The Complete Nick Armbrister Poetry
Collection 1996 - 2013
QUESTION MARK
Bad day coming here round the corner to get me.
Repetitive comeuppance for my dark thoughts
and my lonely life, all in a circle. To break
this I need: a decent job I like with good pay
and suitable hours, lots of love in my relationship
with a special love life, all mine. Too much to ask
it seems, in my mouldy flat in Oldham,
my relationship on the edge due to no real love life.
No rumpy pumpy for me, so do I find a lover
to end my frustrations? Fate will rule the outcome
and guide me: where I end up is a question mark.
FLAT, ALIVE
Nature’s vibrant garden is alive in my flat.
Tell me why, my pagan gods and goddesses,
why I have such a diverse area of wildlife and culture,
for I have seen spiders as big as my hand – made me scream!
Small baby slugs yesterday, washed them away – cant kill babies!
I destroy large crawlers like earwigs, large slugs, beetles and spiders.
My soul is tormented by all of this: hey Mother Nature, why is all this
wildlife in my flat? Back to nature? Screw my head up and show me my
pagan
faith, not to mention the mould and damp ruining my decorating and doing
my head in even more—all alive in my flat!
STABLE LIFE
Irrational thoughts trying to upset my mind rising
up from my psyche to cause havoc in my waking hours.
But I wont let them: I’ve declared war on my unstable
upsetting irrational thoughts. No more flashbacks or fears
of future pain at my hands due to irrational thoughts.
I must never act on them: I know this for sure.
So it time for my psyche to listen to my commonsense
to stop my mind playing tricks on me, so I can have a stable life.
HUN 1
Deck of Glorious rising up and down,
anymore and we can’t launch.
See my mates fly off—now it’s me!
Full throttle and my Gladiator is up
and away, biplane wings biting the air,
Norway bound to kill the Hun.
What! No airfield with neat grass strip,
petrol bowsers, NAAFI shop? Are you nuts?
Where do we land? On a farm track or hidden
beach, a road in a town? No! On a frozen lake.
One metre of ice to be a concrete pad.
See the snow white lake frozen solid
over the mountains, past a forest?
Coming down, I see my mates over there—
no one bought it so I’ll land okay.
Defend Norway from the evil Hun!
HUN 2
Our little biplanes stand at the edge of the ice lake
ready to launch to hit the Luftwaffe, Germany’s elite.
Wind blows down the valley whistling and singing
over our fragile planes. A flare goes up
and we rush to our planes, engines warmed up
by our trusty mechanics. Start up,
taxi over ice, bumpy ride but not too bad.
Just think a hundred and thirty metres of water
under us in the middle of our lake.
Power on, we head for the sky,
not a bad idea – ice lake runway.
When an enemy target? Into the sky battle bound.
Clear blue hangs over us so real it looks false.
Past valley, over another, see the Hun!
Time for battle in our biplane fighters.
HUN 3
No radar to see them, no Spitfires here.
A couple of observers sit on a mountain,
spot the Hun, get on the shortwave:
“Here they come!” I head for the enemy,
green crosses against a blue sky, white ground.
Don’t you know a Stuka is as fast as my kite?
So I, we, have to be quick. Dive down
get a Heinkel 111 in my sights,
fire my guns, turn away. A kill?
My mates follow me to get some hits,
time for another attack before they bomb
our frozen base. We got three that day
but lost two planes on the ground with five men
killed on our moonscape lake.
Move to a fresh bit, do it all again.
MY MATES’ FUN
My mate said to me he’s a nice guy and he needed
to find some girls to have some casual sex
with and a bit of adult fun.
He is so open minded and adult,
I’m amazed at how he describes it.
His hard work is to lure a girl—
he’s still looking after only asking a few
but one is interested in fucking him.
He’ll see how it goes, he says.
He wants to join a swingers’ club
but he cant afford the membership:
he’s sure he’ll like it when he does.
Anything for the chance to make love
to other girls. His ex never let him:
why they split, make love, not war.
I await his adventures with twitching ears.
THIS CITY
This life, this people, this city.
All living in a certain geographical area – here, this city.
Dying eventually, one day which only God knows.
Today under a tram or of old age.
This city with many names, is it like your city?
I know you were a cold war target, so were we.
People make love, fight, laugh, cry
in your city just like in my city.
You have been bombed, so have we.
Quick, dig them out! Shall we join them
and fuck them, their corpses cant say no!
Go to see a Goth band, add our own
little histories to a history of this city?
FOR
A heart aches almost in pain for the longing of a girl,
of a simple girl
who could be a plain image in his mind
due to distance that is physical.
Of his love for her it’s a joint thing inseparable
and continuous.
This makes it harder for him due to the miles,
he is lonely now.
Almost with tears in his eyes.
Oh, you should be here to soothe me and make me feel wanted.
Chase my demons away, never let me be alone again.
Of all the girls who have been before he loves
the most vulnerable, most fragile.
She is like him but not. He will ache
inside for a thousand years to get just one kiss.
To make love a second time, he was her first.
In this the throw away 21st century world
she means something to him that he struggles
to put into mere limiting words.
HOME = FUTURE
Living in a concrete shell put together like a rice crispy box
full of mould and damp with insects to piss me off
and stress me out.
Part of the 20+30 generation with no future.
You ain’t got the qualifications,
so you can’t have a well paid job
to feed your wife and six kids and pay for a good life.
Stay on the social. So you stay with a broken
life in a flat leaking light sockets, sparked
two of your kids already, health taking mould
giving your wife asthma, until you croak.
March or die or whither away? Not me,
going to be with myAlison, my Mexican Firebird.
One slight hope and the road to the future.
She believes and I believe, engaged to be married
to my alternative chick one fine day. Hope.
BOX
What’s in a box?
Is there a chance that this small box
I have here is the key to my future,
that I will need nothing more in my life ever again?
No job juggling numbers of paying bills
and skimping for food.
No dreams of holidays or getting a car.
All I need is here in my box,
8 by 6inch of cardboard one inch deep.
I open it and find this pad here with this pen.
I do this poem, the poem that will change my future for ever.
What’s in your box?
Credit cards, God, jewellery or other riches?
Open it and find out.
I have the key to my future right here,
out of my box—a book and a pen, nothing more.
COCK SUCKER
Come here to me now, only you are my girl.
Call me by my rude name known only to you,
By you. Spank my arse hard. Up till now you
Make me cum and taste my hot spunk.
Knickers on the floor, yours. Enrich your life,
Suck me. Right now you do it, love it.
CIRCLE TREE
I see a small tree in the middle of a city sprawl.
Concrete surround tries to hide delicate green leaves,
rusty iron railings vie for rain to rust arm thick trunk. Support.
A finger up to Man’s straight lines and dirty office blocks.
New green leaves spring forth in Spring,
trying to live in a seasonless place.
I sit under thin sparse leaves wondering
if any more trees will ever be here?
To end this loneliness and make a pair,
be almost human. Breed, family?
You just need yourself, not more trees.
An island of a single tree, here in the city.
One symbol of my Pagan religion, of life.
Not to your capitalist money grabbing ways,
mobiles, filofax, fast car and more in your ineffective
short life.
Cut this tree down, it will live on in mine and people’s memories.
“Look, that’s where that tree was all on its own, I remember it now.”
COME ACAN
Not her time to die but she is threatened by an enemy
of bad proportions that show no mercy in his word of actions.
If he meets me, what will he do to me, me to him?
Final battle, blood on the floor, whose?
Now point of the needle, all are drawn together in this, a war.
Me, my partner, her mates and others all on his computer,
nasty emails and text messages – “Ill kill her,
throw her in the river. I have a gun and ill use it,
not scared of being in trouble.”
I turn to what I believe in, call upon Freya
of Norse mythology witchcraft.
Protect me and my gal, let justice be done.
Vengeance against you, our enemy,
must be against the law but whose law?
Freya’s, man’s or mine? Lines in the snow
random and haphazard soon to be an end game.
Will we win, die or end up in another place?
My call is justice, an eye for an eye
all the fuckin’ way, no surrender, not ever.
The old fashioned Pagan way, my way.
Our enemy a Wicca man? Come acan.
EPIPHANY ON THE EDGE
The weight of the world on a spider’s web.
Everything is relative, life force flows in each blade of glass.
In each house is a guy or a gal just like me.
I see them from the Edge. This epiphany is mine.
Soon to leave my northern lands, south bound.
Writing to where? Autumn views from
Oldham Edge. When will I return?
ENDURE TOGETHER
Weight of the world bears down on me,
nothing to do but to endure and come out
of this the other side. A series of glimpses away –
dream world almost. I will get there this time,
oh haven’t I tried so many times before all for nothing.
Now at this point – start a new life here in my head
but I am restless. I want it now. She patiently waits
for me for something special we have, ours.
Threats are numerous, nasty John is there
with his threats to kill and a toy gun.
A psychotic jealous hacker.
And Matt, who are you then?
Taking my fiancée out for a drink
Saturday night, I await and see what happens.
Try it on or a mate to her?
But you asked her to stay over, exactly why?
Adds to my unease, it will pass
but so will my view on you.
Days are a lead burden to be endured,
then me and her together.
HEY ALANIS
Sing me a song of life and times together,
do me a guitar ballad of mesmerising heart strings
being pulled ever so delicately.
My end game here in this town of a quarter of a million,
to a city 28 times bigger. Got me a girl and a job
and a future down there, what my own home town failed
to give me, of how it failed me ever so bad.
Not due to my efforts so I’ll move on.
Hey Alanis, what is the chorus about?
Will Nick crump and boing his efforts like a spaz
or succeed to be one with his life to all come together from there?
Always controversial, gothic by nature,
a writer who only wants to write.
To make love to his girl and be respected for himself.
MY PROMISE
This my ultimate sacrifice, never call me a selfish person,
never dare laugh at me or say I don’t have the balls.
You see when I die by whatever means, my own hand
when it gets bad or by an enemy who gets one upon on me,
if my own corpse isn’t crushed to a pulp or burnt
to a cinder then I will do this from beyond the grave.
I promise to give my life to others. They may not be gothic
or tattooed or a witch but by taking a part of my still warm corpse
into them, I’ll give my life to them.
By my wish from 1999, by carrying a donor card
I promise life to others.
Don’t ever dare call me selfish,
this I promise for the unfortunate ones.
TINNED AREA
Menace in a supermarket coming to a store near you,
all of it now in real surreal experience.
Now I hide as my mind descends to that of a child
like depths where only an innocent’s night terrors dwell.
I build a hide of tins on the shelf to keep eyes
of physical terror out of my view.
Yet they see me behind my Heinz 57 beans,
sense my presence as they rape my mind.
Defenceless yet again this is my lot as I hide
in the dark on a narrow shelf in a supermarket.
Crazy spectres are the only customers, me the only purchase.
KAHLIA’S MISSION
All white moonshine heroine spectral gaze
of needle point stars lighting your way to holy city.
Streamlined like a wraith, as silent as the earth,
aviation fuel blood in your veins.
Calm pilot at your controls, autopilot plotting
your doomsday course to a target over the horizon.
One small bomb recessed under your white belly,
large destructive power for one million dead.
Back to their base gasses, atomised.
Not long now, digital clock ticks away the start
of Kahlia Akasha’s nuclear bomb
run on an innocent Iranian city.
What price World War 3?
No innocents on a planet of guilty people.
FOREVER POND
Gonna jump into the pond in my garden
down towards forever.
I see it crystal clear shimmering
like the very air on a winter’s day.
Love hearts stuck onto fragile flesh
mark my passage but yours is time,
stands time, as water flows and light sparkles
as distance is unwanted, direction is unknown.
On my way to you, wonder idly,
are you as fiery as Italian girl
in northern mill town over 50 years ago?
Set this water aflame
burn hydrogen atoms
in chemical nuclear fire by one glance.
Pull me down, surface lost, not known where
so I end up by your side together
in my forever pond caught in time
of no days, a year for our timeless love.
ACRONYM
An acronym for this, an acronym for that.
RTA, road traffic accident, metal meat grinder
crushing pulping raw red flesh.
Watch the skies and blink twice, was that a UFO?
See the little green men loop their unidentified flying object,
of course you imagined it.
You should feel safe protected by NATO
from the enemy whoever he is.
Yet there is no Soviet Union, so do we need
the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation?
To organise what exactly?
Pick your own acronym, flashy or boring,
the choice is yours.
LANDSCAPE TOGETHER
Memories become reality, events are lucid
and ongoing as brown haired girl stares thru
her frizzy hair, it’s not fair!
It’s too deep – do I like the girl?
Is your sister weird too?
Are you so weird too?
Maybe you doubt my love for you,
a foreign landscape dwarfs you,
diminishes you, makes you nothing but a girl.
You ask me my view, I reply
you’ll have to make up your own mind.
A million pretty girls have walked this land,
most are dead now. Their beauty heart stopping,
their country wordless, timeless.
We go to triple north deep fjords, midnight sun,
hazy skies of Freya. You invoked such a girl
in our spell on our enemy,
one day I, we’ll go to such shores.
To Viking lands, Leaves Eyes music,
Tristania and Mortiis. No mere girl can encompass
my love for you or a beauty you have yet to see.
Take you to frozen lake where biplanes flew
and fought against Nazi enemies.
A beauty rather indescribable but from your soul,
see it with me and you’ll understand.
INSERT HERE _____
You’re a hacker, a bully, a fraudster, everything and more.
You have your own reasons in that twisted upside down head
of yours, pulsating with zeros and ones.
I ask you why and all I get is you want her back. Nothing more.
Are we to play guessing games why you stole her money,
joined a dating agency? Do you hope to meet a girl like her
and do you dare dream you’ll have her back? Not in your lifetime.
Insert here _____ your reason why you do this hacking and intimidation.
Got you on the cops’ radar, do you for assault, stalking and fraud.
Is that it? When will you stop? Maybe a magic spell will snail clip
your wings and karma repay your wicked ways.
Insert reason here, tell us why you do it.
