poetry can be fatal

 

 

I planned to read some stuff in Scunthorpe

 

the venue is a good one

and some of the women

have caught the eye

of this grey-head wannabe.

 

I packed copies of my latest book –

passable, if I say so myself,

better than my ‘prentice efforts,

not great, not good, but getting ‘there’.

 

I preened before a mirror

in a soigné black fedora,

 

‘not bad. not bad at all, my son,

you’ll have the ladeeze moistening.’

 

not that I’m vain in the least.

capiche?

 

scrubbed up, spruce, I set off,

in good time for Scunny bus.

 

until panic’s-ville! my keys were awol.

(a sign of things to come)

 

I had a spare at neighbour

Raymondo’s, and panic over,

hopped on a bus in driving rain.

 

half-way to town

a sinking feeling!

while fumbling aboard

with gloves and brolly

I’d dropped my wallet

 

the traitor landed silently.

 

I headed back pronto.

at my stop, another neighbour,

John Aloysius St John K. esquire,

one of life’s few righteous fellahs,

had found my billfold in the gutter.

 

thank you, Jesus

 

he passed it to me happily,

and, universal balance restored,

I hotfooted to the terminus

and leapt aboard (what I took to be)

the Scunthorpe bus.

 

forty minutes later

I wiped, and peered through,

a condensation-mist porthole;

 

we should have been bouncing the potholes

of Composition Lane, Winteringham

not passing signs for the local airport.

 

a second sinking feeling!

 

deep dark thoughts,

along the lines of,

 

‘daft bastard,

you’re on the wrong bus,

and there ain’t another.

it’s raining stair rods.

you’ve a bag full of books

a flock of adoring fans awaiting -

your evening’s gone tits upwards.’

 

the driver said, ‘the last bus comes soon,’

and dropped me somewhere, nowhere,

dead centre of a lorry splash-zone,

where every second second or so

ice-grit sprayed me head to toe.

 

as I dodged yet another shower

a branch knocked off

my drop-dead gorgeous black fedora.

 

I scrambled for the hat

at the precise instant,

my last-chance bus

barrelled past.

 

it was blowing a gale.

the rain was biblical

I was soaked, stranded,

and could not get

a mobile signal.

 

I yomped four miles, or more,

avoiding snagging branches,

slipping, stumbling, saturated,

 

singing, Jesus chorusses

as I waited for a road-kill exit

or death by hypothermia.

 

I tried, in vain, to thumb

a lift from passing motors

why should motorists stop

for some (likely) deranged

half-drowned roadside stranger?

 

that’s how it goes – no blame.

 

Mother of Mercy – the end for Rico?

I called out to the Universal Organiser,

dried the phone the best I was able,

and, miracle of miracles, got a signal.

 

a son arrived half an hour later,

 

‘alleluia’

 

rejoice, rejoice, ye lusty maidens,

the people’s poet’s is safe from harm, [covid permitting]

he will enthral you yet again.

 

weep in vain, you heavenly angels,

you’ll have to wait a little longer.

 

after half a bottle of Paddy

the evening’s disaster diminished

from a sombre brush with death

to a madcap slapstick episode

I could laugh about

and bore audiences with later.

 

the only casualty? my fedora

brutalised, abandoned, somewhere

in deepest darkest Lincolnshire.

 

(a true, part-edited account of a gruesome night)