Inter Alia

 

 

Among others:

I have been a sales clerk:

after sales for

a palace in kit-form

to a sheikh in far off Dubai

or sending a lorry-load

of not quite the right bricks

to Teesside builders.

I was a teenage bridegroom,

drinking Strongarm,

amongst others.

 

Not quite fitting;

I sat on the high stool

in a long-countered post office ,

all sandstone without

and dark wood within,

stamping family allowance books

and misplacing transactions

until Wednesday’s reckoning,

amongst others.

 

Odd outsider,

I filled in strange sheets

with numbers about beef futures

and corn harvests for a company

I didn’t even understand.

I designed a board game

on the graph paper provided,

instead of depicting

those statistics,

amongst others.

 

And then

 

- in uniform -

a square peg

getting corners knocked off:

more crammed in a slot

than a round hole.

G9309425

J/T Bloggs, Sir!

Mask off, mask on,

in nine seconds.

Mask on for almost

a quarter-century

amongst others

 

Professor Longhair:

friends on one hand’s fingers

known in two pueblos

to middle-class kids

and Erasmus hopefuls

as the cheapest Profe

in the whitewashed towns.

The Spanish defence

still has you

amongst others.

 

Six months of a Rhineland

dream fell to dust and ashes,

burned by the hidden evil

no hope of treatment

no comfort blanket

as Engländer

amongst others.

 

In the north’s outpost

of hipsters, freelancers,

side-hustlers and BBC

assistant producers

Didsburying from latte

to sourdough toast

and smashed avocado,

still, even there,

amongst others.

 

Across nature’s boundary

into white rose country,

where everything is bigger

better, bluffer, bloodier

and Keith Lemon

impressions fill the ears

until you stop noticing:

here you are

as you have ever been,

amongst others.

 

 

 

 

Footnotes:

 

*“Mask in nine”: we practiced for nuclear biological or chemical attack annually, rather dilatorily in my case it must be said. Three words are the best amount for a slogan for the average squaddie to remember, the theory was if you got your respirator on within 9 seconds you would survive the attack. No-one believed it, at least not when I served.

*The Spanish Defence is, of course, a chess strategy: however, the Spanish translation of ‘I can get by’ (in a language) is ‘puedo defenderme’, that is, ‘I can defend myself’.

PS Engländer is german plural for English (people).