
Three poems on life right now: Graham Cassidy, Bad WiFi™ and Trains @lastwordstyped
by Darius Rodrigues
Graham Cassidy
She said I can’t today
Maybe tomorrow
Just getting back to me he said
Makes me feel a lot richer
Inside
But I’m still on
Me arse
Signed Graham Cassidy
Was all on track
‘Til two hits
Fell off the table
The stable table.
Back in Burnley
There’s valleys called
Death or Happy
Battered blue disco balls
Shiny bloody hands
Had to read it aloud
Too slow and quiet applause
Eggwhites for stars
Shit nightclubs for sand
But here near Clapham Junction,
We sit beneath The Grand.
Yes, it’s boring!
Graham Cassidy, you’re fucking boring me!
said Graham Cassidy.
Wednesdays was a very strong coffee
Weightlifting and shirt ironing
Then a bath
It was perfect, fucking perfect
All through Thursday and Friday
They’d say Graham, you’re buzzing
You look good in the light
Even though the full moon is about to arrive
But on his wingspan sized room
His blistered fingertips were rubbing
To Graham Cassidy, Graham Cassidy said
There’s another end coming.
Jackie Diamond the comet
had soft spot for the talkalots
it was good when she said she’d fight the corner
even better when she said here’s one of your own
even though she was one-year younger
she’d say Look Graham Cassidy, look how you’ve grown.
No fucking way!
I used to go there too
Back when there were grooves before the buildings were new
When I don’t like something I just put a 1 at the end of it
But when I like it I put one of these … as in to be …
Bad WiFi™
Commit a crime in Piccadilly Circus
They’ll never make it through
The Traffic
Black cabs to the left
Ubers to the right
Swap the shovel for a blender
And the candlestick for a light
That imitates the natural sun
Light, and so is unnatural,
And the wired for the wireless
Hang him on the Bad WiFi™.
Users with their heads down
Fake violet fireflies
Freight driver gunning down
The queue with his fingers
Looking for a vine
Trying to be famous
Today a stranger took the picture
You’ll frame it on your mantelpiece
Do they have a mantelpiece?
Did you ask because of their shoes?
Or because they had your dead grandmother’s eyes?
The perfect way to end a day
Is a paradox
Leaving no room for error
Leaves you susceptible
To bed sores and the slow
Iris erosion of the kaleidoscope
Being injured when illusioning
Leaves heavy frost on hope
There’s the copy and pasters
The poster painters
And the spotlights
Then the rowers
The Sewers
And the lamp lights
Lean back lean back
Puffer in black
Wires in white
The office is my gym
I am absent like the wind
But I win at full time
I am the Adidas stripe
Free 24/7 stupidly insanely difficult impossible motorbike challenge
One eye winking hard 365 hard
Day long long long wasn’t it
wanker
Always gets political on a Tuesday
night.
Take me away to somewhere I could cry properly
Where the clouds are wet and sharp.
Trains
Obsessed by sharpness
Resolution darlings
i-dotters + T-crossers
your teeth reeks of bread baskets and self-help.
No more three leaf
magic no match
but blood rushes and butterflies
are groggy that’s why they’re so good
tie knots sloppy
pulled tight
by trains
have to use their might
have to push.
See the pennies gagged on the track?
(leading up to introduction of the under-30’s railcard
but no time to react)
now we need breathing schedules and quiet zones
to relax.
It’s not the time or the price
It’s not quicker there or back
I could stay here forever
I just wish it were faster.