Poems about People

Andy's ears

 

He's on
The telephone all day
His ears full
Of all the complaints
Human beings can muster

After dark
His ears crave
Strings
Ivory
The thrill that is
The human voice
When it's hanging
By a thread
Vocal chords fighting
Duels with each other

His ears make
The most of their diversions
They dance
By night
Free from the tensions
Of their daytime employment
They slurp down
Intoxicating alcoholic sounds
They live it up
Right up in there
They make believe passion
Is all there is
To hear
They tire themselves
To sleep and dream
Of aural joy
That's all days
And forever

 

 

 

 

Born-again renaissance man

 

He'll be angry forever
World owes him big time
He's all over spiky
And he likes that just fine
He pouts when he thinks
No-one cares about him
He's brilliant, talented
Full to the brim
He's creative, it swamps him
His feelings are rare
He is thought, he is meaning
He's beyond all compare
How could you know anything
When he knows it all
He's one big huge wonder
So you must be small

 

 

 

 

Cakes in rain

 

Here at your close we stand
Knowing
Little
Clear
Thinking racking torturing
We want
You to be
Here
You left so soon and before time
Escape
Has left us
Numb
We want to meet you
Set a date
Aware
You'll never
Come
We want to tell you struggling
Is over now
We're glad
We come to lay your brain to rest
A mighty
Fight it's
Had
You tried to draw the perfect plan
Your pens
Were filled with
Ink
Confusion wasted ever drop
You turned
Too tired to
Think
And then to bake the world a cake
Feed every
Girl and
Boy
But in your final set of scales
Sadness
Outweighed
Joy

 

 

 

 

Questions for a queen

 

What do you think of your children's divorces?
Do you close your eyes and dream about horses?
Is it tiring to always be part of a show?
Do you care when a poet to honours says 'no'?
Do you feel like us, do you cry wet tears?
Have you changed, as we all have, over the years?
Has it been a real life, has it felt real to you?
To us it seems fiction, your story, untrue
Parades and carriages and armies of staff
Do you never just long to run your own bath?
Do you like it, would you choose it, would you be queen again?
Or would you rather live quietly, just one of them?
Less money, fewer banquets, not a sniff of a crown
Just headscarves or, better still, hair let right down

 

 

 

 

She’s not there

 

(Joan Eardley – ‘Joan Eardley, 1921 -1963, Artist’ 1943)

 

There are bad days
Not even half days
And when they come
The broken pieces of her face
Seem so perfectly formed

Reassuring, they say
‘The sky is still there
The colours still worth seeing
Being broken simply isn’t
The worst thing you can be’

Comforted, I brush my crumbs together
And look carefully, cautiously
At the slightly scrappy, sorry collection
Still sad but less lonely
In their fragments than before

The portrait feels like family
Or so I can imagine
We are the not quite whole people
The bits and pieces people
The hundreds and the thousands

 

 

 

 

The loveliest girl 

 

Her smile spells
HEART
In big letters
She is most truly
Too good for this world
She lives
Breathes
Fights
And stamps her feet to dance
Her voice is raised alright
But just to sing

 

 

 

 

Unfulfilled Annie

 

She wants a record in the charts
(and crisps and pie and jam-filled tarts)
She wants a trust fund full of cash
(and bags and bags of shopping trash)
She wants love and health and money
(and to be kind and warm and funny)
She wants to paint and sing and dance
(the moonlight, music and romance)
She wants the latest in all fields
(plus someone else to cook her meals)
She wants so much it's plain to see
She always will awanting be

 

 

 

Widows

 

Widows talk about the war
An old kiss
They dance the quick steps
Their feet miss
The photos are grey
But the hearts pound
Some widows are half
Buried underground

The man

You stink of power

Sweaty, wrong

Your stupid vests

Off white, too long

Your meat-slab hands

So mean and low

Your eating habits

Far to go

You're selfish, greedy

Cruel, lazy

More TV dinner

Than Scorsese

You're hooked on women

Screw by screw

What you don't care

Is why or who

And yet you're craved

With passions strong

At home we wait

Full hungry throng

We know it's fatal

Falling so

God damn you, Tony

Soprano

All poems by Rachel Fox (some time after 1997)