Warmth

She puts her hand on the radiator
every time she passes by.

I hear it from all the way upstairs,
when her wedding ring taps

against the glossed metal,
the sound of it makes me smile.

She is never really cold, not really,
she just fears that, one day,

she might be,
and she is not prepared for that.

 

Matt Nicholson is a poet and performer from East Yorkshire…a very cultured place of late.  His latest collection, We are not all blessed with a hat-shaped head, was published by Kings England Press in April 2018. http://www.kingsengland.com/we-are-not-all-blessed-with-a-hat-shaped-head-c2x25917079  Twitter: @mattpoethull

221 Pershore Road – sometime in the early 90’s
 
Waking from those too fast,
ashtray-kissed nights,
to days that fizzed
too loud, like cherryade,
to days that were almost
and yet already done.

Sitting there, in sunshine,
on brick-burst, red-dust walls,
we swung legs
in cocky syncopation
with soft, imagined,
half-learned beats.

And today,
when our song broke into my chest,
staining ragged jeans once more
with lichen and brick-dust,
I made mosaic of shining memories
from old notebooks and glue,

for my half-remembered
you.

 

Matt Nicholson is a poet from East Yorkshire…where the culture comes from…His collection “There and back to see how far it is” was published by King’s England Press in October 2016. (http://www.kingsengland.com/there-and-back-to-see-how-far-it-is-c2x21548033) Twitter:@MattPoetHull

An allotment of minutes
 
There is a man here,
working a walled garden.
Turning soil,
he makes decisions about the weeds,
about what is fit for compost,
to grow better weeds next year.

He fights the kettle in his shed
and conjures unpotable tea,
he remarks upon you and me,
under rusting, screw-thread breath,
that we are the wasters of days,
trespassing on his hours.

The blister on his spade hand
is at that point in its journey
where it might harden to a callous
or burst like an angry star.
Pausing, he spits into his ringing palm,
rubbing filthy hands together.

By noon, when the birds sleep,
he has forgotten about us, watching.
He is lost in the version of the world
that he governs as best he can.
Executing febrile plans,
he makes allies of the elements.

His day, the old man working,
unlike ours, the wasters watching,
will end up with an aching back
and a tale of unused time.

 

Matt Nicholson is a poet from East Yorkshire…where the culture comes from…His collection “There and back to see how far it is” was published by King’s England Press in October 2016. (http://www.kingsengland.com/there-and-back-to-see-how-far-it-is-c2x21548033) Twitter:@MattPoetHull