it isn’t the salt air
or the birds
or happy childish memory
of happy childish laughter
nor is it escape
a break from the city
nor a gathering of thoughts
it isn’t about
peace or power
or the absurdity
of existence
or the recklessness
of a manic-depressive god
it’s just about
standing on this rock
and looking out
I took a job at a petrol station
I needed a job
I’ll stay for six months, I said
four years of ill-feeling later
I left
you’d think
a job like that
where time was measured
by all those thousands of interactions
that the poems would flow
but they didn’t
they wouldn’t
no matter how hard I tried
there were very few stories
in all those dead eyes
and seldom a poetic line
from all those loose mouths
there was nothing to say about the functional drunk
who fashioned a habit out of interrupting
my cigarette break
who’d lecture me on the unethical practice
of selling booze from a petrol station
it’s the oil industry, mate
I’d say
as soon as we step foot on the forecourt
we’re on morally shaky ground
he’d pretend not to hear me
and make a big production
out of paying for his generic vodka
with a credit card
which, without exception
never failed to decline
he’d reach inside his jacket
rummage around in there
pull out half-smoked cigarettes
betting slips
loose matches
a well-used handkerchief
and finally a five and change
all of which he’d put in a pile
and invite me to extract the necessary funds
I thought, perhaps the beggar
the one I slung a quid to on occasion
might do or say something of note
the one who came into the shop late one night
looked at the price of confectionary
called me a cunt
paid for a 75p bar of chocolate with a score
picked up his change with fussy fingers
muttering under his breath about,
this cunt’s ripping me off
I thought I might get a poem or two
out of the school boy in uniform
a handsome young fellow
whose eyes bulged at the sugary treats
I was sure I’d get a page or two out of his greed
and how I related to it
something about the early stages of addiction
and the unfortunate path he had started on
but I was wrong
there was however
something to be said
about the chronic alcoholic
big old piss-patch on his trousers
and fear in his voice
a good man but easily distracted
kept threatening to bring on over a batch of his short stories
and read them to me, out loud, right there in the shop
and maybe
if I’m lucky
at some point
I’ll get a few stanzas out of the chef
who always stank of spilt wine
yet never appeared drunk
he told me he couldn’t cook for shit
but knew how to gamble and drink
there was always Cathy, though
she was an open book
from which I willfully stole
line after line
poem after poem
and some of those poems were picked up
by small-time publishers
placed in magazines
and a couple of hand’s full of people
read all about Cathy
they read about her true smile
and her rotten teeth
about her undeniable freedom
in spite of her obvious bounds
and the dirt on her eyelids
and her worn down heels
and the sadness of screaming failure
and her girlish innocence
of which she had no legitimate claim
and in other poems
which weren’t picked up
they didn’t read
about her fascination with fire
about the burns and soot-stained skin
they didn’t read about the bruises
all over her neck
how she told me,
my friend grabbed me there
and tried to twist my head
nor did they read
about the time she told me,
I love you
she hadn’t meant to say that
she’d come into the station
to tell me she didn’t have any cigarettes
knowing full well I’d roll her one of my own
which I did
as she left, she said it, she said
I love you
all in a flush of red she retracted
I mean, I like you
I mean, you’re a good man
I mean, thank you
I wanted to say
I know
but I just stood there
with dumb-grinning eyes
and watched her leave
the first time I met her
she approached the point of service
with two pockets of jingling change
she dug deep in there
and spilled all those one and two pence pieces
over the counter
I counted up the money
and swapped it for
a five pound note
a 50p
a 10p
and a 5p
and she smiled
and the smile cracked the grime on her face
from the corners of her thin mouth
all the way up to her deep crow’s feet
when she left
the manager, with a smug sense of self, said
I have a theory about her
I think she’s the local prostitute
any half-idiot could see
she was no type of scrubber
for sure, desperate times
demand desperate measures
and she may well have knelt down
given some head
but that didn’t make her a part of the oldest profession
the manager, however
was a whole idiot
and couldn’t see much of anything at all
a year or so later
at the end of a night shift
when the morning people
were fueling up
buying newspapers
cigarettes
sandwiches
coffee and the like
I stared out of the big glass window
and watched Cathy saunter up the street
she stopped at a bin and rifled through it
discarding the rubbish on the floor
at her feet
once she was satisfied
that the bin held nothing of worth
she picked up the litter she had dropped
and put it back into the bin
there was a delicacy to her movements
she was the crippled ballerina
a regular customer
nodded in Cathy’s direction
crack head, he said
sorry? I said
she’s a crack head, he said
oh, yeah, I said
adding,
it’s ravished her body
but is yet to chew through her soul
the regular customer looked at me
as though I’d shit on the counter between us
paid for his coffee and got out
sometimes when walking to work
or walking home
or just walking the city with neither plan nor purpose
I would see Cathy asking people for change
and when she saw me
and saw that I’d seen her
she’d wave bashfully
and I could see she was ashamed
so I’d pretend not to have noticed her
and I’d walk the other way
Cathy was the only line of poetry
in that box of artificial light
built on a foundation of greed and illegal practice
there was nothing else to say
working at the petrol station
suicide was often on my mind
I was often bored
more often depressed
and more often than not,
disabled by a raging sense of anxiety
I realised early on
that the general public’s common stupidity
was symptomatic of lots and lots of
individual selfishness
and their anxiety was contagious;
the human condition is a terminal illness
they were all in a rush
wanted to be first
wanted to win a fight that didn’t exist
the factories and the warehouses
put me in good stead for the boredom
and depression is a waiting game
but anxiety is a wild and unpredictable beast
occasionally, customers would stand waiting
at an abandoned till
while I hid in the storeroom
with the Coca-Cola and crisps
and tried, with limited success
to stop crying
I longed for a fire
a big fuck-off forecourt explosion
or a gun-point robbery
or an honest-to-goodness lunatic
who’d tie me up in back
and subject me to prolonged acts of obscenity
anything other than the dead line of repeated routine
but I was a coward
stuck in a rut
too scared to move on
yet petrified of living out my days
activating pumps
and printing VAT receipts
I learnt
not too long ago
through a mutual acquaintance of ours
that they’d finally come along
and taken Cathy away
she’s in the mad house
he said
she got herself a nice wee flat
he said
and she burnt it to the ground
what hospital is she in?
I asked
don’t know and don’t care
he answered
I could have easily found out
gone for a visit
taken her some cigarettes and flowers
seen about that true-smile of hers
but I didn’t
and I won’t
because I’ve left the petrol station
and I’ve exhausted its poems
so the next line
will have to come
from somewhere else
Bluer Shade of Green
Being prepubescent, we had no need for nervousness
We rolled freely on the bed
She had green eyes and smelt like clean clothes
I kissed her long, blonde hair and soft lips
I kissed her face repeatedly
Her mouth touched my neck
Her fingertips skimmed the tops of my ears
She was so beautiful
And I think of her often
And I often think of the last time I saw her
Sitting at the far side of her mother’s oak table
She didn’t seem to remember
Her eyes seemed a bluer shade of green
In spite of everything suggesting otherwise
I touched her oak hidden foot with mine
She flinched, obviously perplexed
I pulled back as discretely as I had reached out
And we sat silently while our mothers talked
____________
Smile Thief
I used to like watching Saturday cartoons
my feet dangling and bumping the sofa
the horrors of school, distant and far removed
then one such Saturday I broke my gaze
and searched the room for the voice I’d heard, demanding
and there was nobody
and the piano we all used to play sat idle
and the doorway held an empty space
and the emptiness was sickly and quiet
so who the hell had told me I had no right to smile?
I wiped that silly bastard from my face
and hid it under the cushions
deep inside the furniture on which I sat
years later I went back
grimly determined
hell-bent on finding it
I cut that cunt of a sofa
and tore out its fluff and flesh
but the cartoons didn’t quite cut it
and the piano was well and truly out of tune
and the sadness bowed the door frame
and the taunting teachers
and the grief of it all
and the empty echoes of childish prayers
and the years of binging
and the fucking painkillers
and the heroin
and the booze
all looked back at me and laughed
I remember my last day of school
and a buddy kept talking about
how we would remember each other for ever
And I told him
I just want to forget
he seemed hurt
and he told me to fuck off
doubled over in that sofa
searching for my smile and that demanding voice and my youth
I saw my friend and heard his rebuke
but my smile was nowhere to be seen
I walked the riverside route yesterday
listened to the water and the clinking
of moored boats
wondered about sea gulls who stand so close to the edge
wondered about the undercurrent, the temperature and drowning
If I fell in, I thought to myself
I wouldn’t have to go to work
I think I would rather go by the hands of the river
than the flames of the fire
maybe I wont drown, I considered
maybe I’ll just get wet and cold
a temporary solution
I’ll live on, but today something will have happened
I leant on the black railings
looked across the water at a young busker playing an old tune
a simple blues formation
she sang like a beautiful ghost
she sang about drowning and burning
I walked around the harbour and dropped some change in her hat
I wanted to tell her something, only I couldn’t find the words
but by the sound of her guitar and the shapes of her song
I have a deep running suspicion, that she already knew
____________
Matthew J. Hall is a writer who lives in Bristol, England. For more about him visit www.screamingwithbrevity.com
Rusty Truck 