Geoff Stevens




	Nine of Geoff Stevens’ poems: BECAUSE NEIL SEDAKA DIDN'T MAKE A SONG ABOUT IT WHEN ITS ALL OVER WILL YOU BE WITH ME? THE COMMON MARKET Poem from a quote by John Osborne L'AUTRE GINSBERG UNTIL DOWN CAME THE FLAG 1950 (AND I WAS JOHNNIE MACK BROWN) ASMARA CAFE SOCIETY BALLINTOY WAVES BECAUSE NEIL SEDAKA DIDN'T MAKE A SONG ABOUT IT He's a ding-dong guerilla on the edge of civilisation refusing to take notice of the law the rules of his own territorial creation beating his chest and growling out the one aspect of his history that is perhaps not self-inflicted and he riots in the streets if there is a clampdown on the trafficking of ganja cites his DNA if he's not a chosen one shoots his fellow travellers if they show disrespect for his disrespectability his level of criminality. He rattles his chains even when they're ancient history. top of page WHEN ITS ALL OVER WILL YOU BE WITH ME? When it's all over will you still walk through the darkness like an infra-red image developing on the bromide of my dreams? Will I see you though I cannot see you your body displacing space in line with shape distorting my brain with the anticipation? Will you lift the lid like you lifted the sheet and slide in seeking warmth from me and giving it to me grasping my leg between your thighs putting your cold nose in my ear? Will you gasp when you encounter cold bones where my flesh used to be? Will I know you are always next to me or will death be the end of us? top of page The Common Market - As drab a name for a monumental swindle has not been coined since a bright German ad-man thought of putting wholesale murder on the market as National Socialism - John Osborne All our history changed in one stroke Crecy The Armada/ Trafalgar/ Waterloo the two World Wars our sovereignty gone our steel industry car industry fishing fleet our agriculture pride identity everything squandered for a little corporate hospitality the creation of a few well-paid jobs for the boys top of page L'AUTRE GINSBERG L'autre Ginsberg est Serge 69 année érotique la Ballade de Melody Nelson Et Love On The Beat et Alan Howl Kadish for Naomi Dents de lait dents de loup Docteur Jekyll et Monsieur Hyde Portrais croises Hey Man Amen Requiem pour deux con top of page UNTIL DOWN CAME THE FLAG in grey monochrome rainbow the sunshine hung onto the settling dust of industry daytime in Sodom End lay as quiet as doggo the butcher's shop occupied only by black puddings and pigs' heads the corner shop behind canvas blinds and closed signs the Baptist Church standing as formidable as a wedding cake in austere grey icing main street devoid of traffic save for an old bread van and over a blue-brick wall bumbleless bees slept amongst cabbages and leeks in potting-shed allotments while nearby in flat-capped solitude pensioners in collarless shirts pin-striped egg-stains sat around a cast-iron stove with black as hell beer glasses sitting on its glowing lid as they mulled-over yesterdays and the gaffer down the cellar tended the next home-brew until a shout of Jack, bar! got him climbing back on septuagenarian legs to pull a pint serve a bag of pork scratchings provide a dish of water for someone's bull terrier dog this was the last day of the last week of never to be again top of page 1950 (AND I WAS JOHNNIE MACK BROWN) built like a circle of covered wagons our housing estate was cowboy land a settlement in Indian territory outside which savages roamed the brickworks fields the slag-black colliery mountains the quarried monument valleys of red sand where friend or foe walked stealthily with cap guns water pistols and willow-tree arrows held in their ash-wand bows we rode invisible horses one hand slapping rump one holding the reins while the real horses skewbald and piebald remained gipsy-owned and out of reach Christmas brought out the new Stetsons the waistcoats and chaps or frilled buckskin trousers and the headdress of feathers a bowie knife perhaps from Sheffield but that was then and now is now and the prairie has been built upon the cowboys and Indians gone so that the street kids wear baseball caps instead and play real at being drug addicts the estate no longer a B-movie set but gone gangster big time come back Johnny Mack top of page ASMARA CAFE SOCIETY sleek, streamlined with hard-edged geometry white and coconut ice the candy pink and lime green buildings of art deco design bejewelled with jacaranda line the palm-treed National Avenue and Martyrs' Avenue with its splendid deco Impero Cinema and in the Italian-style cafes one can eat Indian, Asmarino, or Sudanese and although the streets have lost their Alfa Romeos the 1930's ice-cream parlours remain and plastic sandaled locals still enjoy Cappuccinos at the Bar Impero or Pasticeria Moderna on Harnet Avenue while for those who seek adventure a trip away from this polite tranquillity there is an Eritrean State Railway excursion down steep spiralling tracks to seaport Mossawa hauled by an engine that bears its birthdates nameplate XV1 for its time of manufacture in the sixteenth year of the Italian Fascist Empire. top of page BALLINTOY WAVES Past the white church that lost its steeple in a hurricane of hundred years ago to the harbour reached through a herd of cows in Knocksoughey Lane to the harbour where the sea runs in dodging around an obstacle course of black basalt islands to take a leap over the limestone walls its spume splattering on a quayside that looks out apprehensively across to Sheep Island in Boheeshane Bay where summer come the sheep were once taken to graze. But now along with Rathlin and Larry Bane Head it is shrouded with mist and bashed by storm its sky full of broken veins and bruises of rainbows and blacks and blues and spewing rain. Once a quarry shipped out sett stones from here to pave the streets of Dublin, Cork and Glasgow and limestone was calcinated on its shore but now only its fisherman famed, and trained on wild waves work from here save for a man who today reads his book behind the window of an old cottage and on calmer days keeps the place in order for the visitors. top of page Poetry on this web page is copyright © Geoff Stevens NB Geoff's poems can be found elsewhere on the net, principally at www.geoffstevens.co.uk, www.purplepatchpoetry.co.uk, www.greatworks.org.uk and www.littlebrownpoetry.com [PW Home Page] [News] [Poetry Convention] [Publications] [Participants] [Poetry Pages] [Guestbook] [Forum] [Links] [Contact Us] [About PW]