32. John Deighton

Dramatic performer and long time writer of novels and short stories, relative newcomer to writing poetry.

Doncaster based wordsmith, John Deighton is part of the Read to Write group at Balby library. He hasn't been writing poetry very long but has had a fair crack at novels and short stories. He enjoys drama and is doing the rounds reading short stories in live performances. He is currently performing selected Ghost Stories of M.R.James. He used to have a full head of hair.

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Poems

The Jon Brown Fight
St Ives
Killykeen
Dawn Rider
The Land
How Keenly Now I Feel the Cold

The Jon Brown Fight

Jon Brown’s goal was to ruin my school life
He tried to make every day hard
I knew what I had to face.
Trying to avoid him would never work,
In a schoolyard you cannot get away
or hide the pain.

Jon enjoyed inflicting pain,
He must have had a bad family life.
He was a big lad, fat, easy to run from, get away
He loved contact sports on ground that was hard
He was in the lowest set, hated work,
He looked clever in glasses and had a kind face.

That morning at school we came face to face
Me, Jon and his cronies. It was a pain
I was in a bad mood and wanted to work
Get on with my lessons without this in my life.
A confrontation would be hard,
I ducked into the toilets to get away.

They followed me. There was no getting away,
This was a problem I had to face.
Jon laughed and pushed me against a tiled wall. Hard
He dealt a stomach punch. Real pain.
I doubled over, joking to save my life,
Jon took off his glasses. It wasn’t going to work.

The Irish rage coursing through my body began to work
I chose not to run away.
I stood and gave Jon the punch of my life,
A right hook, to the chin, crumpling his face
His whole head whipped away, 
I had a fist full of pain.
Jon fell, untidy and hard.

He lay crying. Now he didn’t look so hard
It had been quick work
There was no winner, with both of us in pain.
The cronies parted, I walked out and away.
After the fight I never again came up close to his face
We both got on with life.

Teenage years are a pain, most find them hard,
they scar you for life. No matter how much you work
you can’t chip away the past’s rock face

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St Ives

The menace brooding in the deep blue,
Muscles moving under liquid skin.
I knew it of old;
I knew it moved towards me.
In soft silent shapes until it reached the shallows
Where it raised into its true form.
Holding, holding.
The wind tore at its outer edge.
Holding, holding.
Its head bowed to me.
Holding, barely holding.
It fell.
A crashing of cut glass over my feet.
As it inhaled,
It drew back.

<<<

Killykeen

I woke again from that dream
the one where I’m back at Killykeen.

The van has the smell of dried nets
and pipe smoke. My turn to drive and yet
I don’t complain. I want to be away;
five men in a transit van in search of prey.

I swing around a sharp left and then past
all the cottages with their lawns grassed
to the lough. Into the forest and into the shade
of that curtain of wood and along the unlaid
track. The trees are so dense that there could be a deer
watching white van man a spit from here.

Breaks in the trees entice us with a snatch
of silver lough and over grown brambles scratch
along the van. It eggs us on. We all have the wish
to be on the bank where there is always fish.

Around a bend and then another and the car park is there.
We all leave the van and breathe in the fresh air
and the space of the two loughs joined by a neck
of water. I am so aware that I am just a speck

on this vast planet. Still in awe, we now unload
the fishing tackle and stagger down the road,
carrying hopes of having a famous day
in our favourite place. I pick the swim that I will stay
and be part of the countryside. I stand and I take
a deep look into the magic waters…and I wake.

<<<

Dawn Rider

It’s 5 am.

The winter’s razor wind shaves my cheeks.
It’s pitch black so I go slow,
My bike’s light cuts deep into the abyss.
I ride on, down by the the railway track
And it starts. I feel so alone on this hack.

The rails start their Hendrix intro
Whining and distorting the track.
The locomotive breaks through
All violence and thunder and wind and sparks
“Come on Feel the noise!”

The monster’s appearance attacks my body
With its size and vibration and course,
Pulling the clattering carriages
That find me with their flickering cinematic light,
Carriages that go on and on and on.

Electric discharge perfumes the darkness.
Whilst I am reeling from this, it has gone,
Leaving the only witness to the dragon.

<<<

The Land

Perhaps it was the door to the wild
untouched year on year in the estate.
An expanse of clay not defiled
by the plough, where the urban hesitates
before the wilder side of God’s hand
and sparrows are braver than man.

Or did Mother Earth push her way
into the ashes of a gardener’s dream?
That wild woman’s blunt foray
dead centre of the suburban neat seam.
No room for roses or potatoes in her heart.
No cultivated crops to cart.

<<<

How Keenly Now I feel the Cold

How keenly now I feel the cold,
spring hasn’t come from its shell
and I am happy I am growing old.

Parting lovers release their hold
with terse goodbyes and no wishing well,
how keenly now I feel the cold.

They rush to their next flame of gold
with a passion only a moth can tell
and I am happy I am growing old.

Lust not love has them hooked and sold,
losing interest in this bagatelle
how keenly now I feel the cold.

They won’t believe a lover’s scold
or try to stop the carousel
and I am happy I am growing old.

Hurts of the young are devolved
to others’ faults and love’s ocean swell.
How keenly now I feel the cold
and I am happy I am growing old.

<<<

Little Glass Vase

The little glass vase was mine,
in the window of my time,
borrowing sunlight to shine,
a needy friend to my eye.

It held flowers by and by,
big red roses always cry,
begged for mercy when they’re dry
and when the colours faded.

Years go on, then it’s hated,
relevance has now jaded
and so it’s relegated
to a cupboard for its sin.

I remember it again
and rescue it from within.
My grip slips on its smooth skin,
it fell and now is gone.

I knew its fate all along,
memories of hurt drag on.
Regret will never be done
of losing a vase of mine.

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