Four Poems | Ian Mullins
The Road Goes On Forever
For Sting
(professional wrestler, now ‘retired’.)
Less carnival than comedy;
because when the greasepaint
is showered off, the plastic
barbed wire locked in the trunk
with the real thumb tacks
and the rubber baseball bats,
every career that’s by-passed tragedy
ends with an old man
who’s done the job for the last time
walking away proud and sad,
his man-mask crumpled in his hand
along with his last pay cheque.
From now on he has to pretend
it’s all real: that the sun
really rises, the kids really
grow old. That one day
there’ll be a box and he’ll be
under the lid. Still dreaming
as he takes his last bow
that St Peter will open up
the hatch in the coffin and pull him
under the ring; wait for the first bell
– or the last trumpet –
swapping stories about life
on the road with Dusty Rhodes
and Bruiser Brody. Barrelling
down Heaven’s highway,
selling every bump along the way.
Translator’s Note: ‘Selling’ means making the move look real.
‘Taking a bump’ is being on the receiving end.
‘Doing the job’ is allowing yourself to be pinned.
The Afternoon News
No clarity from her bed,
just mumbles and mouthings
as the drip slowly watered her
and the brown bag grew darker.
Except one day she said
‘I want to die now,’
so clearly and cogently
that decency dictated we mark it
and move on, as she did.
Three weeks before an unfocussed TV
till her body got the message
and quietly pulled the plug
at three-thirty in the afternoon.
She never made it to the evening news,
but someone important died
in France. Someone in England too.
Optimizing
I’m fine, says the computer;
plenty of free space to spread
out in, all the fragments of my mind
arranged in the classic order.
So if I seem a little slow,
a trifle hesitant, prone to
freezing before a familiar scene
as though I’ve never
witnessed it before, it’s only
because obsolescence is built
into to my circuits the same way
it’s built into yours. Like you,
I only live for those moments
when I shut down and sleep,
then wake at three in the morning
thinking here we go again;
the same old foghorn
when most ships are wisely
at bay, lost in dreams of fine
open seas: all the time
in the world to cross them.
Bed Blocker
On better days
it feels like I’m hardly here,
a simple ghost
who’s already passed the veil
but hasn’t figured out
how the dead dream too.
But other days
meaning most days
every breath is a screw
tightening my collar,
every word another whip
I lash myself with.
Being human is the hardest job
I’ve ever done:
so it feels like another back-stab
to finally slap my head on the pillow
and only meet dreams
manufactured from the black stuff.
Here’s an endless corridor
with stretchers the size of coffins;
so there’s no need, kind nurse, to smile
every time you pass. I’m content
for peace for possess me.
And please tell whoever’s in charge
that if the person at the head
of the line won’t take his medicine,
I’ll be happy to jump the queue.
Photo by Thanos Pal on Unsplash
Brief Bio:
Ian Mullins bales out from Liverpool England. His latest publication (2024) is Reelwords: Nightwatchman, a movie-themed collection from Alien Buddha Press. Last year Cajun Mutt Press kindly published Fear Of Falling Backwards. Anxiety Press published Dirtysweet, his porn-themed collection, in the same year. He’s on a roll.
