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