father’s velvet,
you’ll also inherit that private and paradoxical
suburb where lingerie’s fashion is quattrocento
and trompe l’oeil a kind of irony. I too have placards,
to burnish their greats on your neon seasons, and say,
my word, they’ll say, you look suave in Yeats.
Press Box
They’ve all been here before,
the greying men who have less interest in the score
than times of trains back to wherever
they weekly travel from, ex-celebrity stammer
juvenile remarks a dim apprentice will translate
for lurid newspaper,
misreading of the match will leave irate
the thousands paid who were proud be there.
At the most significant goal
police will recognise running on pitch small boy stole
fourteen helmets last week;
someone trapped in only toilet doesn’t leak
will hear the roar, and fat ex burglar buying beer
will reappear
with paper cartons spilled halfway
along the shaking mess in celebratory gangway.
I must sit here with the scribblers
who’ll bemoan in ritual night the lack of dribblers
that they missed
because of radio on with southern accent’s list
of happenings elsewhere, hear
as carelessly as they that small boy lost somewhere
was taught by one-armed father how to beg:
that next week’s bridegroom’s broken leg.
Unexpectedly in the morning there was mist,
and sun through limited visibility lit
the brushed brown of the dead leaves that lay twisted
near the old walls of the gardens bitter
and withered with dull gold. Oh, it was cold
enough make ears ache as I told the boys
of juvenile delights: but being older
even at their age, I soon found their joyous
scuffling in the recently invisible
near each corner irked my urgency
to get them safe to school, and started bellow
usual threats to show how serious
my intent. Got drunk at lunchtime (air
was clear) and waited swaying outside playground
till they ran be taken home with new books, careless
in this, the beginning of wisdom where all youths founder.
Lacking axe, unwilling to use his hands,
my father called each hen by name to poke
a bent head through shed door I slammed on neck
after jerking neck till all were dead,
but doubtless happily so, anticipating
usual food, agog with feathered memory,
lacking morality or distrust in width of image
might suggest the wealth of death.
I have since boyhood days of birds’ eggs
and a failure breed piranha or dalmatians,
learned play blues piano, draw a passable
likeness of a fruit bowl, date with accuracy
a passage describing nuns’ medieval underwear
or doomed Victorians celebratory flux:
I’ve played some cricket, and there are women elsewhere
might boast at least of leaving repartee.
But I view doorways that I pass
with some suspicion, knowing that sooner or later,
named or not, I’ll met unwilling dark
without the carelessness or style of those go dumb.
Children’s Hospital
I
Sometimes they count your fingers: always heads
and the more important impedimenta assembled
on trite blue cards are checked. The rules do not
provide for the dead or bicephalous here.
As in jail, they provide the clothes. The regulations
state, moreover, that jumping out of windows
is forbidden, as is the burning of effigies.
Better smile, no matter how tight your trousers.
And if you don’t bite, they’ll say the usual things
and slice you open, realign those accidentals
of flesh that gave you migraine or threatened your sex life.
My word, they’ll say, you do look suave in blue.
II
And later, with all your proper heads and things,
they’ll come again, more subtly. Girls in lingerie
adverts will take your temperature, experts in latin
your pulse. No smoking permitted doesn’t just mean
you’re allowed not to smoke, in any language.
They’ll say the usual things again, and try
to slice you open. The cardinal, or the third
old man, the ritual bride from the decorators,
will stitch your idiosyncrasies’ caesuras, and say
my word, they’ll say, you do look suave in grey.
III
As well without that foible of pain from late
t’ang verse as gallstones or lycanthropy, maybe,
painwise. But pathologists have been known to be wrong,
particularly in pararimed late t’ang verse.
Some pains are better kept: and crenelations
of teeth and stairs to fall down better each drunken
monday than bills from a tailor who’s never heard
of purple jockstraps. Inheriting father’s velvet,
you’ll also inherit that private and paradoxical
suburb where lingerie’s fashion is quattrocento
and trompe l’oeil a kind of irony. I too have placards,
to burnish their greats on your neon seasons, and say,
my word, they’ll say, you look suave in Yeats.
Press Box
They’ve all been here before,
the greying men who have less interest in the score
than times of trains back to wherever
they weekly travel from, ex-celebrity stammer
juvenile remarks a dim apprentice will translate
for lurid newspaper,
misreading of the match will leave irate
the thousands paid who were proud be there.
At the most significant goal
police will recognise running on pitch small boy stole
fourteen helmets last week;
someone trapped in only toilet doesn’t leak
will hear the roar, and fat ex burglar buying beer
will reappear
with paper cartons spilled halfway
along the shaking mess in celebratory gangway.
I must sit here with the scribblers
who’ll bemoan in ritual night the lack of dribblers
that they missed
because of radio on with southern accent’s list
of happenings elsewhere, hear
as carelessly as they that small boy lost somewhere
was taught by one-armed father how to beg:
that next week’s bridegroom’s broken leg.
J.B Aspinall
J.B Aspinall
Copyright © John N.F. Gibson,
2003 & 2006.
2003 & 2006.
ISBN: 0-595-27057-3
