WordSalad: The Poetry of Luke Prater

Where did you go to Melanie Brown?
Did you ever return?
Did your hands get burned?
Nice to know you, Melanie Brown
nice to show you round.

Took your wanting wan nightgown
pills, and rock CDs
Ridgie, Ruth and me
friends you made that term in town
friends, they let you down?

Left on sullied mid-heeled ground
your looks, and college books.
Travestied; too many cooks.
That stinging, scuppered blue-eyed frown
shakysmileme down.

Do they still try it on, come round
gangle lank-haired boys
surreptitious ploys
to steal that sorry blue-eyed frown,
like they did that term in town?

Not a place of great renown -
fast-dance saloon -
cried, like Syd, for the moon
we tried not to let you drown
in pools of Melanie Brown.

Were you flipped like half-a-crown
hung up on highs and whys
fed up being fed mud pies?
Was there any joy that term in town
before you went on down?

Where did you go to Melanie Brown?
Did you ever return?
Did your tongue get burned?
Nice to know you, Melanie Brown
nice to show you round.

✩

A Modern Ballad about a girl I knew in my first term/semester at University (Autumn/Winter 1998). Written in 2004, originally blogged 2010, reposting as it’s had a thorough overhaul for meter and phrasing.

Also celebrating 100,000 visitors to my blog (unique visitors count that resets every 24 hrs). Seems like just the other day I decided to sully a pristine WordPress page with my iambic innards. Hard to believe it was in fact April 2010. Thank you all for the support… hugely appreciated.

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Olfactory affront in the old factory,
saw cockroaches and rats in the refectory;
blue-collar ghosts eat jam and toast with Tetley’s tea
and wail about their Class.

Been forty years since they (who are they?) shut us down,
as births and deaths have come and gone, like half-a-crown.
The sainted Union let us fall without a sound
and left us on our arse.

Red never rose the way we wished, like Che, it would,
Red never showed its blistered face for any good,
Red only took, purloined a man of livelihood;
George Orwell had it clear.

Unlock these iron doors, let daylight purge this tomb,
unbar the windows, shift the hulks, machine and loom.
Sweep out the dust that beds down thick, and use this room -
our time has ended here.

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His sleep was stirred before the
burgeoning of dawning sun.
Year upon year he rose

from a rude martial bed before
the barrack’s early morning run:
good cough, good smoke; first of many.

This gentle Northern lad defied
the constant warning signs
that hacked at him in packets daily.

Never questioning, but wary
of Sergeant’s friendly-fire, and
a field of land-mines.

Solace lay in early morning’s
dawning peace, a mute elation wed with
nicotine and tar. Supine he stayed.

An old, well-thumbed copy of
The Prophet travelled with him;
Gibran’s words and Lady Nicotine

were sanity amid the genocide,
civil war, refugee camps;
women and child rape-victims

inseminated with hate and HIV,
continents dark seas away
with a dour NATO regiment.

Sitting with ineffable inhumanity, a
packet of fags, and an old,
well-thumbed copy of The Prophet,

the savagery skulked and crept
into his skull beneath the
standard-issue helmet. On return

from service, he began to pen all
that he saw: simple, truthful,
botched backalley-abortion raw.

Nightmares of the Congo’s bloody
internecine ruin recurred, compelling
him like some demonic Muse.

Lady Nicotine his love-hate Queen,
calming, clearing,
reassuring.

Blackened lungs surrendered;
asphyxiated bit by bit, no cards, flowers
or relations sat by that rude, medical bed.

Just an old, well-thumbed copy of The Prophet.

☆

A sonneted version of this piece, Supine, can be found here

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Can you find your way home, Prometheus
From that mountain grey?
That speck in the sky there is Icarus
Reaching for the sun as he may
Will you find your way?

Can you find your way home, Prometheus
From that mountain grey?
Like some other Odysseus
Returning home from the fray?
Will you find your way?

Can you find your way home, Prometheus?
Treeless hills all look the same
If you think to emulate Romulus
Rome wasn’t built in a day
Will you find your way?

Can you find your way home, Prometheus?
When you get there, what will they say?
“Here comes that fool puer aeternus
Who would turn night into day”
Will you find your way?

Can you find your way home, Prometheus
From that mountain grey?
That drowned body beached there is Icarus
The sun too close, too far away
Can you find your way home, Prometheus?
Will you find your way?

☆

In Ancient Greek Mythology, Prometheus, one of the Titans (brother of Atlas, among others), stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals on Earth. The God’s wrath was severe indeed for this daring act of benevolence: Prometheus was chained to a mountain and a large eagle came daily, eating out his liver, which grew back only to be torn out again the next day. Some years on, Herakles (Hercules) would kill the eagle and free the mighty prisoner, captive to his own well-intended overreaching.

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There’s something sad about Alice
she sits there sipping her tea
half-gone the cup
half-gone the eyes
listens to the song of the sea
rocks with a bend of her knee, on the
porch of her weatherboard palace.

There’s something sad about Alice
her gaze runs away to the trees
pale soft the skin
pale green the eyes
lashes that long to fly free
won’t you flutter them just once at me?
Sweet indifference is what becomes Alice.

There’s something sad about Alice
slips to her caravan to sleep
cold dark the night
cold dark the bed
listens to the song of the sea
rocks with a bend of her knee, and
collects her tears in a chalice.

There’s something sad about Alice
leaving today for the city
large white the van
large white the man
who takes her away to fly free
away from the song of the sea
away from her weatherboard palace.

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