Mathew Stoppard

Will it be birdbath

or puddle today?
The basin is dry and algae-stained
red as an insomniac’s eye
a mouse corpse soaked in cat spit
lays before the omen-heavy pedestal.

No need to dredge for the drowned slug
bloated at the end of an oily trail
limp horns entwined and one tired leg
kicked at death through its fringe
praying to be with its seacousins.

We’ll wash in a rain-filled sump
a kerbside tarn sliced by pram wheels
outside the rooms where men must live more
and read less, their tongues lolling
like sedated horses’ harnessed upsidedown.

The architecture of fountains chafes
let’s dust ourselves in sand
peck out lice like Petruchio plucking
ticks off his spaniel, then ask me
tomorrow: will it be bread or worms?

 
               
Crying Journeyman

Another blow to the head, Mr Booth, and who knows –

perhaps you won’t walk out of the ring next time,

you’ll be stretchered through the ropes instead.

Even if you do make it to your thousandth round

is it worth spending the rest of your days

glassy-eyed and gibbering on the end of your bed.

Remember what happened to Joe Louis, Mr Booth?

Your speech is already slurred, one more punch

could shake your brain loose!

I was there when you fractured your hand, the knuckle

halfway up your fist after eight rounds with Sheika,

the endless broken ribs and realigning your nose.

Heaven knows I would shut up if I didn’t care.

It could happen in the gym or the ring, why not retire?

You’re no longer a contender.

Mr Booth, you’ve fought some of the greats:

two rounds with David Haye and Johnny Nelson

bringing guts and comedy to the cruiserweight division.

Think of your family. Growing old, a grandchild

on each knee, regaling those epic battles with Bruce Scott,

sipping Guinness rather than being drip fed through a tube.

Oh, I didn’t mean to… Here take mine. Look, Mr Booth,

I accept you know no other life, but others do.

Please, Tony, at least consider your wife.

Premature Nativity.

Narrow pavements forced him into the charity shop,
dank paperback and dirty china fouling the air,
somnolently (shirt and suit familiar as pyjamas)
searching through other lives, less bloody,
less biblical, giddy – like the life cycle
of frog ornaments shelved near the till
or the swallows arrowing across an oriental parasol,
leaning unopened, bamboo spokes
poking through the paper.

Out he walked, five minutes later, wearing
a woollen tie, a collection of novellas holstered
in his pocket, clutching a porcelain tortoise
with a bobbing head and limbs –
each used item negating new grief,
one a gift for a person who once nurtured another.
 
 

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