Delicate, goofy and sweet;
we must never know the truth.
The mind is pretty ruthless when it comes down to it.
This morning, first thing Katy tells me
is they caught the Golden State Killer.
Damn,
I will never be a hot fireman.
Although one time
I pretended I was the sexiest dad
at the school gates,
stud to sleepy mothers,
hero to hunchbacked fathers,
my daughter’s teacher catching her breath as I adjusted
the kink in my boxer shorts.
In dreams, you’re greatly rewarded
for outstanding services
to depression. My neck of the woods.
When your future feels like
a picture of a mailbox
sinking into a river of lava
as blue flames dance
toward the power station
it might be time to reconsider
the outrageous demands you make
on your cherry-picked gods.
Many people are made of bad sex and weird soup.
Racism.
Power Rangers Death Curse.
Spontaneous Human Combustion.
These are just a few examples.
Your loved ones have done bizarre and terrible things,
most of us have, why does this bother you?
We are made for screaming.
I’ve been through so many bodies,
this one doesn’t deserve a Knickerbocker Glory.
The binman says our bones
are covered with the most
god-awful jokes.
The demon in the corner of our garden
is currently disguised
as an oblong, flesh-coloured rock.
When its smooth face is shiny with rain
and the cats are burying shit
behind the daffodils, it speaks to me, telepathically,
about the problem.
What problem? I ask, and it sneers:
You know!
Trying to live
beyond the skin
is impossible.
A chilly house means glorious nipples,
I pinch them until they fizzle,
for distraction.
As a boy, I believed that to be in a relationship
or to fuck or be fucked by someone
you needed to be truly special.
How wholesome and pathetic.
I thought I saw a ghost in the public toilets
in the shopping centre the other day
but when I checked the cubicles
all I found was a skinny boy with curly hair
and hope in his big brown eyes
as a much older man at the sink
washed his hands
very slowly
despite the steaming hot water
turning his skin bright red.
Meanwhile, our kitchen sink is blocked
with cat food, teabags and cigarette butts
and instead of scooping it out
I run the taps on full power,
splashing the front of my shirt,
and use my finger
to smoosh the horrid mess
down the drain.
This is important, it happens forever: the smooshing.
When your marriage fell apart
you travelled the country with a sadness so pure
it swept through you like storm-scented rain.
The world was glitter on your arms.
The dead wore fancy hats.
Everybody’s house
was falling down
so it didn’t matter.
Sometimes we don’t laugh properly for days,
this hurts
more than I thought it would.
What have you sacrificed?
I believe you know
you made the right decision
when you feel peace.
Or is there something more sinister
at work? Tell me, is grandad still shrieking
at empty spaces on the other side?
Is he kind to nanny?
Does their part of Heaven
smell like soap and fresh carnations?
Maybe that’s ketchup on your hands
so you can stop worrying.
Unfortunately, doctors have the best shit, and they never
fully explain the cost.
It’s important to deny yourself
your favourite things
and mirrors are pure evil
I don’t care what your therapist says.
I’m chasing the perfect autumn.
Tag Archives: Bobby Parker
Binge Watching Bad Memories by Bobby Parker
Nothing sorts out memories from ordinary moments. It is only later that they claim remembrance, when they show their scars – Chris Marker
congratulations your head didn’t explode
in the supermarket
nothing triggered us
can you believe that
no one cares
I plant fists in my hair
squint a million oranges
touch myself with caution
convinced I’m an alien
tangled like earphones
fingers pulling at the knots
the hem of my red dress
I mean your red dress
whispering through the ashtray
talking to a nurse she said
you probably won’t die tonight
we agreed
our feet were
equally disgusting
I peeled his hand off my knee
told him to go
wait for the dealer
he can remember
dancing but sometimes
he can’t remember
the year she was born
shiver in a spoon
I rarely think about God
did you really see him
in the park
bumming a dog
behind a burned-out car
dirty old bastard
I heard he worked in a factory
making fences
your mother was struggling to breathe
your dad fell off a ladder
cleaning windows
on a hot day
you could drink
a frosty pint of beer
in 1.9 seconds
but that doesn’t mean
anything to me now
it doesn’t matter
what I think
we are all in a lot of pain
your dad is mowing the lawn
even though
it will be dark soon
I’ve never seen a person
mow the lawn
in the dark
so I’m obviously
quite excited
when I’m excited
I sniff my fingers
until it makes me feel weird
then I wash my hands
tonight they smell
sort of evil
just think of the fresh cut
grass on the bottom
of your dad’s shoes
I can’t seem to write my love for you
the pharmacist always
makes a joke of us
as we stare at mouthwash
waiting for pills
if I don’t get these pills
I might have a seizure
if I have a seizure
maybe I will become a witness
if I can describe what I see
without prejudice
perhaps there will come a day
without prescriptions
organic shampoo
the colour of churches
waiting room chairs
with impressions of arses
I try on a pair of pink sunglasses
a young black woman
pleads with the pharmacist
her boyfriend beat her
with a Poundland brolly
next time he’s gonna
fucking murder me
I rest the daft glasses on my lips
pretend I’m not listening
did you know
the fair is in town
it smells of skunk
win me a teddy
oh squeeze me on the ghost train
I’m sorry but Kidderminster
is terribly white
disgusting really
her boyfriend calls her a whore
even as he takes the money
she makes off these streets
no problem
he was my best friend
in high school
we did a lot of speed together
I thought he died
he should have died
the pharmacist
has very beautiful hands
she picks up the phone
as if she’s the first person
to ever pick up a phone
my taxi waiting
between McDonald’s
and the Job-Centre
how long have I been here
I’m trying to remember
or trying to look
as though I’m trying
to remember
what happened to us
didn’t we kiss
our mouths all chocolaty
like a million years ago
under a tree or something
flashing blue lights
standing over the sink
I cup my hands
under the boiling hot tap
until my fingers feel like saints
she sacrificed London
for my anxious hands
lightning for my jealousy
sexuality for my toothbrush
I said things that hurt her breasts
I said my chest is full of scarecrows
I said our bed is a famous ghost ship
she feels the true night
when I break my neck
to kiss her out of her bones
our home town was built
on Sun newspapers and tired mothers
standing crooked in their kitchens
waiting for the bats
it seems like everyone is somehow
involved with smack
nothing works
Spring by Antonio Vivaldi
tortured into a tin-can toy phone
by the Department of Work & Pensions
she tells me clouds are gay
just to watch me try to figure out
if it’s going to rain
in my most submissive role
she sees a girl
with eyes that punish fathers
as a demon breeze
hisses through the corn
she sees a frightened boy
who in the aftermath
of childhood assaults
pulled women closer
told them everything
told them too much
made them wary
she honestly believed
I could read her mind
until the meds kicked in
now we have
repeat prescriptions
we stand around the same
mysterious body as you
cursing
death to the ice cream man
death to the post man
death to the police man
death to the fire man
death to the man who cuts the label off my shirt
death to this paltry allowance
death as my voice the same as your voice
death as her voice
disguised as my voice
disguised as strange thoughts
you’re having right now
in our joyful coming
we are your noisiest neighbours
she searched under my bed
but didn’t find a monster
perhaps you could try again later
our lines are busy
the cuts have been made
we taught our scars to flicker
our appeal is pending
through the poisoned city
I wish to make a new claim
my mouth
just like your mouth
is only the beginning
I don’t know how long
he tortured me for
I don’t remember what he did
only that I was sweaty
from screaming for mom and dad
to come home
pay him for babysitting
get rid of him
call the fucking police
help me
whenever I smell burning toast
I remember that’s what he offered
in return for silence
carefully holding the plate up
to the top bunk
where I shivered like a puppy
the pain was mine
sleep could not touch it
the victim heat
of guilt and shame was endless
I got used to it
you do
don’t you
I would stare straight at the sun
I set dead trees on fire
abandoned buildings
my own soiled underwear
in the gallery of evil penises
my childhood neighbour’s
is definitely in the top three
greyish
slimy
reeked of cheese
five years later
he became the first heroin addict I knew
vomiting his stomach-lining
outside our local newsagents
then he hanged himself
before any of this I remember
mom shouting for me
her pink fingers dripping
dish suds on the doorstep
where are you
I’m so sorry
I sleep too much
I’m not so ugly when I’m asleep
I can’t hear my ex-wife crying
or her junkie boyfriend
yelling at my daughter
I can still feel the breath
of confused boys in my ear
hot tears in the soft eye
of a sad dad’s moon
when my daughter
stays with her mother
I eat all the turkey dinosaurs
finish the blackcurrant
squash by her bed
scrape off the bright blue toothpaste
she spits on the edge of the sink
sometimes I get up
in middle of the night
to sleep in her empty pink bed
and I still dream
that I’m way up in the sky
during a terrifying storm
atop a 20 foot wooden pole
that’s been shoved up my ass
and I’m clenching
my sphincter
with all my strength
so it won’t go all the way
up through my guts
and out the top of my head
thank goodness for the tablets we take
right
on the inside
we must look like
candy factories
colour dissolving
blood glittering as the heart
sees its own blue ghost
and shudders.
..
The Haunted Cult of Walking Away by Bobby Parker
This is me holding a voodoo doll.
This is me waving the doll over the hob.
This is me being silly, doll down my pants,
shrugging like a nineties sitcom doofus.
This is also me, going a bit mad, in the garden.
Ha-ha… Look at the sky! Weird isn’t it?
That’s my dear old mum, bless her, screaming.
Without her my daughter wouldn’t have nice clothes.
There’s dad, half cut, staring at a black cloth.
We never came to blows and I’m proud of that.
They’re always asking what happened, oh
what happened, son, what happened?
The voodoo doll is not meant to represent
anyone in particular, although I’m sure
you’re sharp enough to notice it bears
a striking resemblance to the snake man
who rattles beside my wife and sells
her telly for dope; who sometimes tells
my daughter to wipe herself on a towel
because they can’t afford toilet paper;
who isn’t bothered the divorce isn’t fixed yet.
We are talking about the biggest creep in town,
living with my daughter, doing heroin
next to the bedroom where she wets herself.
I could kill him I could kill him I could.
Anyway, this is me throwing the doll
as far as I can, then running after it
on all fours with the most beautiful sunset
exploding cake and bottles of pink wine.
I mean clean powder and a holy syringe.
I mean glory, glory, my girlfriend’s smile.
Finally, this is me in my doctor’s office.
She wants to increase the medication,
thinks it will improve my quality of life.
She says perhaps it’s not that I left a home,
or that I left a wife & child, it’s because
I walked away from love, and those of us
who walk away from love are haunted
and we must learn to live again, bound
by the rules of the haunted cult of walking away.
You know, I wrote a poem about how much I hate
our abusive neighbours, just before it was published
they mysteriously moved out. Isn’t that spooky?
And my wife looks at me like I fucking murdered her.
And her boyfriend smokes it he doesn’t inject!
And my daughter kisses the freckles on my arm.
She says, ‘Why did you leave us daddy?’
She tells me their budgies die from hunger.
She says daddy is so forgetful, his brain must be
a half-crushed sandcastle, waiting for the sea.
Then there’s this doll, posing for a photograph.
This is me holding a match and a can of petrol.
The truth I beg you the truth the truth the truth.
Haunted for the haunted for the haunted forever.
I sometimes wonder if I wrote a broken family
into existence, using poems like this, and that,
someday, maybe, I could write them back.
..
Bobby Parker’s writing has appeared in a wide range of magazines in print and online. In 2015 he was awarded a grant from the Society of Authors. His controversial poem, Thank You for Swallowing my Cum, was included in the poetry anthology Best British Poetry 2015 (Salt). Bobby’s debut poetry collection Blue Movie is available now from Nine Arches Press.
http://ninearchespress.com/publications/poetry-collections/blue-movie.html
I am not a silent poet 