Five Poems by Neil Fulwood

 

L’ ESPRIT DE L’ ESCALIER

 

Sometimes when I’m descending the staircase,

mouth wrapped round a yawn, fingertips

rubbing sleep from my eyes, the Spirit

will make with some unwanted homily

along the lines of, “Early shift again, eh?

Rather you than me. Pissing it down out there.”

 

Sometimes, ascending the staircase, eyelids

like steel shutters, feet dragging, the Spirit

will ambush me with a question or observation

so perfectly admixing absurdity

and existential terror that my night’s sleep

is guaranteed a non-event, the ceiling

 

marked out as that place where the poet

spoke of something and something clashing

by night. The Spirit sticks to the staircase

but manages with a jeu d’ esprit

or some other je ne sais quoi to infect

just about every square inch of the house.

 

 

 

DRIVE IT LIKE IT’S STOLEN

 

Drive it like you unlocked it

by shimmying a thin strip of metal

between window and door panel.

          Drive it

like cars don’t have alarms nowadays.

 

Drive it like you punched loose 

the casing under the dash,

sparked two wires together.

          Drive it

like Hollywood wrote the Highway Code.

 

Drive it like your rearview is full

of flashing red and blue,

highway patrol bearing down.

          Drive it

like there’s still a disused access road 

     and a washed out bridge 

     between you and the border.

 

 

 

THREE VULTURES LOOK AT A POET

(after ‘Thirteen Blackbirds Look at a Man’ by R.S. Thomas) 

 

1.

 

The quill

dropped from his hand

just seconds ago, the vultures

already cleared for descent,

appetites piqued

by the lifeless form

of the poet.

 

2.

 

And yet

they continue to circle, 

hesitant, as if awaiting 

some crucial piece of information,

such as the amount of calories

per poet, its allergens,

how fatty it is.

 

3.

 

Later, 

three vultures suffer

an excess of poet,

wish they’d waited for the carcass 

of a week-dead marsupial,

something less steeped

in alcohol and bile.

 

 

 

LUNCH BREAK, LATE SHIFT

 

That last round trip, bus packed

with office drones heading home,

and you still an hour off your break.

 

The early doors crowd are getting their first in 

while you’re handing over

to your relief driver. The coffee shop

 

you sometimes while away a break in

has drawn down the shutters.

A wander round the city centre

 

is a tour of closed doors, dimmed

lights, nowhere to go but the gulag

of a manky canteen down an alleyway

 

where crime scene tape wouldn’t be out of place.

 

 

 

RECIDIVIST

 

It’s beyond my control: I’ll do it again,

a one man-version of a rogue nation.

Not a question of if but a matter of when.

 

It’s both nature and nurture, and even then

there’s more than a hint of predestination.

It’s beyond my control: I’ll do it again.

 

There’s no childhood trauma, no open

wound, no psychological revelation;

there’s no question of if but a matter of when.

 

There’s just a darkness buried deep in some men

and you’d know if someone reversed our stations 

that It’s beyond control: you’d do it again

 

and probably embrace it like an old friend,

your guts churning with excited impatience,

not a question of if but a matter of when.

 

Sorry not sorry. Je ne regrette rien.

I’m not one for remorseful contemplation.

It’s beyond my control: I’ll do it again;

not a question of if but a matter of when.

Neil Fulwood was born in Nottingham, England, where he still lives and works. He has published two pamphlets with The Black Light Engine Room Press, Numbers Stations and The Little Book of Forced Calm; and three full collections with Shoestring Press, No Avoiding It, Can’t Take Me Anywhere and Service Cancelled. His fourth collection, Mad Parade, a selection of political satires, is published by Smokestack Books.