first batch of proper manly poems.

Hallo, These are some poems I have been writing recently. They need little introduction but I'll introduce them anyway. This first one is about me and my mental brother.

ME AND MY MENTAL BROTHER.

There’s me and my mental brother,

We’ve not got different dads,

And we popped out of the same mother,

It’s just that one of us is mad.

Wor kid’s a schizophrenic,

He’s on some hardcore medication.

He has his moments when he’s manic,

But they supress them with sedation.

Me brother’s not a bad mental,

He don’t want locking up for life.

He’s reflective and he’s gentle,

He’ll not come at you with a knife.

He’s not Ian fucking Brady

With his starey mad cunt eyes.

He won’t get sexy with your baby;

Too busy eating all the pies.

Because my brother loves his tucker,

And I often say to him

“Look at your gut, you big fat… fellow,

Get yersel’ down to the gym!”

I can say that coz I love him;

That’s what brothers do –they take the piss.

And I worry what will become of him,

So can I please just ask you this –

If you see him walking in the distance,

Remember he’s a man, he’s got his pride,

So acknowledge his existence,

Don’t pass by on the other side.

And while I'm sad my brother's mental,

There's no point in wondering why

It's just the way the cards fell, And there

But for the grace of God, go I...

This second one is a true story. Dunno if you've ever heard of a poet called Tony Harrison, but he's quite famous in poetry circles. I'd never heard of him when I was 15, which was when when me and some mates gatecrashed his son's birthday party and then got thrown out. I never gave it a second thought until years later, when I heard his son had developed mental health problems, which somehow made what we did as kids seem much worse...

MAD MAX (Apologies to Tony Harrison)

Slung out of your big house that night

We gatecrashed your son’s birthday.

We were teenage gangster gobshites,

But we were all brought up the right way.

We never meant to trash the gaff;

Things just got a bit lairy.

Scrawled ‘I am a twat’ across a photograph

Of your son (little posh fairy.)

He probably was a decent kid,

But he went to the grammar school.

And he was called Max, the little flid.

So there’s two things that weren’t cool.

And now, three decades on from then,

It’s just one more regret.

Coz I have done about seven hundred and forty three things

That I wish I could forget.

Some of us moved and some died young,

And some became their dads.

But your son got no choices,

Coz poor Max grew up mad.

And even though I say it

In a poem you won’t read,

I’m dead sorry, Tony Harrison,

For our stupid, shitty deeds.

Teenagers can be bastards,

Doing wrongs that they can’t right.

But if I could have my time again,

I’d be a better kid that night.

This third one is a villanelle, which means it's got quite a tight and repetitive structure, in case you thought I couldn't be arsed to think of any more words for it. It's not about me per se, but I tried doing it 'he said/she said' and it just didn't have the same visceral impact as 'I said/you said' does. (I'm doing a creative writing degree at the minute and this is the one I picked to read out to my poetry group. To say that they looked a trifle unnerved would be something of an understatement.)

I SAY ‘MAM’ AND YOU SAY ‘MUM’.

You said I never made you come.

We’re from different worlds,

I say ‘Mam’ and you say ‘Mum.’

Remember our faces? Long and glum.

We were married and buried.

You said I never made you come.

I could see your palace from my slum.

I’m from Fenham, you’re from Jesmond.

I say ‘Mam’ and you say ‘Mum.’

I begged for comfort, I got crumbs.

We went to marriage guidance,

You said I never made you come.

Now I’m uncomfortably numb

And you’re back with your mother.

(I say ‘Mam’ and you say ‘Mum.’)

Dust settled, papers were filed.

As one door closed, another shut.

You said I never made you come.

I say ‘Mam’ and you say ‘Mum.’

Finally, these last two are short observational things. On my course, they told us we should carry writing books and observe stuff around us, so I've started writing about people I see on the train going into the city every day.

TRAIN #1.

Radge fat woman with lovebites,

Curry and spunk stains on her tights.

Half-watching her snot-nosed kids fight,

And you know they're not gonna grow up right,

They'll never reach no dizzy heights.

Marked down at birth for lives of shite,

Giving Daily Mail readers sleepless nights.

God fucking help the poor little mites.

TRAIN #2.

Posh boy student on the train,

Got a booming voice, suspect he's a dick.

He's wearing the same shades as me,

The ones I thought made me look dead slick.

Thanks a lot you student ponce

From the chinless upper classes.

Just by being a bit of a cock,

You made me hate my own sunglasses.