MAL FOSTER : a poet of the ordinary man
What do we see in this collusion of mirrors - where do we go when we know who we are?
Fluke's Cradle & Other Poems
This page contains a number of poems written from 1980 to 2000 that were originally included in ‘Poems 1976-2000’. The collection includes Death of a Football Club Mal's moving epitaph to Aldershot F.C. following their demise in 1992. The poem was published in the poetry anthology ‘Verses United’ and also appeared in The Aldershot News, The Surrey Advertiser and 90 Minutes - a prominent football monthly magazine of the 1990s.
FLUKE'S CRADLE
Some lengths have been taken
to restore my identity
I know who I am now
but I need to practice it.
I need to be myself,
not this conjured being
who stands before you
as part of something
you created.
I had this all before
in childhood,
in adolescence
and in the change of life.
And yes,
I was all fucked up in those days
those halcyon days
those bastard days
when the world turned full circle
and lost me somewhere
in the darkness.
A SENSE OF LOSS RELIEVED
The evening sun squashes down
into an amber intensity.
Children run in circles playing.
There's a horse
tethered to a broken iron gate
and there is you
crying
as I come back out of the trees
not lost
after all.
DEATH OF A FOOTBALL CLUB
(Aldershot F.C. 1926-1992)
As an old faithful
he'd been here for every game.
Sixty solid years
and then this grief
that brings a harsh, ensuing wind
around the ground
as men in reluctant suits
prepare his coffin.
More proud undaunted ghosts
glide across the pitch
towards the East Bank stand.
Memories of Melia, Howarth.
A courteous shroud
hovering where the floodlights
gleamed and flickered. Memories
of Charlton, Best, the Shots one up!
Dads who came as children
with their dads
mourning their lost Saturdays
and a thousand other friends.
Reality forms it's own cortege:
circumstances of guilt and suspicion,
a climate no one
wished to comprehend.
But now just as we feared
there is an end,
a bitter tear that reaches from the heart
at this strange funeral.
A moment
when the stillness is complete
and all that's left
are memories.
FARNHAM - AN OBSERVATION
Walking thru the town from their
classroom hideaway and lectures on
Dostoyevsky's The Idiot pretentious young
college girls flaunt collective adolescent immaturity
to the pubs and wine bars off Castle Street.
Gathered in the smoke of lunch-time windows
their lipsticked half-pint mugs raised
with naughty cigarette, they converse
illicit pastime okay-yah-ish to impress
knackered, past-it Irish labourers.
At 2, they rush back off, trailing Oxfam
furs and musty silken scarves. Their
pale white faces cosmetically and
intellectually groomed. So much more
sophisticated than our abrasive local Sharons.
SNAPSHOT
(Watchetts Lake, Camberley 1982)
An image
of ducks
flying low
across water
and you
getting all intellectual
with your newly acquired lisp
and my
cheap bottle of Vin de Pays du Gard
from Sainsburys.
LOVE TOO DEEP
Pain is the perpetual reason why love
at times is strained.
An altar to both failure and success
where time dictates to both of us
the importance of such intensity
and yes,
we are both entrapped within the 'self'
entangled within our own anxieties
too proud almost
to share our love,
this love which simmers deep
perhaps too deep
for even flowers?
THE LITTLE SWEET
Who brought it here
disguised as a little sweet?
Who came from the dark countries
with child poisons?
Who threatens
our green and pleasant land
with the hypodermic nudge
of greed and sin?
Who controls this evil spectre
as we watch the future committing suicide
on uncensored
late night tv bulletins?
Sweet child full of grace
innocent party to everything
that is wrong with our country
- GO before it is too late.
Get back
to your dreams
and Barbie Dolls and enjoy
the rest of your childhood.
THE PLAYGROUND
Childhood spirit, where are you now
with your flowing locks
and intent to listen eyes?
I will always remember you
for that first fragile kiss with me
when we were nine.....
..... and Julie, my poor dead friend,
how are the angels treating you
now that you are one of them
gliding in the misty fields of unknown solace
reaping the corn of eternity?
Today I saw your tree,
the one we planted in your memory
to mark your courage, to mark your bravery.
I felt your breath among the blooms,
I felt your breath among the blooms.
The playground is a quiet place
so cold without you, so sad without you.
Small birds set down on the sundial.
I think I hear you whisper,
I want to hear you whisper!
PEACE
Peace is a haven
between a hundred burning cities
corroding shamelessly
on the ‘balance’
of power
HOTEL ROOM
I passed by the hotel.
There was someone in the window
smiling.
Did they see something?
Has our room opened up it's heart,
it's secret?
I relive it all again,
that preserved moment of our entanglement
where I held you tight
despite the break up.
THE CHILD STAR
For My Son, Christopher
A guardian angel
stands across the feet
of every child
My boy
keeps such appearances
completely mum.
Every night
his light is strong.
A soft contemporary medium.
STATISTIC
Tomorrow the world will have forgotten.
Your statistic recorded and filed. Your name
compiled as a number in computer technology
and your philosophies remembered for what?
