3 poems by Nick Power

PECCADILLO

Look: dive into my face if you wish, if 

you want to see the past 

in curlicues of memory. Nothing will

change it – not the dead being dead,

not my criminal record

nor the curvature of my nose. 

Presently, the market, Birkenhead, 1990 –

the ageing hardcase stares at my 

mother’s hand. At Hinton’s, the man who

carries me guards his pocket. 

Beasts stare out from the butchers 

block, hanging from hooks –

pigs, cows, the stink of crabsticks. 

Outside Lunn Poly, a woman is 

arrested – they find her bag lined with

tinfoil, to foil the new alarms. That big

voice? Tranmere’s goalkeeper, 

Eric Nixon! He talks through a microphone

about an unbeatable deal. 

Around him, coloured denim is 

paraded like Tibetan prayer flags. 

We enter the Pyramids shopping

precinct. My parents submit, sit

to eat. Each tells the other, 

you’ve got a face on. No, you’ve 

got the face on. Wimpy chips taste

of eternity. 

Marketfront, the butchers are happy. 

It is Christmas. They work with their arms. 

The slop comes out the back into the alley. 

I see it from the car: little black bags

that look like umbrellas, upside down in

the rain, 

for stray dogs to unpick.

PUSSY IRWIN, JIMMY CASE

I can’t believe we’re adults –

what happened? We were 

meant to go over the railings,

weren’t we? To die for something!

Music would catch us, music would 

save us! We adopt the mannerisms 

of the auld ones now, you noticed?

things we found dated back 

then – talking a certain way, 

lamenting lost pubs:

Campfield/ Corsair/ the Grange,

seeing the new world as strange

(I’ll take a whisky, you know, don’t

laugh). The architecture of memory

appears in flashes – joy, grief, 

graffiti on the Kwikkie wall:

Pussy Irwin Jimmy Case,

Boxing Day in Norris Green,

our family, dancing to Bob Marley, 

the journey back thru town, smoke 

on our clothes (smoke in our bones)

toward the mysterious mouth of the

Mersey Tunnel, classified football results 

singing us down into the mist. 

THE DREAM OF ZERO

I lie to doctors when they ask what's wrong.

The logic being if they believe me, the cure will

magically appear. What's to do? Just give me the

shot, doc. There's a rhyme to it: Morphine

pills for imaginary ills.

Remember when you had a grand in your pocket

and gave a half of it away to Crayford? Soaking wet,

sat in the doorway of Taskers. He pulled his cast down

and showed us his leg, all gangrene, moving with

maggots. We made sure he was fed before we fled,

to drink ourselves into the blue abyss. Back when you

were earning good money in the Heritage Market.

I can't switch off. In the middle of a film I'll go,

rewind that bit...rewind, rewind it...I wasn't

following...I think maybe my life has been a little bit

like that: an extended film scene that I've been half-

watching through my hands on a midweek afternoon.

Someone come and open the curtains.

Winter: I wake up early with the scaffolders,

having dreamt all night of zeros; great arctic sheets

and imperial skip yards full of nothing; big

yawning noughts bobbing on a calm sea; lone

chip papers dancing down long catholic alleyways.

I watch the bath fill. Study the boiling kettle.

Track the colour of my daughter's eyes as they change

gradually from blue to aquamarine – diamonds from

the diamond mine: the precious gems of turning time.

Growing up is bittersweet because finally you fit

your skin, only you know what's coming. Just last

week I was telling my brother: I like it here now,

this place, this life. It's the little things: stars wheeling

in a clear sky, the new frost over Gilroy, hot sweet

tea and a solid round of toast are maybe the things

I'll miss most.

__________

Nick Power is a musician and writer from Wirral, Merseyside. He has had a number of books published on erbacce-press, including Into The Void and Bright Angel Proof.