Selected Poems

Approaching midnight and the mezze unfinished
we linger over Greek coffee and consider
calling for the bill, when suddenly the door
bangs open, and out of the neon-starry sky

falls a dazed giant. He stumbles in
and pinballs his way between the tables
nicking ringlets of deep-fried calamari en route.
Nikos appears from the kitchen, nervous but soothing.

‘Double moussaka,’ grunts the giant,
‘and two bottles of that retsina muck.’
He gazes around the taverna, now freeze-framed.
No tables are empty, but none are full.

You could have broken bits off the silence
and dipped them into your taramasalata.
Then he sees me. I turn to a rubberplant
in the far corner and try to catch its eye,

‘Excuse me, can I have the bill, please?’
He staggers over and sits down. The chair groans
and the table shudders. ‘I know you, don’t I?’
he says. ‘“Lily the Pink” an’ all that crap.

‘Give us yer autograph. It’s not for me,
it’s for me nephew. Stick it on this.’
I sign the crumpled napkin as if it were
the Magna Carta and hand it back.

Then to my girlfriend I say overcheerfully,
‘Time we were off, love.’ While peering
at the napkin as if I’d blown my nose into it
he threatens: ‘Youse are not goin’ nowhere.’

On cue, a plate of cheesy mince and two bottles
appear. Flicking our hands from the top of the glasses
he refills them and looks at me hard. Very hard.
‘D’ye know who I am?’ (I do, but pretend I don’t.)

‘Eddie Mason. Call me Eddie.’ ‘Cheers, Eddie.’
‘D’ye know what I do?’ (I do, but pretend I don’t.)
‘I’m a villain. Livin’ on the edge. Bit like you,
Know what I mean?’ (I don’t, but pretend I do.)

‘I’m in the people business like yourself.’
Lest I am a doubting Thomas, he grabs my hand
and shoves a finger into a dent in his skull.
‘Pickaxe. And feel tha’… and tha’… and tha’.’

Brick, hammer, knife, screwdriver, baseball bat.
He takes me on a guided tour of his scalp.
A map of clubs and pubs, doorways and dives.
Of scores settled and wounds not yet healed.

What he couldn’t show me were the two holes
above the left eye, where the bullets went in
a fortnight later. Shot dead in the back of a cab
by the father of a guy whose legs he’d smashed

with an iron bar. He hardly touched
his moussaka, but he ordered more wine.
And it goes without saying, that he shredded
the napkin, and left without paying.