Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening?
This week’s editon of Lager Time features four new poems. No music this week, I now need to crack on and finish the EP, large up everyone who’s listend to the previous shows and also the music I’ve clipped.
Hope alls well for you all
If you’re not subscibed, and you like this, do me a favour and subscibe.
Poems below for those on the Substack - cree.substack.com for those who aren’t
Peas and ‘taters
Paul
Health and safety man is delivering the barley disguised
bollocking by keeping his tone flat, each word like a
punctuating index finger prodding a shoulder.
posture straight and eyes direct on our boys.
Probably how he’s been trained.
His boss stands behind him.
‘It’s for your safety’ he says.
‘We need to keep you safe’ he says.
In an impressive move, he aims at our lads, with the ricochets
hitting the climbing instructor at the top of the abseiling tower
and me, as the adult in charge of the accused. He looks
confident. Perhaps he’d been waiting for this moment.
What health and safety man seems unaware of, is these boys
will barley understand him, are as agile as anyone he’ll ever
meet and grew up on another continent, running freely up and
down trees for fun, sometimes for dinner. At their young ages,
they’ve already escaped death multiple times. This is meant to
be some fun for them.
I’d not even got round the corner, looking at the schedule and
they’d climbed that tower like there was fruit at the top, racing
each other, up and down. Probably broke some records. The
ropes and safety equipment merely spectated, coiled up on the
floor, as redundant as health and safety man’s hubris.
The finger still prods, boys look confused. Their concept of
health of safety, insurance, litigation and liability, is about as
thin as this guys disguise for their care.
‘Just remember guys, it’s for your safety’ he says, for the fourth,
maybe fifth time.
Health and safety man walks off, with his boss. The instructor
looks embarrassed. One of the boys turns to me, smiles and
shrugs his shoulders.
When there’s major
rail disruption, information
becomes the gold bullion
in a global rescission
………….
As the speaker came to
life with a breath and a
crackle, the whole
carriage froze; then
sighed, as the sound
was completely
inaudible.
……………
Nothing
infuriates
me
more
The director
He’s just another one of them
speaks in ambiguous sentences that
loosely point in the direction of societal
acceptability and higher virtues;
in many eyes, he looks good
sounds good, scans good so
they seek his tongue like
autograph hunters at a
stage-door
…
If you listen closer, though
you soon realise he’s just
another one of them
those loosely defined terms
that spice his speech, are
like an overloaded
wardrobe, packed with
complex theories and
ideologies, so when you
break-bread with these
types you tacitly agree
to store all those old
clothes you never asked
for and now have to wear
…
Question for this guy is;
does he know this himself?
Many don’t and he’s not
that smart, not as smart
as he maybe thinks
after all, he’s just another
one of them
1.8.24
Was at work one day, talking
about India, when a person
with skin as pale as mine,
an accent as English as
mine, told me I shouldn’t
say Bombay, it’s
Mumbai, she said.
Bombay is the
colonial name, she
said. Ok, I said. If
Mumbai is the name
then Mumbai it is.
I have no horse in
that race, I said.
Why are you taking
about horses?
she said.
Meanwhile, at home
my in-laws, with brown
skin and Indian accents,
often speak of Bombay
of family, memories,
streets, districts, music, the
language, the traffic, old jobs
and the rainy seasons. They
often visit to see family.
Mumbai, is the name
they use for the
airport.
ifyou work with
young people
you work with
their abilities
qualities
skills
hang-ups
esteem
pasts
present
futures
families
housing
traumas
scars
social-workers
key-workers
teachers
hormones
phone additions
AirPods
earphones
vapes
social life
hunger
sleep habits
and you try to
get them to
turn up on
time, for
whatever little
project you’re
doing,
If you
manage to
to achieve that
taking into
account all of
the above,
depending on
their mood
you can make a
positive impact
however big or
small, wether they
know it
or not
