James Mills Poems

Ah, the 'low decadent decade'
when Sally Bowles invented black
stockings and poets thought Germany
shone with ideas worth thinking.
...

I said
'You remember the time
you fooled me
into kissing the fat girl.
...

I didn't know the word then,
now I know that you were - buxom.
Blonde mane loose, those brown clips
were meant for sisters, spinsters,
...

Someplace, within the wool of thought,
A voice, maybe not mine,
Investigates - aspects.
...

Fox.
Butterfly.
Bow tie.
Meadow.
...

Free to choose?
Yeah. Like your colour,
or the knuckles on your fist.
Strong men impelled you,
...

Brittle thoughts -
Panicky against the brain.
Startled. Delicate. Escape.
Slurred words
...

That dusty dilly-dally over Back Lane, Barn Lane and past McGreevy's blackened house, sighing in the creaking sunlight.

Your queenie allowed you three goes to my one. You wanted four; afraid to lose. We gave way once or twice to timid traffic; blunt, black motors, steered by earnest men, scanning the liquid road to nowhere.
...

Slick as a pair of fish we sidled out.
Away from Latin and its fiendish rules,
from the old Brother flicking his cane
at us when verbs and nouns, trapped
...

Didn’t need no crime to set me rockin’
up here where
livin’ leaves
an' rough bark makes shade.
...