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?
Poems 1976-2000
Poems 1976-2000 is Mal Foster’s definitive collection and underlined the basis of his existence as a poet and poetry editor, particularly in the eighties & nineties. Preconception is Mal’s own personal favourite amongst others that include 'The Wedding' which has become one of the most widely read poems on the internet.
A BASTARD'S LAMENT
The thinking man has returned
to find himself
He has resumed his childhood
and relives everything.
He looks for proof
he sees himself in a mirror
he smiles, he grimaces
he compares.
There is a strong suspicion here
he questions his identity
with hows and whys and wheres
and holds a crumpled photograph.
A small boy with hollow eyes
in a seaside town
Circa: 1950s.
A SUMMER OF ADOLESCENCE
As children we came up here
pretending to be soldiers with our
green plastic helmets and long sticks.
We built a camp beneath the trees,
dug down into a hovel and covered it
with corrugated iron that had been
dumped in a skip.
We lived here that whole summer.
Holed up, waiting for an invisible enemy
or other kids on bikes.
Near the end of the holiday
a farmer spotted us and reported us
for trespassing.
We were coming back to kill him
the following year
but by then our appetites for war
had been replaced by other attractions.
PRECONCEPTION
My children are nameless
they are mere souls
waiting to be born
they are numberless
and divided
they are sexless
and have yet no form
they wander in obscurity
time's passages
awaiting years
for the nine month countdown
to emerge
with faces and with names
into the hands
of the unknown mother
who yet knows nothing
of this conception.
POPPY PAINS
The black and sombre parade struggles up the hill
as a rare golden sunlight sets fire to the leafy autumnal
of this emotional Remembrance Sunday.
Old ladies in tired mink-coats adjust their poppies
as they pass, mothballed in their endearments;
Ever faithful widows brethren to a sad and lonely way of life.
'At the going down of the sun' etc...
Who will remember these people
marching up the hill towards their heaven?
Who will remember them
as Legions of fallen comrades whisper on the wind
like the lost immortal souls of tiny burdens?
PLATFORM 8 -
First steps of a journey -
I am one alone among the many
lost amid assorted faces
pounded by instructions
detailed by the tannoy
- Platform 8 - rain pouring in
across the platform
wet steps - lost
in the panic of time
in the panic of missing their train.
I am a face - one face
along a corridor of windows
looking out into the night
the rain-soaked night
the silent city
where no-one knows my final destination.
ROAD TO MDINA
I found my spirit on the road to Mdina
it offered me guidance
in the form of a leaf.
It blew freely across my path
and then I heard it speak.....
It said, "Man, you have come here
to find yourself,
I know I have been there too!"
It said, "Follow the road on to Rabat,
you can't go wrong, you can't go wrong!"
My father was a man who came
from the shadows, who offered solace
on the way, spoke of his lovers in England
and said he too had found his destiny here,
here on the road to Mdina.
SEA FISHING
the still sea is a silver cream
solitude of fishing
and silent lapping calm
the vessel hardly jerks
beneath the six of us
amateurish first time fishermen
lemon sun develops
thru the silken web of p.m. sky
igniting mist in all directions
seagulls shift on to another spa
relevance of freedom
turning quiet brace of wing ashore
WHATEVER IT WAS
A black spiral of smoke
winds up towards the sun.
I am the only person on the beach
so without information
or consultation
I am left to wonder.
In tomorrow's papers
perhaps I'll read
that there's been a plane crash
or some disaster,
some 'great' event
that I was so far away from.
The so-called lucky ones
will say that they were there,
that they were close and saw the bodies
sizzling in the flames
of whatever it was
of whatever it was not.
GHOST OF MY GRANDFATHER
1939. Sgt.
A man manacled with loyalty
peeping out.
This is the ghost we see,
uniformed and armed,
political and opinionated
waiting for the Hun!
An unknown intelligence
waiting to inflict
with discreet and subtle calculation
his finest hour
on anyone.
IDENTITY CRISIS
I am talking
to myself
delivering
my soul
to my conscience.
Asking my shadow
to move in tandem.
Expecting
my reflection
to smile back.
Needing my ghost
to die first.
THIS LOVE (THIS PAIN)
Depression unmasks me.
I am alone in a room
where I have only memory to talk to.
You fucking whore!
Where are you when I need your comfort,
your soft pale lust-worthy skin
and the endless kisses of your divine attention?
I want you now, back out of history
with your intelligence and intellect, I want you
with your philosophies and love,
immense bottles of wine
stolen from your father's drawer.
I want you HERE in this precise moment
naked from your shoulders down
complete with the Mediterranean beads
of your last holiday
and the lipstick you always wore for beauty.
THE GIRL ADDICT
I stopped to tell you
but you would not listen.
I began with a sense of mercy, sympathy.
As this deepened
it became apparent I could not help you.
I remember you when you were beautiful,
dancing innocently
in the cornfields of
flailing lace and denim
as your silver bangles
glittered in the sun.
You had everything going for you.
There was a career; a steady nine to five
but you allowed yourself
to be abused by society, you allowed yourself
to be taken in by the offenders of virtue.
Reluctantly, your innocence gave way to hard escape.
The globe became an apple in your hand,
you thought you could crush it,
you thought you had the power. No-one
could tell you otherwise.
It's nearly time now. I am at your bedside.
Your frail body is kept alive by tubes and wires.
I speak to you. Only a faint pulse answers,
a slight movement of your once intelligible lips
tells me
you are on your way.
O may the angels feed you
and play you music. May they teach
you wisdom in the golden halls
of their establishment
and free you from your suffering.
SET PIECE
saw you emerge
from the underground
in white.
so fresh to see
against the grime
and grey of city streets.
society welcomes
your appearance
so new amongst these sorry faces,
so sweet
upon the Autumn breath
of city air.
traffic sings -
drives around your dressage
as London melts away like ice.
A QUESTION OF MORALITY
Why are we here?
I have to ask this question
because moral values and understandings
are under the spotlight
and my curiosity needs answers.
You used to work in the city
with your mathematical mind and intellect
but you are here now
naked
in this abstract mirror of dreams
opinionating and conversing
with a self-confessed poet
of the ordinary man
who is also
naked
and who doesn't give a damn
about your virtue,
about your needs,
about the way you earn your crust.
SHINDIG ON GIRO JUNCTION
Shindig. Irish music. Twirl.
Foot tap, clap, sing.
Diddly, diddly di dum day.
Protestations, the power of the political,
the strength of the statement.
Dance and be joyful.
Jig and be drunk.
Diddly, diddly di dum day.
pass the evening with a pint,
questions of accentuation
all the way along to The City of Chicago.
Faces, assessing, looking,
sussing the real. Fiddler breaks,
turns the volume
as I watch you dance on glass.
SEA SHANTY
Solitude found.
At last there is a purity
and purpose about the silence.
Only children's voices
carrying now and again
from across the harbour.
I watch as it takes only a moment
for the sea smog to swallow up the jetty.
The last outpost is gone.
Now it is only myself
and the spray
and the voices of souls
whose bodies the sea contains
whispering on the return of every wave
as their galleons come back to retrieve them.
THE ROSE
That longest moment of yours
almost forever
standing
watching a red rose bloom
I too stood almost forever
watching you
look at the rose
and how your brown eyes stared
longingly and beautiful
at something so natural
that only your beauty
could be compared with it.
PEEP SHOW
Quote:
"My body is a temple for a multi-media whore"
said Annie.
[A memorable performance
as stated in a glossy souvenir brochure
with it's provocative black and white photograph
of a wholesome naked nymph
reaching for the cosmic fruits
all in the name
of an alternative form of art]
Criteria:
An intimate, informal evening of sex
as sacred practice
for an audience full of thespianic voyeurs.
Review:
All so very, very sensual
as she flipped into a breath orgasm ritual routine
and sucked on our attention
like a star.
THE WEDDING
The wedding:
it must be right
everything must go to plan
be exact to near perfection.
We must hope the weather holds
and sunshine dominates.
We must feed the guests
occupy them with our chat
and false politeness.
We must keep them with a drink
a joke
a dance
it must be right -
the wedding MUST succeed
- regardless if ill-fated marriage
fails.
THE ANNIVERSARY
In the heat of the dragonfly summer
we sat drinking the wine
of serious intellect.
It was two days before your wedding
and you were having second thoughts.
Discretion was never one of my strong points,
but I wondered why you turned to me
in your moment of crisis,
in your moment of uncertainty.
In the end you married him
but now you're back again
drinking the same brand of red wine
and fixing your hair
in my bedroom mirror.
It's summer again
and you can't explain
Why
this is how you wish
to spend your anniversary.
AT THE WINE BAR
At the wine bar
as the smoke obscured your face
I realised I was failing
defeated
in my vain approach
realising sadly
as I watched you leave
that all the energies of pride I had
had gone.
COHEN'S MARIANNE
I had this book for years
and the poem about you
locked between the pages
you cried out
waiting to be released
but I was blind
your name written down
as beautiful as ever
as dangerous as your tongue
as calm as the sea off Hydra
where impoverished seagulls
crashed into the sun
THE ADULTEROUS WIFE OF JEREMY
For Lianna M. Jones
Ten years on
from a night
one night
I have always remembered.
The red bandanna,
the naked clash,
our Anglo-American
tongues
oral and involved,
our bodies
writhing, twisting
in a storm of passion
while your husband
grinned
almost voyeuristically
from his suspicions.
SEPARATE LIVES
This morning I awoke
and felt you beside me
despite the distance.
I went down to the lake
where the sunrise and spring blossom
mingled in a seasonal collaboration
on the cold water.
I saw your face in the reflection
smiling
and I wanted you
more than ever.
I wanted to explain to you
whatever it is we have
is more than love.
But then your image vanished
as the sun passed a cloud
and I thought to myself
fate is a desperate thing,
a coward if you like,
but it drives it's force between us
and then brings us together.
Your eyes are the diamonds
that enlighten my soul,
leading me enticingly
to the point
of love's perception.
Sometimes I am lost without you
but I am whole.
The mere thought of you
substantiates everything I feel
both spiritual and physical
so much that I have to write it down,
not as a poem
but as something that has to be written.
I love you
and I know that it really is more than love.
My whole body reaches out
towards the image of your beauty.
I cannot explain it.
There is a hidden meaning
somewhere in all of this.
This is our life
and yet
they are such separate lives.
AUTUMN PARTING
In this room
where the memories of love
disintegrate
I look out from the window
down into the driveway
and see you leaving
as the first leaves of Autumn fall
there are birds crying
repetitive, unusually tuneless
Are they mourning the death of love
as the afternoon sun goes in
or are they merely concocting coincidences
as my whole world
becomes an irrational tide
of confused and inconceivable thought?
HIGH UP THING
Two vapour tails
against the early distant wash
of summer sky
jet blast of engine latitude
booming into white and wind constructed cloud
high up thing
in silver sunlight
resting on the crest of proud insignia
and banking to the dawn
of our goodbye.
I REMEMBER YOU
With you
somewhere
deep
in a memory
almost lost
in the annals of time
your face
young
and fresh
inquisitive.
Your long dark hair
the Gauloise cigarette
the whole French thing
tossed
to some lost corner of the mind.
I remember you now
after all these years
I remember you
racing down the marbled steps
like a free spirit
sent down
from Sacré-Coeur.
SOMETHING I WROTE
Something I wrote
was for you
a letter
torn between the tears,
I wrote it in despair
then forgot.
Today
I find your answer
in a bottom drawer.
I read it thru
and after
some eight or nine years now
your scent
still lingers
at the end of each paragraph.
DAY OF THE FUNERAL
In the back rooms of childhood
familiar stories are repeated by old relatives
who pride themselves on memory.
We bring out photographs old and musty
with pencilled messages scrawled across the backs of them
- uniforms of two world wars.
Old aunts spell out the dangers of love with hints
of war time love-song drifting thru the conversation
- such admiration for their men.
Dead people come to life as imagined heroes/comics
they are immortalised in conversation
- their spirits fill the room.
There is talk of old romance
how the first thing went and then the next
there are weddings and divorce
- the sad analyses.
We talk of life and past enjoyment
the cruel expense.
This is our lady's funeral
- tears are detectable flowers evident.
WHIRLWIND
Here we are in our embrace. Sunlight falling thru the trees
into your hair. Your green eyes holding me back
as we look out across the water where the mass of swans gather
perhaps in search of something more than food.
It’s early days but already I can feel something deep inside
peeling the tired crust from my heart. A new resolve opening out
as purple as the rhododendron buds split open on the grass
in the permeable future of our world.
I guess some days are left to be remembered and this is one
your beauty more powerful than the nature that surrounds us
but it is the person inside you that I will grow to love
as I watch you walk away with all the grace of an angel.
INTERNAL TRAVELLER
It is a short journey here
to the dark chamber of judgement
where the thought process
is peeled apart by thought itself.
I'm sure it is a trip we all encounter,
an intense identification of the inner sanctum
where the soul cries almost anonymous
in it's search for solitude.
But what do we see
in this collusion of mirrors?
Where do we go
when we know who we are?
