Death Spell

Icy mists of shame enshroud my blackened-soul.
Harsh klaxons, blaring from my heart, proclaim all
squalid thoughts. Flares, illuminating caverns
full of nightmare-fiends, reveal a frightened child
lying sobbing in the dark. Metamorphose
walls flash me naked at the world. Pride deserts
as gutting-scalpels fling self-loathing-roots and
innards to the judging, scornful mocking mob.

Flee this terror of exposure; flee your dear
though unearned-love; bolt rabbit-scared through black-night
woods on menace-ridden hills. Run, forever-
banished in misery's driving-rain; stumble
bleeding on the flint-hard nettled-fields of pain.

Reality dissolving, sombre-brooding
roots. Zombie-float through mirage-days of chilling
vapour-dreams; curled up tight in flimsy-veil of
shielding-shell; tried; condemned; exiled within a
self-made cell; impotent to melt the fangs that
freeze the bonds that bind the death-wish in the spell.

Poison-seeds rain soft on fertile gardens of
a troubled-mind. Flowers bloom, in whats? and whys?
and awful rows of fearful hows? Answers ring –
crystal bells – from secret-lakes of tear-blood dew.

Help-cries garble; sane outside... death-mad within.
Talk ‘morrow-talk with me ten-million-miles
from you, engrossed, obsessed, cocooned within a
dreadful plan. In here, there is no coming-dawn;
no more, no us, no anything. Who loves you
so; would go, and leave you with this mist of shame.

You found my shame, and beamed into my soul with
rays of healing-truth; dispelling mist and vile
veiling-shell, while thawing out the frigid-spell.
Charlie Gregory
Samaritan Days

AW

                                      Sam.
            Poky dingy café;
         workmen shout and curse;
      she floats among the tables,
      tending like a nurse.
       She pauses when she sees me;
         breaks into a smile;
      skips behind the counter,
  lingers for a while.
     chatting while she's serving,
      shedding all her pain …
         then, when
                    I am leaving,
                     becomes
                    a nurse again.

AW

Tenerife

 

AW

TENERIFE

Teide, volcano: rhymes with lady

TENERIFE

Two lovers by the ragged strand once trod
the sooty sand; slender maid with raven
hair, fisher boy of bronze; the dazzling sun
a gold doubloon, the moon a silver coin.
From rocks, ink-black as witches' cats, they saw
the teeming sea; for Paraiso Beach was
cast for them by Teide's fiery blast, 'neath
Milky Way in wind-blown spray where whale and
dolphin play... Faceless fools from far-off lands
soon found their paradise. "Commercialise
then urbanize, the mountains are for sale.
Bulldoze, landfill, then jerry-build; sewage
on the surf. Roll out roads for traffic roar;
monoxide in the breeze. Machinery tear
at prickly pear and green banana trees.
Throw up bars and apartment blocks; bedim
the stars with flashing lights; fill the nights with
keyboard beat and dancing feet to drown the
ocean's anguished cries..." Her sculpture scorned, her
flanks defiled, the lady Teide broods with
hissing sulphur in her breath, inferno
for a heart. Such feelings pent, her rage must
vent to blast the curse and re-create a
silent land, where lizards laze and prey birds
ride the balmy breeze, while a ghostly girl
and fisher lad go gathering wild herbs.

Charlie Gregory

AW 

 

Written in memory of X
who escaped from Idi Amin
then had to be chemically castrated.

Cleft Sticks

She-devil magic wiggles wobble-orbs
of siren-cleft, thus shaping heady dream.
This dimple-flesh all reasoning absorbs,
then finding bristle-mound hear loathing scream.
Around I pray for counsel and advice
on staying wayward thought or willful hand,
but only rate some pill and jab device.
Flaunt maids entice then quacks don’t understand.

Do women dress to promise or deny?
Are medics meant to gag us or to cure?
The purdah-girls go by with downcast eye,
dull robes bedim the glare of their allure;
but bimbos bray-out “see – forbidden thrill,”
and they, or drugs, control my very will.

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

CAITHNESS GLOSSARY
<sub>broch … = Pictish Towers (Ancient Monuments)
sepulchral weals … = Ancient burial mounds
ghostly druid-stones … = Druidical Standing Stones and Stone Circles
Clearance … = Highland Clearances
flimsy boxes …. = Pretentious new housing, staggered higgledy piggledy
to peep between neighbouring houses for a piece the view.

fresh and eager crop … = Youth
peaty-flows … = Flow Country. The world’s largest blanket bog, with a
delicate eco-system.

foreign firs … = (a) Non-native trees, planted by speculators, which
upset the balance of nature. (b) Incomers.</sub>

 

CAITHNESS

He falls and snuggles like a lover to the floor;
dreams spilling from the bottle in the weathered hand.
Beyond the door, dead brochs lie buried on the moor.
Forebears are but sepulchral weals upon the land.

Dreams spilling from the bottle in the weathered hand,
where ghostly druid-stones gather for the moon-dance.
Forebears are but sepulchral weals upon the land,
grey-tombs, blending with the plunder of the Clearance.

Where ghostly druid-stones gather for the moon-dance,
frail farmer huddles in the shelter of the dell;
grey-tombs, blending with the plunder of the Clearance,
as flimsy-boxes march in fashion on the swell.

Frail farmer huddles in the shelter of the dell.
The peasant wearies of the burden of the toil,
as flimsy boxes march in fashion on the swell,
to shoulder for the view they one-day will despoil.

The peasant wearies of the burden of the toil,
just as a fresh and eager-crop spring from the seed
to shoulder for the view they one-day will despoil,
aware the time has come to take the misty-lead.

Just as a fresh and eager-crop spring from the seed,
out on the peaty-flows the foreign-firs take hold,
aware the time has come to take the misty-lead,
with roots deep-nourished by the corpses in the mould.

Out on the peaty-flows the foreign-firs take hold.
Beyond the door, dead-brochs lie buried on the moor.
With roots deep-nourished by the corpses in the mould,
he falls and snuggles like a lover to the floor.

Charlie Gregory
Caithness

                  Leap off a Day

Leap off a day full of struggle and toil.
Pleasure-power fuels freedom's few precious
hours. Head for the cellar where solace is
found; shoulder a way through the jostling crowd.

The thicket is wild and dense by the bar,
winter-branch arms shedding autumn-leaf notes.
Barmaids flick taught-aloof tails while they flit,
ripping off balls with their sharp little tits.

Machine-gunning speakers spray punters with
rap; call for ''strong-ale!'' Leave the lager for
louts. Survey, edge away from the wankers
and drunks; she's got mad-eyes;  he's  pushing  tabs.

Ocean of faces polluted by booze;
snatches of voices, wind-torn from the storm.
Crackhead is screaming about his bad trip;
rodents are filling his skull full of shit.

Rhythm-girls bob up and down to the beat;
silky Desire still the queen of the dance,
Aldis-lamp pants flashing codes through the gloom.
Refill my pot and slug whisky for luck.

Shouting and cursing and breaking of glass;
fun at the bar... stampeding... girls crying;
chairs swinging; fists flying; then exocet-
bottles-and-boots in an all-out attack.

Faces exploding in fountains of blood;
shatter-glass windows ice-blue-psychedel;
game-beating police rousing quarry to
flight – any brace cooks-the-books for the night.

Scatter and panic; a jam at the door
as we tear and then pull and then kick and
butt heads; now dash for the street and the sweet
inky-black safety of swallowing night.

Find the fair-maid Desire, cute little sprite
whose ignoble-knight offers vindaloo-
sauce – plan for scalding her arse and covert-
ovens-of-love – as we leap off a day.

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff
2000

AW

Puck Fair
Co. Kerry
(Where, in August, a wild mountain goat is crowned king)

The goat's tale

"There's magic in the Coolroe-stream, or pucks
weave herb into the browse to make me dream...

In Killorglin town I bowed before a
virgin-queen, who gave a crown to make me
king with vision over everything. Our
match remained unconsummate. For I was
hailed on-high, engaged – though caged – in things of
state. There, phantoms, clad in cap and boot, waved
crooked sticks and mumbled strange in ancient
tongue, then bought and sold the living soul of
sullen ox and horse and colt. And at my
feet, the men danced women down the street, like
spectres borne on haunting notes of lonely
songs that sang of sorrows in the years: how
wanton maids, with torment-eyes, as wild and
green as Lough Lean's isles, and ringlets wrought in
purest gold, like wavelets caught in sunset's
mould, were, by their beauty, thus condemned to
birthing pain and living drudge. While boys, like
bumble bees, beguiled by nectar spilled by
girls, were led along a lane of toil and
grudge...

                       …Now I wake-up in the glen, running
free of 'Orglin-men, to gambol up the
giddy scree into the cloud where Mother
Earth becomes the sky; and sense a life set
out for me, of butting he and tupping
she. Then see the visions of my dream; hear
the laughing of the stream; and wonder - why?"

Charlie Gregory
1998

Glimpse

I wander in the wild-wood
where Leap, my dog, would play;
rest upon some grassy bank
where I with Jenny lay.
Time you thief who stole my life,
the years go like a day.
Leap lies beneath the laurel,
my Jenny went away.

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

Announcements

"State the fact," he tells the board; "announce mid-
morning without warning; too late then to
retaliate. Say, 'times change, so on your
way. Redundancy accompanies age.'"

Walks easy through his fortress-grounds of trip-
alarms and snarling hounds. Youthful bride is
safely sealed from vengeful pawn and bitter
foe, and waits, consoled by views of vale and
river's-flow, gleaned through rail and safety-gates.

Mower idle on the lawn; barrow still
beside a wall; jobbing-boy holds toil in
scorn. ''We'll propel the youth to manhood with
a jolt. He'll learn the bitter-truth of how
to cope without a job, or hope. Collect
his due, then face his fate as men must do.''

Holding high the diamond-ring, gift for the
girl with everything – to rent her love and
smile awhile – into the room where hi-fi
croons her favourite tunes then, "Christ!" Mind won't
focus with the eyes; wife on table, lips
apart, hair a-splay, radiant as her
wedding day; boy... a man between her thighs.

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

 

Thoughts in the middle watch

The devil's in the wind tonight,
hell is in my mind;
demons of the grief I gave
the girl I left behind.

For once,
just once,
in the grinding port of aching toil and din
I paid to weep my pain in a woman's
gentle arms, and didn't think it sin.

But God...!
Dear God...!
Why did you hide your virus
in those mother-loving charms?

Now the girl who once adored me
lies gaunt upon the sheet –
stricken by my loving –
with lips that once were sweet
drawn back upon her teeth.

A thousand miles away,
my lovely waits for death;
and a bitter prayer she murmurs
with every ebbing breath;
and the bitter prayer she murmurs,
soulful eyes repeat;
“I'll curse you out of heaven
if our paths should ever meet.”

Charlie Gregory
at sea

Samaritan days.
This kid called me every shift for four years
then disappeared off the radar.

Anorexic Girl

Sometimes she whispers in my ear,
a tapestry of pain and fear
whose warp and weft weave haunted days
and nightmare dreams, through woeful sobs
and blooded screams; till phantoms from
a private hell enshroud me in
a chilling spell.

                       I’m on a tour
within her mind, where those outside
are breaking in and every thought
accuses sin in saddest voice
man ever heard.

                         Midst grief, defying
spoken word, she can only run
and hide, cringe ever deeper down
inside, avoiding some imagined
threat from friend... or foe she’s never
met.

I know more of her than of
my own, my wasted waif who walks
alone. I want to ride inside
her head and sweep it clean of all
its dread, but will not know her when
we meet; walk past her, crying in
the street.

                 But, till she finds the strength
to lay the horrors of the past
and scream, “I’m me! I’m running free!”
There’ll be no woman sweet asleep,
but just the child who I hear weep.

Charlie Gregory

                  Mirror-world

A life ago; my father said, “I saw
your plane pass overhead; stood alone in
wind and rain and watched you go.” I shrugged and
went upon my way; “Choose the way you waste
your day. I've hay to make and seed to sow.”

Then; amid the hours of feeding pets and
tending flowers, I saw the vapour-trail
bisect the sky; a tear spilt by the bluest
eye, as you went out to set-about a
world I'd left undone – to sing the songs I
couldn't hum; and all my love was on the
wing, in tender wistful thoughts of you that
day. My father must have felt this too, but
couldn't say; and I, the one with life to
find, wouldn't pause to read his mind. I know
it's much the same for you; just doing what
you have to do; but if we never say
or show, how can the other ever know?

The one is always unaware, as at
the other's heart they tear. My sorrow as
you speed away, is full of what we did-
not say. Maybe, one-day you'll feel this yearning
too... in the mirror-world of me and you.

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

Natasha

Russia at the Collapse of the Communist Era

Hotel Saint-Petersburg

Natasha

She descends from en-suite and the balcony-shops;
sways down the stairway, leather-mini concealing,
sometimes revealing, lace stocking-tops;
carries her bruises where nobody sees.

In the hub of the foyer the faces are probing,
sharp as the glare of the night-patrol's lamps,
some fantasizing, others disrobing;
”Where has she been? What has she seen?”
Edge ever nearer; want her but fear her.

From the shelters and hides of their devalued lives
the other girls know what she carries inside;
science-degree; career that tumbled
when the shaky foundations of Motherland crumbled.

The Westerner sits and weighs up the scene,
wealthy vibrations of pleasure and ease.
''Are you looking for fun?'' almost a prayer,
crouching before him, hands on his knees;
smouldering eyes hide the pleading inside;
bleak deserts of poverty stretching before her,
murk of the tenement, queuing and crying,
pauper-line selling, pauper-line buying.

''How much?'' he demands. Heart skips a beat;
will he be the one to be swept off his feet?
Will he whisk her away? New York maybe?
Somewhere… D.C.?

''Two-hundred,'' she blurts, ''American-bills...''
She suddenly chills. Pitiless tips of cruel icebergs
drift-in from the Muscovite mist to rip-off the fees
she must squeeze from the floating-unfaithful
who crawl through her knees.

''Too dear,'' he waves her away.
It's me! She's crying inside.
It's me – every-man's bride.
"What am I worth?" she wonders aloud.
"Seventy-five," he replies, "one of the crowd."

She rises before him, standing head bowed,
defeated – not cowed.
The girls turn away, back to their chat.
At the bar, double Scotch-on-the-rocks
is served to a rat.

Charlie Gregory
St Petersburg
1990’s

Aurora…………………………………KGB HQ
                                     Pitiless Tips of Cold Icebergs
W

Only we know...

The stranger did not start the fight today.
New man in town, come looking for a job,
he prayed for God to take the gang away.

He’d find some digs, a place to plan and stay,
but found himself confronted by the mob.
The stranger did not start the fight today.

Demanding cash and cards, they barred his way.
When blows were thrown by devil-snarling yob
he prayed for God to take the gang away.

They classed him as a thing that they could slay
in mindless hate, a cur to beat and rob.
The stranger did not start the fight today.

Their feet and fists flew frenzied in the fray.
In fear he fought and felled a drunken slob.
He prayed for God to take the gang away.

Now, left alone with corpse as cold as clay,
a figure kneels, still choking on a sob.
The stranger did not start the fight today.
He prayed for God to take the gang away.

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

AW

The Singer

Where black rocks bare their fangs and roar
and sea shouts angry at the shore;
when rain comes sweeping wet-walled night
and lamps are pools of yellow light,
the singer stirs from out the deep
where phantoms of his memory sleep.

He trudges by the lighted inn
as jest and laughter ring within.
“Blood is the bond,” he thinks, “of brother love,
roots fit others for the glove.
Solo is a finite role,
no mirror for the choirs deep soul.
My lonely strain was not a theme
that bound the past to future dream.
I played my part. I sang it strong
but feel no call for further song.”

He wanders on along his way
where seas shed tears of spume and spray.
Now cries the wind as rain comes down
to draw a curtain o’er the town.
Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

The Shadows of the Night

Do they frighten you like they frighten me?
these downcast sons of low-caste mobs.
As you lock them away and lose the key,
their parents sweat in low-paid jobs.

These downcast sons of low-caste mobs
mime rebellious-dreams in drugs and beer.
Their parents sweat in low-paid jobs.
They chant coded-prayers in a football-jeer.

Mime rebellious-dreams in drugs and beer
to ease the day-long searing-pain.
They chant coded-prayers in a football-jeer
in the gloom of a dark-slum-lane.

To ease the day-long searing-pain,
as you claim the dues for their squalid-lets
in the gloom of a dark-slum-lane,
pale parents wail and rail against the debts.

As you claim the dues for their squalid-lets,
children scream of cruel-oppression.
Pale parents wail and rail against the debts
as they spiral through depression.

Children scream of cruel-oppression,
trapped on a treadmill-track from womb to grave
as they spiral through depression,
training for the life of a low-wage slave.

Trapped on a treadmill-track from womb to grave,
youth stolen by forsaken-school,
training for the life of a low-wage slave
in lawless-class where bullies rule.

Youth stolen by forsaken-school;
dull-eyed masters screaming at sullen-mobs
in lawless-class where bullies rule;
churning-out fodder for the low-grade jobs.

Dull-eyed masters screaming at sullen-mobs
whose minds are brutalised by stress;
churning-out fodder for the low-grade jobs.
Dream-escape is a drug's caress.

Whose minds are brutalised by stress,
seek false-pity from none, nor spare a friend.
Dream-escape is a drug's caress,
For there is no prize at this journey's end.

Seek false-pity from none, nor spare a friend,
where honest-labour will not pay;
for there is no prize at this journey's end,
and brute-frustration rules the day.

Where honest-labour will not pay,
the deprived will study the plumper-breeds;
and brute-frustration rules the day,
when the fat-one flaunts what the lean-one needs.

The deprived will study the plumper-breeds.
The game is called accumulate.
When the fat-one flaunts what the lean-one needs,
cruel-rules are there to contemplate.

The game is called accumulate,
where they dirty-deal for the master-share.
Cruel-rules are there to contemplate;
when the winner takes-all, none will play fair.

Where they dirty-deal for the master-share,
beware the shadows-of-the-night.
When the winner takes-all, none will play fair;
paupers leap-out to snatch their right.

Beware the shadows-of-the-night,
as you lock them away and lose the key.
Paupers leap-out to snatch their right.
Do they frighten you like they frighten me?

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff