Lots
Of
Ghosts
The Poetry of George Morehead
Ghost:
The soul of a dead person, a disembodied spirit imagined usually as a vague, shadowy
or evanescent form, as wandering among or haunting living persons.
a mere shadow or semblance; a trace
a remote possibility
a spiritual being
the principle of life; soul; spirit.
Lots of Ghosts, is the poetry of George Morehead
They are also a band that doesn’t exist… yet
Everything I’ve ever written
Sixteen Eighty One. Star Bird.
The Day You Were Born.
Stained Together. My Biggest Regret. The Rude Shipyard.
Rain on The Window of a Train
Phobia. Outside Inside.
Sweeping Before Breakfast.
Over the Top. 52 Card Pickup.
Break.
The Flapjack.
Sixteen Eighty One
The coolest dark
there ever was
it was pretty
dark pretty
dark pretty
really pretty
dark
The rain got louder
on the roof
tin can
tin can
tip tap
tip tap
tin tin can
The candle shone
it was pretty bright
really pretty
pretty bright
I saw a dodo
witch replied
I don't remember when I died
I can't even think
what is my name?
will it ever be said again
Who am I?
who am I?
the caterpillar asked the sky
but a fly but a fly
nothing but a but a fly
The butter flew
the butters gone
the Cheshire cat sung
a song
without a face
without any eyes
a smile shining in the sky
Bring me a mouse
to clean my teeth
it must clean them before
I sleep
so I can vanish into my
dreams
and remember everything
I see
Cheshire cheese Cheshire cheese
the island
and the beach
the sand
the waves of time
between our hands
the Jack of hearts
the Red Queens man
a postman letters in his van
letters into words
began
to groan and creak
and stretch his back
brown parcel in his postman
sack and walked onto
the gravel
track
track track
There goes the parcel
out the bag
it’s not the last journey I'll ever have
I've got two more
before I go
into the ovens
the first you
know
and I'll be pretty
hot pretty hot
really burning pretty
hot
Then onto the
table and
a plate
they do not bother
to say grace
and before you know it
down I go,
Dodo
Dodo
Dodo
Dodo.
Star Bird
A coconut stands a slice of flesh with two dark orange legs a feathery white island black circle surrounded by gold with yellow beak brighter than Olympic medal A peace crane stands in front of a bull a bull big bull with no face or crane face it’s a bubble in a dream painted with colour spiky sharp green grass reaches for the crane in front of the bull paws thick like a puddle full of petrol purple rainbows green the bull is a muddy silhouette a sheep a human with horns is a puddle a bubble within a dream I blink and realise it’s a beautiful painting in a book A crane stands on the back of a bull which is stomping through the tall grass if we could speak you the crane, the bull, the sheep, the book, the grass and I, to the dancing weather would we say we are not dreams of bubbles, puddles or paintings each of us is real here one in a Caribbean dozen so don’t close your eyes
even when you blink keep looking.
The Day You Were Born
The Weather-Was put her hand into the soup and stirred
The news papers turned the trees to pulp and spit and mulch
The rivers began to flow the other way
The army burnt every flag
The birds shed their feathers and turned back to people
The politicians kissed each other’s hands
The trees were coming back to life and singing wont you rise wont you rise up and dance with me
The children began to dance and sing and shine
then the charts dissolved into the sea
So the ocean began to speak to the moon “your factories are closed and empty”
and the earth?
The earth decided to close its eyes and sleep.
Stained Together
I remember smokey daze where we would hot box a room heat up and ride with the earth past the stars to the sunshine of the birds chatting in the morning on week days our smokey haze would become a gazebo of fertility wet and sticky an oasis of creation sprouting fruit after multicoloured fruit tree roots going down deep down down through earth and bone until our eye lids must have blinked and here it is how does this happen? night time again and somehow we’ve collected our suitcases had a cigarette and caught a taxi away from the airport of curiosity to that place that magical place that is almost you know roughly halfway between my house and yours the car park of truth where we have no need to smoke spliff after spliff we become free free enough to confess everything in our hearts and minds so much to share that we walk round and round in circles creating a whirlpool a theatre of investigation our very own hot box a street of infinity that continues on and on until the sound of the buzzing lamps all around us stops.
My Biggest Regret
Is that I never kissed your lips.
The Rude Shipyard
Christ alive this place is rude when I’m in the shipyard of dreams the walls make me turn peeling my skin into a cat like banana ripe outside colour of cheetah yellow tan with lots of black spots the ghosts of the sea inside watch, until I slip over furry stripy miaow now I’m the right size I can curl up on the cosy sofa under the stars beside the desk with the magic drawer and sleep
Walking steps up colourful stairs shoes get covered in invisible paint blue green orange marine cherry sage yellow sugar blossom and leave footprints everywhere barefoot it’s like being a child again stepping into a tray of thick syrupy block poster paint one day goodbye I’ll say to the peaceful road outside the window and follow them all the way to the woods
I’m woken up running around the night garden on the sofa by two men I can’t see past the crow’s nest of gloves you ahoy! chatting about mushrooms and drugs "I’ve done a few things and it’s all been brilliant" pyramid of the moon and sun I can smell milk on the table jade eyes open I can see a boy surrounded by books writing stories
Drawer in a desk a tiny silver cup hit with a pen rings true what is it for? a jar of artwork spills milk on the table where the bush fires burn one white eyed triangle pupil dilates slowly a smile from a beautiful creature contracts blinking day into night from the tea, on a spoon the spicy smelling bag wraps up in the tiny silver cup hit with a pen rings true pearls pearls pearls the mice climb out the drawer.
Rain on The Window of a Train
A universe of Hayley’s comets streaking across the glass a million stars blazing meteorite trails deserts burning, rutted warm canyon American prairie, Jack Frost sand painting samiad layers the Rocky Mountains wall gone, the cosmos empty moving and still, the world is born, proud like a forest of trees each drop contains countless solar systems what would happen if one merged with another?
Above the Grand Canary a storm of shooting stars the race is on, sliding prophecies these stars are like seeds rushing towards an egg “Roll up Roll up, place your bets” each with its own pace, a point in history the slate wiped clean then the rain falls, hard attacking the quite carriages intrusive taps crack the glass as the train runs faster and faster a myriad of new galaxies is born here I am, torn away far below, the loud thoughts of earth cannot be heard above the life pulsating silence of space armies of big bangs zutt and slide in an orgy of electricity even more beyond the glass past this incomprehensible cosmos stretching to the horizon two lovers reunited kiss where sky meets sea an infinite different worlds inside your skin, your eyes, a tear drop! I laugh at the phantasmagorical if butterfly’s flapping wings cause the earth to quake what happens when such tears fall into the sea? would the cosmos be forever changed? what if I were to name out loud just two of the drops streaking patterns across the windows would it still remain? the same.
Phobia
A button spinning on the floor like a coin that hasn’t come to rest a sun lit circle on the wall the milk whirls into the tea as the silver spoon enters and the light shines creating beautiful patterns a sun lit circle on the wall your young untouched flesh the dress rips and his hand touches slips down inside he tastes your white breasts your lips a sun lit circle on the wall there is no reason other than your beautiful he chose you for your curls your eyes your world your dress your legs your soul he wants it all every sound you make he captures puts it in his box of wooden skin his fingers damp on steam carve and splinter until all you can see is moving like an angry shadow a sun lit circle on the wall
Outside Inside
There’s a reflection on the inside inside these walls a ghost stands on the outside in the middle of the tide standing still on the pavement picking up a bag
Outside is rolled with inside thanks to an open door it’s like looking forward and seeing behind but more front and back combined to form something new two shadow mirror world
Behind the counter is the Zurich bank way back across the road on the inside far away on the outside if I stepped backwards looking forwards would I go through the counter across the road and into the bank
What’s more real the reflection standing inside outside or the solid bodies that step through the door to become reflections standing waiting for food from the counter outside in the warmth on the inside
Ghost, reflection, next please sir, next please, shoals yellow red, warping into moon light, the tide, can’t see the ghosts of mirror world but they are here they are real; so real another one comes inside then leaves gaining shape in a body outside
do you ever notice how everyone in here looks like they’re out there
Hungry in a chicken shop the smells crisply slide from the bag the cardboard grease I’m hungry but I’ve chose no money so I guess I cannot eat there’s a bike behind a bin through the window stamped on top is a man in a blue hat who every so often turns into a signpost a reflection of a ghost eating chicken blocks him a reflection taking away a reflection he’s back this man in a hat on the bin serving chips and chicken to reflections that pay greasy crispy bag he’s gone again all that’s left is the black bin the black signpost the black bike and the bank
The reflections are cooking right in the middle of the road vampires frying with traffic lights Michael Jackson thriller army chicken playing shadows outside on the inside
ever notice how everyone out there looks like there in here.
Sweeping Before Breakfast
The kettle came to boil like a pint of Guinness taking its time before it was ready the sweeper held it in his right hand in his left he held a broom that had just swept the floor he poured staring down at the water fall as bubbles formed in the bucket of his mop steam rised and then the sweeper looked down from a mountain high above clouds at a pair of shoes standing on the floor.
Over the top
The mortars whistling explosion whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, the last thing I remember, before the stretchers Wilfred Owen is all mud and blood, before, my eyes closed, onto a palace of ice buckets legs, and fingers, razors on the floor was my neighbours my neighbours, red stumps, his name, his name was, Thomas Andrews
Oh dear, oh dear, I don’t want this, oh dear, help my top banana shot, the old days did, help me, help! help! hell, I know darling, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, put something in it to get my eye sight, I can’t do it, oh dear oh no, that’s not the one browning that’s a gas once she gets me up, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, help! help! help me, hell once you get near me you don’t need it that’s what you want my brother did you need anything of this, you need this, help! help! hell, I want to take my I don’t mind this as long as I take my top back ooh, I can’t do it anymore, help! help! I better go home I don’t know what to do its all codswallop, fighters, help down there, too much drugs in it, got get up whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, help me god please, I want too... hey a bloody come by nightly, shoot me down help! help! hell, help me god, I can’t see them giving one without breaking one back, that’s it right,
I’ve finished I’ve hid it, I’m not going to bother with that because I’m done, give us a shake now again, see there out there, the joker is, help! help! please, my name is Thomas Andrews, so it’s useless sending me out there cause like how I am, it’s all fucked it, banged it, what’s he got for me well it’s not right, let me go across green, no I don’t want anymore, push me up at the back, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, ninety nine seal making, can you come in here miss, hurry up I’ve not got much time, I can’t sit like that, help! help! hell.
52 Card Pickup
I want to take you through my eyes and into my mind a cold ice rich portal that opens like a bud the sharp moment when a leaf cuts from the branch split seconds travelling through the colour yellow the open door that is a vehicle moving through the corridors of perception to a memory, you can’t hold it touch it feel it with your hands unless you somehow learn to conduct the invisible waves of time and space buried, burnt, not forgotten, I remember a trick, put your finger in this cameras slot then click shock, electricity so alive so much life then pop gone, sort of no reply, a Chinese burn a tiger stripe a kiss from a wasp the stings from your spud gun that fade into the sad cold feeling of regrets Pink Floyd said it I wish you were here and not just one of many cards that lie waiting, unpicked on the soft dark floors of my memory.
Break
Once upon a time a ghost sat inside looking outside at a ghost sat outside looking inside a machine.
The Flapjack
I was in a room full of people, but I didn’t notice them, not really, I had, but they soon became shades, melting into the background, shadows. For shining bright white, for all its autumnal dappled flaky hue, was the Flapjack.
Piled on a tub like a golden syrupy flaky mountain. Concrete slabs of stuck together oats, and seeds, and raisins. That to me look like the browned leafs that every year fall into my garden. I have to sweep them up and put them into shiny black bin liners. They wait, in the dark, for the rubbish man. I do not wait. I sweep up a piece of Flapjack, half a piece, the smallest one, and it oozes between my teeth. Sticky goodness.
I wonder then who made this Flapjack? Was it a boy or a girl, a man or a woman, and how many times had they made Flapjacks before? ` There is such a thing as gravity, yet on the moon these pieces of Flapjack would float up out of the bowl, off of their plates and what then, would they become lost to space?
Autumnal concrete slabs, as I chew and chew, I soon realise the Flapjack has gone, all that is left are a few grains. I can feel them, clinging on like tiny barnacles, as I run my tongue across my teeth. I think I must have become a shade, a shadow on the floor, because in this moment nothing else exists to me, apart from the consumption of this cake.
It only lasts for a second or two but in that time I imagine the Flapjack maker building a wall. She starts of slowly. One piece at a time. Slotting the slabs together, she does not sleep, all she eats is raisins. The hot spicy smell of the Flapjack is everything she needs to keep going. Intoxicated. She continues, this lady until she has built not a wall but a house. A house made of Flapjack, with golden walls, she waits, silently, then soft, like the pitter patter of rain falling on a caravan roof she hears it.
Nibble nibble.
The mice have come, and with quick bites, they began to eat, cheeks bulging, until gone is the house, no longer stand the walls, and the Flapjack maker is left all alone apart from one tiny exquisitely stuck together slab that still remains.
If they’d allow it, she would exhibit this last piece of Flapjack behind glass in a museum of antiquities. Until the museum grew old and the glass dusty. Instead she holds it in her hands, cupping it, keeping it alive. Until both of them, closed and un-noticed, quietly turn to shades.