poems from skeward images nick armbrister 2007

 

LIFE

 

Life is like a spiral with people coming and going like sand blown in the wind. So many friends, lovers and hangers on. Some I needed let me down and flew away, others fucked me stupid and stuck like shit. I put it down to being human and the allegiances we make to ourselves and others. It has been a crazy year for me as so many changes have happened, some good, some bad. I came out of it in one piece and a better person, having been on a journey through the year. Now a new one dawns – what will it bring? 

 

 

 MY LIFE

 

So now I see life for what it is, a crazy collage of feelings, events and emotions we all endure. Today I saw my mate in Ward 10. Don’t you know that he nearly died as infection gorged his body? They took half of his insides out and he’s hanging in there. I have a truly eventful life – meeting pilots, gothic singers and tattooists. I have tried marriage, promiscuous sex, Class A drugs, reckless driving for that crazy buzz of madness – the wrong way to find happiness. The beauty of a delta wing killing machine floors me, and names like Mirage and Mig lift me to the heavens, for I have lived and seen many things in this fuck up called life which now seems to last forever but in reality is only a second. Debbie was my soulmate for a short period; every moment was times by ten, in intense excitement. I know it didn’t last but that’s the way it goes, in the game of life – my life.

 

 

 

KING FISHER HEART 1

 

I am turning to face the sun, ready to face her burning power. Will I be guided or blinded by her strong glare? Sometimes I falter in the game that is called life. I have many talents and I know quite a bit but there is always more waiting to be shown. I am like an eagle, majestic in flight, but life says that the eagle can fall so easily. I have a girl who is my king fisher heart: will she be mine – or will she fly away? We help each other when one is down, but what happens when we both fall? Life is an ocean with hidden dangers, the price of its beauty.

 

 KING FISHER HEART 2

 

I suppose it’s funny, the things that life throws at me, how it all goes to fuck by the slightest mistake! Am I destined to fail at everything I do, with defeat waiting in the wings to bring my eagle down? How does one know when a good day crashes down? I know many things but there’s always more just waiting to be shown. I have some scary weird dreams I don’t understand – maybe you can help me and make life that bit easier? You are my king fisher heart ready to fly away – like all I hold dear.

 

 

 

 TRAGIC FLIGHT

 

You feel like a wounded bird tumbling down from the heavens with a broken wing dragging you down. The sky spins around in a crazy swirl of emptiness, you’re falling so fast you seem to be standing still. You wonder what will it be like when you hit the earth, to become one with God. Will it hurt, will you suffer, or will it be so fast that you won’t even notice? Every spin on your broken wing is a look or a kiss with a stranger. When the ground strikes you down, is that the final fling or a crazy lustful fuck? Or could a miracle happen to fix your wounded wing so that you can fly again into the arms of your lover?

 

 ABDUCTEE

 

You’re a girl like no other ’cause of what you are. It’s not your fault that you got scared, cry at night or get so lonely in a crowd. Everyday you ask the same two questions: Why me? And when will they come for me? You get flashbacks of blinding pain and flashing strobe lights. So when the aliens abduct you and you feel it before it happens, you wish for death. Can no one see the alien ship as you float through your roof up to it? No one believes you when you say you’re an abductee – aliens don’t exist, they say – they’re just in our minds.

 

 

 

EVIL BITCH

 

The evil bitch in you has finally reared her ugly fuckin’ head! Now it’s the time to see just how strong our relationship really is, as we don’t give a fuck, do we, so we’ll hurt each other some more. I can’t even remember when it all started – was it that tart I kissed while pissed or your funny half breed ways, eyeing other lads up? It doesn’t matter now, ’cause we’re at war and I’m not gonna lose! Do you think that I’m beaten just ’cause I cried a bit? I’ll kick your ass if you do. I’m getting fed up with a partner like you, so I’ll look for another and have some more flings. Yes, I do love you but you can be replaced with another if that’s what it takes.

 

 LINE

 

It’s a fine line between victory and defeat. In the heat of battle do you know which is which? Think of the difference between genius and insanity, when does a brilliant mind fall over the edge? If someone spreads rumours between you and your girl, who do you believe? This is the game of life, when a wrong becomes a right and vice versa. We all go from one extreme to the other, at some point. The silly thing is that we should know when to stop but we never do, do we? Just one more affair or one more stolen car. In the end it doesn’t matter because we are all as bad as each other. You see, we don’t know what we had until it is gone – in this rock pool of life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHICK IN A TRUCK

 

Saw you parked up in your flash new wagon, with your chick at your side. She’s got a lithe little body in her tight jeans and skimpy top. And her eyes let it all out, saying we fuck all night good and slow. Yes, I know what you do in those quiet truck stops at night! Was she good and is she tight? ’cause if she is, I want a go! I want to feel her tight little arse buck up and down and feel my hot spunk shoot right up her.

 

 

 

HUMAN SPIRIT

 

What a life, running on twin rigid train tracks going to a certain point but how easy it is to come off then end up hurt! You see, this is life and we are all in it together coping how we can to do our bit. I do things differently than you. Sometimes I succeed while others I fail. At least when I’m down I can say I’m not the only one. There are others who end up off the rails now and again. We pick ourselves up and try again, using the knowledge we’ve learned to do it right. I like to laugh and have some fun, especially at Xmas to remember the good times, to forget the bad. It’s the human spirit that really matters and I say to you, don’t ever forget it.

 

 

 

 DELTA BIRD

 

A sleek dart shooting across the heavens, punching a hole through the clouds. The sun blinds the angels on this, the new dawn as the Mirage rises to meet God; on a hammerhead turn the pilot turns his plane to dive to earth. All below are woken from their slumber as he goes past Mach 1. Soon he is gone to his faraway base with his sleek warbird that has the looks of a goddess and the speed of lightning and the power of the devil.

 

MISCHIEF

 

I’m a pilot of a fast jet flying low over Oldham town pushing my bird to the limit, max power and low level flight. Fuck the people down below, I go supersonic at a hundred feet, nothing has ever gone this fast, seven hundred and sixty miles an hour! All of the windows go through with my supersonic shockwave. It’s here comes Nick with a wing hanging low! Watch out! The houses are near. Too near and I crash and burn, wrecking half the town in a jetblast of jet fuel and house brick. But I ejected and I’ll be back soon with another plane to do it all over again to wreck the other half!

 

 

 

HAVOC

 

The A20 Havocs scream over Holland at fifty feet looking for trouble in their game of death, they attack the canal network, a flight of six planes. Turning tightly they start their runs, shooting tracer shells that rip open the flimsy barges. In a huge blast the ammo load goes up, taking a plane with it, falling debris and bits of fire, nothing more. Yet it doesn’t matter – the others release their bombs turning a dozen of the beetle-like transport barges into matchwood. Attacking the canal wall, they breach it in three places, water running over the fields like a rampaging storm tide. Nazi gunfire fans out across the sky, reaching for the planes, claiming another one for their daring air raid, still a success. German Army supplies destroyed, no more food and bullets for the enemy troops – worth six men and two planes, the price of war.

 

GREY

 

Grey plane rising, in the sky, grey plane in the sky, looking for a way, out to the West, homeward bound, lost in time. But his quest is pointless, his journey futile yet he chooses to believe, blinded by ignorance. Leaden clouds guide him, all motion stopped dead. Nothing except the judgement of himself, why, when, where? His aircraft is no time machine, incapable of mending broken love. All it can do is take and destroy what some hold dear, till it’s gone. Soon he’ll be there dreaming of here, of a place of his own and a complete circle. In his mind’s eye all is okay but reality brands him a desolate wanderer, living in the past. All he has is nothing and a broken life. When she sees him there, what will she think? Will she risk her new life to talk to the past?

 

 

 

JUMP 1

 

Never been so scared in my young life! I want my mother but she is dead – please someone help me. I don’t want to die in the flames in a blazing metal coffin. I struggle form my position wondering where is my ’chute? It’s only a minute before the plane goes up and I’m gone like the others. It’s so full of holes and through them I see the burning wing. Cant get my ’chute, blocked by the fire! God, I’m so hot, I don’t want to die. Not yet, not like this! I want to be with my mum, I know I will be soon. I turn my turret around and stare at the flaming city below… We did that, we are responsible for all of that… if I don’t jump now I never will…

 

 JUMP 2

 

Arse over tit into the black void I go, leaving behind a blazing Lancaster and my parachute. I fall so fast with an icy wind tugging at my clothes. Don’t know which way is up except where the city is. Hours seem to pass by before I die but not yet ’cause the trees fly into me and I’m spun into the snow, knocking the shit out of me and my God I’m alive!

 

 

 

SPITFIRE BRIDE

 

It was long ago in a time of war when I was young, I can’t believe it was part of my life, but yes it was, that I’m sure. You see, I was a Spitfire bride due to be married later that day. He flew before dinner and got two bombers. I was so proud – my man was a fighter pilot at only 21. As they flew off again I couldn’t wait to see him again but he never came home – he died by a Messerschmitt’s guns. He has no known grave except in the summer skies of long ago. I never did love again – I’m hoping one day he’ll come home. Till then I’m a Spitfire bride.

 

 GHOSTS

 

Remembering a ferocious machine with a shark face painted on its nose, bearing those deadly guns like vicious teeth. Of brown and tan colours to hide it against the flat European terrain, hunting Germans at three hundred miles an hour, attacking anything that moved until it was dead. The roar of engines and the detonation of bombs, hiding the scream of the wounded in the cacophony of war. If you shoot this warbird down, another ten will take its place. Now Europe ripples with the memory of war, of the twin-engined Yankee attack planes taking on the Nazis and freeing Europe from tyranny. Peace reigns – but for how long?

 

 

 

PICKLE

 

I’m thinking of becoming a hermit living away from this wicked world with all of the temptations it brings. I want a life with my girl and no one else but all of these other girls float on by asking to be touched like some children’s plaything. Wouldn’t it be good to control your brain, your urges and desires? People can do it most of the time except for the once when lust beats everything. Life is a pickle knocked out of its jar.

 

BRIGHT NIGHT

 

Maybe this time we’ll succeed and get it right, maybe this time all of the bad things will be out of sight, maybe this time man won’t bicker and fight, maybe this time our star will rise and shine ever so bright, maybe this time our love will survive the next time tonight, maybe this time our friendship will climb to a new height, maybe this time I won’t run because of my own fright, I hope this time we all do it because it’s all right.