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Night Caller

Raoul Izzard, Sr

Night Caller

  by

  Raoul Izzard

  Copyright 2014 Raoul Izzard

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of

  the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial

  purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their

  own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support. The

  picture featured on the cover is a modified version of Muralla romana amb llum.

  Author –SBA73, Source – Flickr, License – Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

  Table of Contents

  Happy Hour

  Mr John

  The Cat and the Sun

  Off the Shelf

  Night Caller

  The Open Secret

  Full of It

  Minotaur

  Parents, live at the living room, 26th may, 2013

  Tough Puppy Love

  Wish

  Chambers

  I say, I say, I say Shakespeare sonnet

  S001 Introduction to Art

  Boys,

  Enter your life here

  Passengers

  Jane, 16

  E&K Verse

  Welcome to the cheap seats

  Laika comes home

  Pincushion heart

  Learning a 2nd language

  John Doe, drowned

  About the author

  Happy Hour

  The pint pots slosh from hand to hand,

  Heads wavy full of hum and whir.

  You need two hands to grip one true,

  And yet your fingers fail to touch.

  Inside, it's like the night before,

  A foamy mist, a firm hearth warmth,

  The Tudor joists above a raging fire,

  And brass that glimmers in its light.

  You swallow down your share of liquid pride,

  A hearty stranger thumps your back and laughs.

  Beware, he'll lamp you if you spill what's his,

  And fertilize the shoes and stubs beneath.

  A throng of drinkers raise their hands and point,

  Some get their girl to go ahead and bawl

  Until the last bell rings, provokes a scrum

  For taxis. In the frost, some huddle close,

  Some fight, some kiss, some hope. They all will flee,

  The night afire as they light up their cigs.

  Mr. John

  The sharpening stone has sung the blade to shine

  so when he swings

  it bites into the tree.

  Atop a limb, he sits to bring it down

  in carpet slippers,

  in an old string vest.

  We called him Mr. John, his milky eyes,

  an easy welcome from his worn doorstep,

  Jim Reeves and morning worship on TV.

  He felled our tree to stem its fall leaves spree

  and bagged it up

  then shuffled back inside.

  The Cat and the Sun

  The warmest spot is where our tabby's sat,

  and where he's been, unhooked upholstery is.

  He yearns to tear the sun a strip. Enraged,

  he leaps as sunbeams flit the wall, and strikes

  as man once struck at shadow without name.

  The Cockscomb tongue, and errant dabbing paw

  present themselves like guests come to a feast,

  and to and fro they dance his fur to sheen,

  bestilling him. With talons sheathed, he sleeps.

  Off the Shelf

  The tape is slowly peeling off

  The gummed up, gaping centerfold

  Whose love has pinned her up

  Against the wall.

  No fortune, but herself laid out.

  No tarot, but a double-spread.

  In shots, we watch the stars,

  A frieze of flesh.

  Last week's brew-up now all stewed

  And what's not stuck with grease

  Will fall. The little space

  where Debbie, 20, reigned.

  Amazing how a camera

  Enamours us so we devour

  A girl, a daughter,

  Being, metaphor.

  Night Caller

  Dark was the night that it harvested

  Souls. Oh, the guttering knell of the

  harvester’s call was as chilling as

  ice in a fridge’s cool box and it

  chilled like a Mocha and it quoth ME-OW

  ME-OW, ME-OW, ME-OW

  Oh, it chilled like a Mocha and it quoth ME-OW.

  Dread was each claw in each paw of dire

  Jess, for it reaped as it pounced on each

  little mouse chest, with a flick of its

  tail like the passing of fate, and it

  gutted them clean with a soul-wrenching

  ME-OW

  Oh, ME-OW, ME-OW, ME-OW

  For it gutted them clean with a soul- wrenching ME-OW!

  The Open Secret

  His props: the tracksuit and the silver hair

  those chunky gold chains and cigar in hand

  We never knew him, though he was well-known

  Iconic, humoured like the River Thames

  This TV uncle with an undertow

  A hedonist who pawed, and groped, and raped

  Children

  In hospitals, on cruises, in care homes

  An alibi of causes he ran for

  An oddball floating safe in rumor's tide

  Who died a knight, until the water dropped

  Revealing reeds, an empty mould-green cot.

  Full of it

  The milk he's gurgling down

  inflates my son

  soon like his bottle

  he will shake me up

  when he can crawl

  and come his school report

  so when he tells me:

  "Dad, you're full of shit."

  I'll think back on those nappies

  how I changed

  those panda nights

  I cupped him to my breast

  my mewling bobblehead

  tanked up on gas

  and I will answer:

  Son, not shit, just hope."

  Minotaur

  As the city grows

  and feasts,

  bursting roads

  like arteries,

  I joust at notes

  with hoops of China cups

  and wonder at

  the doubtless Minotaur.

  Parents, live at the living room, 26th may, 2013

  She peels the spuds, he puts the kids to bed.

  She holds him close, he opens up the fridge,

  and winking at her, he pulls out two beers.

  The whisper of the ring pull, and the hiss

  are like a balm to them of cool dock leaves,

  or suntan lotion in between the toes.

  She walks to the piano, grabs the stool,

  and rolls it round. It squeaks as she sings off,

  and laughs the weight of worry from her face.

  He strikes a pose and makes a pelvic thrust,

  and growling low, he pats his sweaty brow,

  and just before they pull into a clinch,

  their daughter's face appears before the door.

  She says she cannot sleep, the monster's back,

  and it is bigger than it ever was.

  "Come here my love, we'll soon put stop to that."

  "Don't worry, pet, your dad will heat your milk,

  and when he's done he'll tuck you up in bed."

  and with these words do 'mum' and 'dad' become

  a harbor from which she will have to drift

/>   and list to port to load her ships with dreams.

  Tough Puppy Love

  Puppy pulls ahead

  or pulls a pause to

  sniff some mutt's

  behind. People say

  she's dominant, she

  don't respect me,

  I do dog wrong:

  wrong tone of voice

  too tightly leashed, not

  tough enough.

  she wants to

  play and they sidle

  out of reach, leaving

  me biting at the leash

  .

  Wish

  Listen, yeah about last night.

  You said: "Nor even lucent kindness

  can surplant a debt." I bit

  into the cheese-filled pizza base,

  and wished I had not cadged

  your only cigarette.

  Chambers

  In the dark, they wait

  propped up wax and metal

  beneath the stitched on,

  posed to remind us of

  a key moment in our lives

  on the evening news.

  The silence is cut glass

  losing its edge as

  the visitors sidle in

  past the cordon's division,

  point at the acid-bath,

  and the piffling man.

  It's us intruding on

  this wartime scene:

  rations, blackouts,

  and V2 bombings as

  World War two trickles

  to a sludge. History

  is all-clear, neutered

  suited, and shiny booted.

  Its border guards usher,

  us, the stragglers onto

  the reproduction section.

  We go all quiet.

  I say, I say, I say Shakespeare sonnet

  "My dog does smell, although he has no nose;

  he smells not less, though nought he has that whiffs:

  there's empty space, but yet his scent still shows,

  and that is all I really have to tell."

  "Please tell me how he smells, so we may talk

  of mysteries that science fences off.

  Like Samson when the barber shed his locks,

  does your pup hold within his nasal sense?

  Like Io, Zeus into a cow transformed,

  is he all dog, though dogged eyes tell else?

  Like Sisyphus, condemned to boulder push,

  is will so strong his lack makes him not weaker?

  Without a nose, how does your strange dog smell?"

  "To tell you straight, he smells quite terrible."

  S001: Introduction to Art

  Week one: Wallow in hallucinations.

  Be that bum who always strips at parties,

  who corners the painter who talks about truth.

  Be the last to leave, then go to your Art.

  Week two: Be that crook who never pays his bills.

  Surface from bed wooed by Whiskey on Krispies.

  Bite the heads off flowers simply for the thrill.

  True Art is in dissecting TV series.

  Week three: Spread your palette on a pizza box.

  Spin your brush 'tween fingers, your Samurai sword.

  Email the painter: