Issue 8: January 2005

Matthew Caley | Matthew Francis | Kathryn Gray | Daljit Nagra | Tim Wells

TIM WELLS

Let the Good Times Roll

When Aileen gets back from drying out
I'll talk, if she wants me to.
I'll be quiet, if that's what she wants me to be.
Her face won't be too much of a mess,
her clothes will be clean,
her head will be clear.
There'll be a party
and some fool will drag out
all those old punk rock records,
all those ones she loves so much.
There'll be beer,
there'll be juice.
Time will be tight,
tongues will be loose.
There'll be a party,
we'll all be delighted.
When Aileen gets back from drying out
Aileen won't be invited.

Songs That Are Whistled

Here's to the lonely country girls
in shotgun city apartments.
Miles from home
with only 'phone calls
and breakfasts and songs
served to hipster losers
to convince themselves
they made the right decision.
To the herb gardens
on kitchen tables.
To pine air fresheners
and scrubbed vegetables,
and birdsong
and fire engines
that shrill outside.
The potted plants
grown with love
in fired china.

When a Man's in Love it's a Splendid Thing

On the job he keeps it screwed tight,
in a vault, key thrown away.
He knows how many tracks the CD has to run,
where the horn solo will kick in,
where his unpaid bills are,
what page the book
tossed to the floor beside his bed lies open on.
He knows the whole topography of the room
and his place within it.
Where tits and arse,
and love and passion,
where they course through it.
Having grown up in a block
hearing his neighbours,
friends and parents hard at it;
this grunting smacks of the mundane.
He tries to secret the glimmer,
wrap it in silence so that what is his,
remains his alone.
For her; it's the abandon,
the lady rampage, the hair out of place,
all the fistfulls of mayhem she can get!
He's not sure if her "Yes! Yes! Yes!"
is from her pleasure or for his benefit.
He wishes she'd be quiet
and so works that little bit harder.
Spurring her on
to that one affirmation more.
He likes westerns,
the badmen galloping into town, guns blazing.
She loves the shadowy allure of the silent greats.

Available from Amazon.co.uk:

If You Can Read This you're Too Close (Donut Press, 2003)