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PAUL CLARKE
I was born in Walthamstow in 1965 and grew up in Leytonstone, and have lived in Newham for the last eleven years. My parents are Irish Catholics, and I have 3 brothers and 3 sisters.
I was a Civil Servant for 13 years, until January 1996, when I finally admitted I was a hopeless drunk, and gave up the job with the drink, and haven’t drank or worked since.
For the last two-and-a-half years I’ve been at college, studying Counselling, which I also still get help from. I joined the Newham Writers Workshop in January of this year, after encouragement from my Adlerian therapist, and started writing soon after.
I treat poetry like photography; a snapshot in time of me. I cringe at some of the sentiments years later, like clothes in old photographs, but my ‘wee small hours’ mind, (when I write), never lies and so always ‘takes’ a perfect picture. As snapshots, I rarely ‘touch up’ my poems, and so realise a lot of it probably doesn’t scan very well, but then neither do I.
Presently, my main writing love is a novel and some screenplays, and they never seem perfect; hence my submission of ‘old’ poetry, written over the last few years. A bit cowardly I know, but maybe for next year I’ll have a ‘perfect’ piece of prose, maybe!?
MEDALLION MAN
What could I call it, this sense of me?
This daydream feeling that sets me free
"A medal." I thought that first day
Too precious to wear I hid it away
Kept in the dark it tended to tarnish
Overcompensating I tended to varnish
For fear of its shine dulling to grey
Buffing it up I rubbed it away
Tentative wearings ended in farce
Instead of a medal it looked like an arse
Realising to others it held no sway
Leaving it be it withered away
This was the only thing I could love
But my hand no longer fitted this glove
Seeing its plight I started to pray
Unable to safeguard I gave it away
No one wanted this badge of shit
And I could see no oyster grit
For fear of owning it per se
I took no chance and threw it away
To end I must go back to the start
Too much fiction is bad for the heart
Thoughts of medals should be kept at bay
Just live your life away and away and away
ALFRED - TOO MUCH TOO LATE
Oh Alfred what can I say
Oh Alfred where do I start
Where were you that day
When I tore myself apart
I can’t describe the depth of dismay
I can’t begin to chart
The Tsunami waves of grey
You’ve stirred inside my heart
Didn’t you hear me pray
When I lost all sense of art
When all beauty I kept at bay
And valued only smart
Where? When I was prey
Just meat for their cart
Please tell, just say
So we can smile & part
’Cos meeting you today
Brings back feelings too tart
To simply drift away
Oh what, oh what did you start
I can’t just let you rest and lay
You rotten arrogant old fart
Show your bones the sun’s bright ray
And guard my night-time heart
If you’re not to protect in any way
This new world you did impart
Then the only way I know to pay
Is to tear your memory apart
Sorry and all that Alfredo
SEARCHING
Some look for walls into which to crash,
So those who hold trowel, cut a dash,
Those who re-serenade sirens’ calls,
Are those who choose Jericho walls.
Those who look for love, per se,
Allow others to hold sway,
Those whose hearts don’t obviously bleed,
Are the ones, on the whole, who succeed.
Those who thirst for others first,
Attract self-lovers well versed,
For those who seek poetry,
The name’s Clarke, with an ‘E’
There are those who only can hate,
They never fail to attract a mate,
Then there are those who are soppy,
They’re the ones doomed to remain floppy.
Like Hawks for a Dove,
Some never fall in love,
But they’re the ones who,
Break the ones who do.
So seek oneself always to be true,
And for your own heart first coo,
For only when you find your love,
Will there be any chance dove will find dove.
St. James’s Picnic
"How deep is the pond?" she said
"Shallow?" "No very deep - it has to be you see!"
"Is there any need for deepness?" cautiously I tread
Oh for the old courage to jump in for free
Sun bright enough to blanche away the years
With Perseuan eye, I watch it as it watches her smile
The one which sweetens all my tears
Whose effects I hide with all my guile
We swap stories of how we’ve grown
Fame at last, for one, for all
One bit part for Eugene, a gladiator known!
And Jenny’s met Stuart Hall!
I’d swap my place in heaven for one whole day with her
For the memory would armour me from any hell
But for now! well I concur
Purgatory can wait, no soul will I sell
For it’s a short trip from hell to heaven
My eyes to her smile, with care
Grace given!
A bite of bagel & I’m there
I don’t want any of it to end
Today, Jenny, old-me, smelly Kickers, ARP!
!the pain that got me here, oh Heaven forefend!
But if I’m to survive, to be free, all must be footnotes to my recovery
A joke and Jenny’s pearly whites appear
And peace, my long forgotten friend lays me down
Then with Simeon remembrance I fear
"Don’t beam me up Scotty, I’m happy here on the ground"
"Not, just yet!"
Tube Apology for Pavement Pizza
I’ve always thought you go first and I’ll be fine
Show me a drop of human kindness & I’ll drown the world in mine,
Jenny’s kindness is spilling over the floor,
So why, oh why, do I wait to pour?
I know I shouldn’t, but for so long I’ve kept score,
So go on, please, you go first some more,
Just so I know it’s safe to proceed from the black,
’Cos once I open the floodgates there’s no going back,
Back to the hatred ‘as big as your hat’,
Yeah! love was always safe behind that,
But now I’ve seen and felt her smile,
My love won’t stay down, like some divine bile,
I don’t know how to cork it, I feel thick,
Stay down won’t you? you fucking sick,
I’ve tried dampening its pungent heat,
But this vomit will always smell sweet,
Perhaps she could retrain me to hate,
I think I could deal with that certain fate,
But this love thing! I don’t know where it will lead,
I’ve dipped my toe in once and already I bleed,
It’s more painful than broken glass on skin,
Or having to drink warm, really cheap gin,
But before the pain what bliss,
The anticipation! the remote possibility of a kiss,
I think I’ve got what’s holding me back,The need to replay, from & to the black:
The memory of Jenny’s kindness first felt,
The miserable childhood first dealt,
I know I get in trouble when I go too fast,
But if I don’t run forward I’ll get stuck in the past,
I hope then, mate, you believe this garbled apology is true,
And treat as a compliment my sick on your shoe!
"Mind the doors!"
WHERE THE FUCK ARE MARY, MUNGO & MIDGE WHEN YOU NEED ’EM?
Where’s the old lukewarm basin
To soothe my swollen brain
And where’s the pointless chasin’
To keep a fat man sane
Where’s the magic stream gone
To once again get clean
And where’s the sickly bon bons
To make me far less mean
Where’s the special mirror
That shows the hero of 3C
And where’s that childish ‘horror’
That let’s Paul let Paul be
Where’s my one sacred snapshot
Of me watching ‘With Mother’ TV
Will the 3Ms show or not?
And set Pauly-Putensqueek free
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