Two Russian Sonnets

I.

He doesn’t swear that often (I do), doesn’t
let the place become a tip (my tip
‘s my castle), goes to church (I don’t, at present)
and I baulk at his benign dictatorship.
But we both believe the stitch-holes in the Bayeux
Tapestry (the arrow landed higher
– helmet-height) prove Harold was the guy
behind, hacked down, not clawing at his eye.
We both read Tintin and like Kurosawa.

He gets things done (I don’t) but we both lose
our heads the same – we’ve got the same short fuse.
Control ourselves? We lack the firepower.
We smash things in the name of common sense:
notebooks, gamepads, plaster, confidence.

II.

You fix stuff up. You fixed Blurr’s head back
on, for instance, more than once,
rooting through your drawer of magic
fixing bits for glue. You’d stints
of fixing me with dabbed witchhazel,
hot drinks, medicinal drizzle.
Plus, you fixed me up with Al,
the Bangles, food and cash as well.
Is there a single thing you can’t fix?
PC’s, bad boys, déjeuner, dates –
you’re even fixer of our fights,
the umpire, the adjudicatrix.

Then there’s the look you fix me with:
‘Don’t touch that if you want to live’.