PERMISION TO WRITE
Can I write an epistolary novel
on this pale working-class girl
groomed like an estate princess
with Primark’s luxuries then raped
in a circle by men of faith who offer
bargain booze when it’s over then
drop her by an empty shopping centre?
Of course not, the subject isn’t allowed.
You ask is that fair? Study their culture.
Britain’s rapacious rule of India where
a diamond was taken. Don’t bother me
with innocence, such natives have none.
Summer days when she swung up for the sky,
pushed by those who loved her and let her fly?
Just read my report, there’s nothing to say.
You fester in anger as this story drifts away.
I worry if my daughter with a penis which
swings between her legs will ever play
football that’s not ridiculed or swim races
leading the pack. You want other concerns?
Which pronouns go on badges, how to address
students who are trans in Year 7 plus bipolar
then develop global-warming phobia when
a dealer gets killed in Minnesota or wherever.
I’m studying in my spare-time. I read
Times’ articles – two in Nature – and now
wear masks everywhere, including my car.
Such girls spread it vaping or in their tears.
DAYS WITH DARK WATER
Prose is too viscous, but I cannot paint;
my words will have to work. I saw her first
going in and out of shops, cars, buses.
Nothing to note but there must have been
something or I wouldn’t be writing. Maybe
it’s not how people stand, but in the way
they move from place to place, skittering,
showing nowhere feels safe.
‘Flitting’ is the word I wanted.
Tuneless whistling of a delivery man
summoning her like some sad bird to
its rattling cage bars. Absurd to have
such fancies, but she tottered around
his van then hopped in the back.
I’ll write my first letter:
Dear Young Lady who Flits,
How odd to address you as such!
I must not rush; this may be my
only chance. Stay slow and calm,
I’ll keep telling myself.
I fear you’re in danger;
you already know it.
Notice how I used a
semi-colon there as
I was once a teacher.
Men from the east are
crueller than any even
you may have met. In
a local garden centre
I bought a paperback on
the Mongol conquests.
I’d recommend The Works –
it’s not just for true crime or
books of different horoscopes.
I don’t think those migration
issues are from the past.
There is grooming and it
will have happened to you:
Days with dark water, summer,
but overcast, some gardens –
Derby say – by the wide Derwent.
You were Year 8, friendship issues,
so you walked on your own by
the open river, after school
on the last day of term.
Then in an abandoned house
on a dual carriageway?
The outskirts of all towns
in England have one.
Gaunt, high walled,
some barbed wire,
planks for windows.
Cars speed by yet
no one ever stops.
No one could see what
happened so I’ll let my
imagination run wild.
Will you write back
and say you’re safe?
YOU ONCE KNEW
Dear Sir,
I say this as you were a teacher when I hardly did much school. You write like I’m a sad child but it’s me in charge and you are surely a paedo? I found some dumb poem by you about a place like that river where I got caught.
I don’t regret it now.
It’s always too late.
Like a place you once knew but were seeing
somehow for the first time, washed clean in
clear sunlight without your worries. Be still my
memories, those permanent blocks; sudden
is the word needed for anything now entering
this field of view, be it birds or slight movement
in a tree by an empty sky in the late day’s blue of
impossible clarity, holding neither cold nor warmth.
I don’t think it’s no good but might be and would make no difference.
Not to you and certainly not to me.
You could get up and sing about me in some pub.
Either no one would listen, or everybody would and no one would care.
I used ‘would’ too many times – words like that say a lot about me.
I don’t mean Karaoke, which gets them crying, or two-for-one and meal deal extra grill.
Even then I think eating is more important.
Probably makes no sense but write back where you left your first letter.
That house is not what you think.
It’s still a kids’ home and good people work there.
Those boys who lurk also bring takeaways – Tikka sometimes.
Who don’t need it once every while?
LET ME IMAGINE
In our English towns, how it is to be poor;
staggering like in a Russian novel:
a girl alone with gaping strangers.
Maybe you could go to Greggs
as they do cheap sausage rolls
perhaps a corned-beef pasty?
I had one and vomited it on
the pavement in Kidlington.
When I dropped this letter off
I slowed on the dual carriageway
took a sharp left into closed gates.
Is that usual? I saw faces from upper
windows though not yours. Presumably
you don’t live there anymore. A swift hand
from the gate grabbing for delivery. Thirty
pounds thrust in my palm, which I return for
some healthy food. Greek yoghurt is best
maybe bubble tea. I went behind the house
and saw a lonely garden, a broken swing and
scorched grass around a tin-tray barbeque
from a garden centre. Was there a party?
NOT MUCH ANYWHERE ANYMORE
Dear Sir,
It was my leaving-do not a school prom exactly but they did what they could!!
As you says parking is hard and access not good so many friends couldn’t make it to the house.
And who are you to laugh??
Sorry maybe you’re not but it’s easy to drive past and say who’d live on some dual carriageway who’d have a barbeque in a garden with nothing but a broke swing who’d live at all really.
One day I’ll look at you find where you live sit and watch you’d better be careful.
I know how sick are all levels of men so don’t be fixed on those boys some who loved me as they knew best.
I can’t complain if I could I’d be giving back so many things I never had till they gave them to me for nothing really.
I sound so angry when I can’t be now.
It puts everyone off.
No need to be some nutjob who loses it in Aldi screaming down aisles shoving at the checkout as eyes all around are rolling.
I don’t understand any of your letters but it’s better to get them than not to so write again if you want to.
Such will always find me but as you say I don’t live there not much anywhere anymore.
I HAD A FIGHT
If you find my letters so meaningless
maybe this will help. I was involved in
an ‘incident’ delivering this one –
I beat the shit out of some cunt who was
trying to intimidate me. Don’t you
realise that most middle-class people
bubble with resentment, dissolved over
decades? So I struck first, a kick straight in
his cobblers, thumb into an eye socket
then rapid steam-hammering of the bonce.
Well, he lay stricken. If this was one of
your ‘boys’ then you say sorry for me. I
trust this message is intelligible!
You signed off with weary nihilism
so I thought this sign of my physical
willingness to fight in your cause, although
no longer a young man, would release you
from such hopelessness. I send now also
a pamphlet by a man named Nietzsche to
explain how my actions really might help.
POSTSCRIPT
Bad Sir,
You are a mad sod shithead.
I got your pamphlet – wrote cowardly under some dumb name – saying God is Dead and you have killed him.
It was in that hot garden, no shade, just me.
Too much so I went to the garage for Magnums.
One of my boys read it and no choice but to beat me near dead then eat the salted caramel one.
He tells that’s why I need treating like they do.
There is only one God and that name is whispered in their ear when born and when dead.
He shouted it in my shell then had me hard.
Said I was lucky for that – next time I’d hear it when petrol plus lit match through the letterbox.
Tell Mr Nietzsche,
I can spell and he is not dead.
He’s coming for you if I tip him your name.
So what is it?
But be careful if you come here again.
Eyes watch us all now – it’s safer that way.
HIS LAST WORDS
Child, I pray you’ll somehow always be safe,
never awake worrying through the night.
On this world’s surface, how would I find you
if you’d wandered lost, somewhere all alone?
I’d wind my window down. The lonely moon
shining over scorched fields now cooling and
the taste of meadows after rain. Let the
wind alone whisper you this poetry –
doesn’t matter where, long after I’m gone;
reaching your ear, taking you safely home.
Paul Sutton
Picture Nick Victor