Poetry

By

Harry Mills

FINAL SCORE

And in the cold mornings

I would take him his United mug of liquid mahogany tea

and watch as his belching lungs

sucked in the storm-grey cigarette smoke

then watch his veiny road-map cheeks, flapping as old sails

release the vapor that descended every facial orifice

like a young bull on the camargue, snorting diffidence

he would raise his white wiry eyebrows

look down with a smile

‘think three – one, saturday, son’

before continuing his slow internal cremation

GOING AWAY

Just open the frayed flowered curtains

let this worthless world watch

my wordless head rise from the stone bed

now, with nothing but the rain to cleanse me

the shimmering sun to dry my sins

and dark nights to hide within

and, so I climb the last hill, hiding in the noise

of wild flowers, taunting my slavery

talking to the deaf and dead, in furballs of words

THE ALTER BOYS

Cassock for camouflage

to love, beyond this life betrayed

on wire to bleed

the barbed man who takes the life

who takes the light

and, hold above the sacred blood

as a holy vampire

no remission

now, pull the trigger

GALWAY

She, blackened by the bog’s peat

fingers as burnt as the tatters hiding in the ash

settling the old tin cans to boil the eggs

rattling like manic milk crates

and he, poking the hare’s carcass, turning on a willow

that lingered too long in the meadow before the gun

amongst the small pyramid piles of rabbit shit

black as her ebony rosary, resting on the headboard

and, he splitting an old spent match

to riddle around and poke out yesterdays tasty trotter

from the black hole in his wisdom tooth

NORMA

Up our back ally, past the rat infested

air-raid shelter, was her back yard

where her dad kept mongrel pups

that patterned the yard with paw prints

from the small spirals of dog shit, looking

like Wallnut Whips, where he practiced

dart throwing at a Daddy Longlegs pinned

to the dart board, told never to mention her mother

who had popped off with a Yank to Blackpool

or, her brother in the jug for relieving

the Methodist Church of their roof lead.

It was Norma, two years older than me,

who introduced me to gobbing, swearing

and sex by rubbing bare bellies together

behind the brewery, feeling little electric shocks

before my mother was informed of my antics,

telling me in no uncertain ways, with the back

of her hand, not to play with that girl…

and, anyway they weren’t Catholics .

Harry Mills

Born 1944 in North Manchester, England.. failed every exam in the world, went to Art School (with Tony Prince), ran ad agencies as creative director or owner…divorced, kids, divorced, kids… divorced four times… lived in China, now in Philippines where I drink too much and write too little.

Harry’s vast array of poetic wisdom can be found at his Facebook page or via his blog.