Poetry

By

Neil Fulwood

SENTRY

You’ve walked the walk and seen it all –

bruiser, bouncer, squaddie. A tour

in Afghanistan that your pal

didn’t come back from. Now you’re

receding and the wrong side of thirty,

but still able to drop some bastard

and not break a sweat. Private security,

better money. Suit and tie but wired

and alert like you’re still in the desert –

all the old skills, the same kind of

kit in the deployment bag. Different

set of orders, though. You’re minder

to some slip-of-a-thing Hollywood star,

or yesterday’s idol on the convention

circuit, or a brash TV show up-and-comer,

someone whose name you could mention

but don’t. Whose hotel room you wait

outside at 3AM, cursing his libido.

Dead hours with the memory of your mate

as you stand sentry, guarding an ego.

“THIS VEHICLE IS PROTECTED BY A COLLISION RECORDING DEVICE”

These tyres are protected by a bristling antipathy

towards the shotgun blast that shreds them.

This section of bodywork is protected by the thought

of the panel-beater who will shake his head and do his best.

This length of chain is protected by an aloof disinterest

in bolt cutters. This padlock would rather they didn’t.

Snatched, bashed and jemmied, this cash box

is protected by an incandescent moral outrage.

Neil Fulwood

Neil Fulwood is the author of film studies book ‘The Films of Sam Peckinpah’. His poetry has appeared in The Morning Star, The Black Light Engine Room, Nib, Art Decades, Butcher’s Dog and Ink Sweat & Tears. Neil is married, holds down a day job and rants about the government on Facebook.