75. Dave Kurley
Multi talented Yorkshire poet, currently based in Portugal
Dave Kurley is constantly amazed by the fact he was born in Sheffield, UK, in 1962. He has been an actor, a sales rep, a stand-up comedian, a dry stone waller, a singer, a civil servant, a playwright, a pub manager and a podcaster, not necessarily in that order. Currently, he is a poet and an online English tutor living with his wife (The Lovely Ali), and two cats (Risca and Alcaçuz), in the slowly-beating heart of central Portugal.
You can find him on Bluesky posting a poem every day. Pop over and say hello. He’d like that.
Poems
Pond Life
Hi-vis anoraked child stands out, chucking Chubby handfuls of Fletcher’s bread from Dad To the milling mallards until there is none left. To Distract from this sadness, Dad throws An invisible something high in the Air and catches it magically in the empty paper Bag, to gurgling incredulity Again! Again! Under the crumb hunting mallards Slinky pike sweeps smoothly Through the murky shallows Seeking a lame duck, which Vanishes in two gulps with an apologetic plop The waterfowl scatter like Discovered pickpockets And the pike is a fish eating duckling On the repeatedly repainted park bench Thick with shiny variegated layers of green Is a man eating fish and chips Hot with eyewatering malt vinegar And so, so salty on tender lips The kid in day-glo Is still shouting But Dad is trying to Contain his anger in An argument on his mobile Again! Again! <<<
Rain
We didn’t go down to the beach Because of the rain We stayed in the van all day With it drumming on the thin roof I traced the drops with my finger as As they cried down the windows And I lost at draughts to my Gran Again and again (she took no prisoners) Until I was crying like the rain. ‘He has to learn about losing.’ She said to my mum But it would have been good To win Just once The sky cleared that night So we squelched in wellies Down to the smoky social club And I had a bag of Smith’s Square Crisps And a lemonade And Gran screamed at the wrestlers And smacked them with her handbag And I shouted: ‘Mind your blood pressure, Granma!’ And everybody laughed Next morning, it was raining again And you could barely see the sea So I got the Ludo out How can you lose every game of Ludo? That afternoon, braving the downpour We trudged down to Pleasureland My mum played the bandits And Gran won at Bingo. A lot. Her eyes twinkled And she pushed her top set out at me When no-one was looking I couldn’t stop laughing Outside it was still raining So we had some sad chips At the cafe with the Tartan Formica tables While we were waiting for the rain to stop It didn’t So eventually, we paddled back To the caravan park And my mum played her mum At cribbage Fifteen two Fifteen four A pair’s six And one for his nob Granma won Next morning, it was still raining So we decided to go home early It was raining when we got home, too. <<<
Sunshine
He dreaded walking down here But there was no other way home That didn’t take ages Halfway down the dim jennel Between two overgrown gardens Between two towering hedges In a pool of sodium orange A lean shadow leant against A rusted iron lamp post He saw the smile before anything A smile that was anything but benign ‘Hello Sunshine,’ The shadow smirked ‘What have you got for me tonight?’ And he gave up whatever he had Marbles (Hello Sunshine) Library books (Hello Sunshine) His gran’s shopping (Hello Sunshine) It didn’t matter what He had to pay his way Knowing the consequences Of non-payment would be painful He’d heard the tales Of other kids kicked and cut Bits taken Every time his unwilling legs Took him home this way He had to explain Where his James Bond Aston Martin Corgi replica Had gone What had happened to the bread The milk and the eggs Why he had such fines from The library? Until, after the shadow gave him A severe beating because he Had nothing to pay his passage He scrambled home on skinned knees Bloody, broken and tearful And screamed into his pillow ‘No more! No more!’ The following night Moonless and still He walked, tall, purposeful Toward the lean shadow He stopped, both of them Bathed in stark orange From the ancient lamp post There before the jennel Before the housing estate Way before, some said ‘Hello Sunshine,’ The shadow smirked ‘What have you got for me tonight?’ ‘I’ve got this for you!’ He screamed and pulled From his canvas haversack A football sock full of sand (He’d seen this on an episode Of The Untouchables, leaves no bruises, Apparently) But his plan went beyond bruises He hit the shadow again and again And he hit and he hit and he hit Until the sock was dark and stiff With blood Until the shadow lay, unmoving In a widening black stain In the unforgiving lamplight And he threw the sock Over a towering hedge and ran With the taste of metal panic In his throat Until he got home Pulses pounding In his temples Next night He walked from school The same way And halfway down the dim jennel Between two overgrown gardens Between two towering hedges In a pool of sodium orange A lean shadow leant against A rusted iron lamp post ‘Hello Sunshine,’ The shadow smirked ‘What have you got for me tonight?’ <<<
The Ciggie Machine
When they weren’t hedge-hopping Grand-Nationalling through Privet-enclosed estate gardens When they weren’t throwing lit bangers Into next door’s echoey concrete back yard Panicking the pigeons so they flew the coop And never came back When they weren’t tying string To the door knockers of every house On the terrace For the most comprehensive Knock ’n’ Run ever They were plotting and planning New misadventures New misdeeds New misdemeanours Like the time they set fire To a dogturd-filled brown paper bag On sour-faced old Mrs Middlewood’s Front step and rang the doorbell It was the funniest thing To see her dancing in dismay Shaking a stinky slipper at them Yelling ‘I’ll tell your dad!’ And she did And he grounded them For approximately forever So they took it in turns To pee in his shampoo And although he liked a drink He couldn’t understand (And didn’t like) The way his errant offspring Had taken to calling him Pisshead Forever, it turned out, was Just to the bitter end of The six-week holiday So after detention For gluing their dinner plates To the school dining room table They were sitting crosslegged On a flat garage roof On the service road Behind the shops On an unseasonally warm September evening Plotting and planning Their next escapade Stealing the ciggie machine Off the outside wall Of the corner shop Next morning September weather Was back to normal A red sky that was Warning all shepherds Of a rough day ahead None more so Than old Albert Shepherd Proprietor and owner Of Shepherd’s Corner Market In his mucky brown stockroom coat His beetle brow And wisp-fringed pate Looked from a distance More like a friar Than a shopkeeper Even though he’d never Harboured an ambition To run a fish and chip shop Anyway Albert had spent his whole life Being early After all No point in sleeping When there’s stuff to be done So he was always up with the light Sometimes before it And this particular sunrise Saw his monkish hairline Picked out in crimson and cerise As he peered out Of a jagged hole Where a black-tiled wall Used to be But not anymore And gone with it The ciggie machine To this day Nobody knows how they did it And they’ll never tell They’ve held on to this secret Tighter than nits to individual follicles The main question unanswered Such silent larceny? How could this be? Such rending and crunching? Such destruction? How could it go unnoticed ? All we know is this Over on the more abrasive side of town A reprobate known only As Mad George With eyes like fireflies Whose hands were old through grabbing And who never lost a fight Suddenly was selling Senior Service and Park Drive In a darkened corner of the Old Pig and Whistle After a chance encounter In the car park With a couple of rough-looking tweens Proffering an impressive bag of swag And maybe in somebody’s gran’s Corrugated Anderson shelter Behind the clay pots And the rusty bunk beds And the piles of mouldy blankets There was an empty stainless steel and glass box With a advert for Woodbines down one side Maybe But do you know what? Nobody ever found it. <<<
11 O’Clockers
They were always sitting out front On the heavy wooden picnic tables Waiting for me to open the doors The 11 o’clockers Lorcan, a slight and dapper Irishman Was invariably first through the doors He would slap his pound coin down On the bar for a pint of Younger’s Scotch bitter And would shout, raucous: ‘Tell me something I don’t know!’ Cackling like a hyena. Then there was Gerry A builder from the East End Hands always red with brick dust Who practically inhaled his first pint When questioned about this velocity He shrugged and said ‘Almost spilt one once.‘ Michael would rock up next He was a man so dull You could barely see him The barmaids would greet him With a hearty chorus of ‘Boring Micheal!’ every morning He never noticed And of course there was Brian Who the landlord called Brine Because he was permanently pickled We never served him He would shuffle into one of the Corner comfy chairs And never budged all day We never saw him leave But he was always waiting outside Next morning, with the rest of The 11 o’clockers <<<
Work Dread Walk
She had the heel-dragging certainty That it would all go awry at the office today And she would somehow be culpable Her bitch of a boss Excelled at convincing mendacity Could be caught crimson-handed With a knife handle-deep In some poor bastard’s back And still convince the cops it was suicide On a good day This was an idyllic early morning walk Mist-haloed streetlights Glittery paths Glistening hedgerow Blackbirds yawning and stretching Today was not a good day Today this alley stretches telescopically Like the corridor in Poltergeist And she would have to run with her eyes closed To get to the end To get to the office Clammy with perspiration Sick for a coffee Waiting for the hammer to fall For the call to the breakout room <<<