Biography

Darren's work has been published in various 'zines and newspapers.

He has featured in local media throughout 2008 and, as a result, some of his work is now being commissioned for various projects.

He once served in the Royal Air Force, Greater Manchester Police
and the Butcher's shop facing the Odeon cinema in Bolton.

He is currently a mature student at The University of Manchester.

Samples

GOODBYE

Is it the shape he wonders?
Tracing its outline with the tense of a brow
an arm becomes the foot of an Italian Riviera
so familiar - like where two lovers once kissed.

Memories filled with shades of regret
carpet a stubborn lawn,
the final wilt of a ten year old rose.
Disturbed from thought
by the frantic dance of drying briefs
thrusting with an enthusiasm
long since forgotten,
by him at least,
brings with it an upward curve
of smiling irony.

The apathy of a once cherished plant
leaving patterns on walls and
through clear glass the leaves
gossip among the left over fridge magnets
inside an empty room.

Shades of separation
between a house and a home.
With just the snaggle toothed smile
of a garden gnome between him
and loneliness.


THE SPIRIT OF GRANDAD BILL

Thirty six years of a summer sun
has faded the gloss of fishing boats
but the sea grass still sways
just like he said it always would.

I see a mustard coloured cardigan
a straw hat and impeccable trousers
and the glint of three shiny mackerel
held aloft with the orange twine of fishermen
by a boy with dried sea spray on his one
and only chin.

'Give us a wave Bill!'
Then the whirl of an old fashioned camera
from a silhouette standing at the harbour
and a Grandfather and his boy waving into the sunshine
with their hairless hands and beaming smiles of relief.

I see the uneven steps leading from the water
worn by the feet of fathers and years of tide
and I see his toes through the brown open sandals
and watch as he climbs into shadow of
those sitting with their legs dangling
over the groans of swooping gulls.

I see the seats of scattered lobster baskets
and know that here is where he sat.
I see that sail of starched handkerchief
that he pulled from a pocket in the breeze
and I feel that same stroke of good fortune
as it gathered in the knees of a fisherman
now eating the end of an old clay pipe,
feeding three bending fish into the smile of a seal
and memories into the mind of a child.



ORDSALL - NOV 6th

Through weary eyes
in a weak light of dawn
are those washing lines
from which hang forever damp
baby-grows
and after a long stare
they turn into rows
of slaughtered pale chickens.
They really do.

And those smalls are nothing more
than pieces of old bunting -
If only they had celebrated something
inside November’s anonymity, other than
Guy and his one and only night.

And those scorched skeletons of
motor cars are now huge bones from
the Jurassic age when viewed through
a lens of tiredness or the mist of a smoke
filled night.

A sodium light shaping the beauty of a pyramid
into a silk screen of gable end
priding itself by showing those
that care to read the end credits
saying that 'MUFC Roolz'
and 'PC Perry fuks his own kidz'.

A starburst air bomb repeater
just before the end of a shift
or gunshots in the dead of night?
Nobody really cares because
no one gives a fuck.

As the officer kicks the remains
of a limp effigy
that is wearing a novelty policeman’s helmet
and a mask
like the ministerial grin.



A TRAIN OF LINGUISTIC THOUGHT


He jolted through Goodge Street station yet
he would have preferred Colindale
its phonology is much more pleasing.
He sighed and thought of what could be worse -
Wapping or Leatherhead perhaps?

Then the train it sidled through Pimlico
and the melody of words started murmuring
and chiming their lullabies with the hum
of Waterloo now in his ears.

And inside seemingly unaware
a mother playing peekaboo
enjoying a western freedom and its liberties.
The tranquillity of open green
with that spread of eternal fields,
seeing rainbows through sentiment
and butterflies the other side
of clear glass, are those moments
where sweethearts choose to kiss.

The children, licking lollipops or
holding furry hippos and kangaroos,
perhaps they are siblings,
giggling or blowing bubbles
from cute rosebud lips.
A moment another finds hilarious,
as the sunflowers outside go unnoticed,
like parasols amongst the umbrellas.

This cosmopolitan journey
to a quintessential coast,
sitting on aqua stained seats
with pumpkin flavoured walls,
among the sophistication
of the lower middle classes,
eating ripened bananas
and feeling rather passé.

Before a surge of temptation
to chastise the living daylights
from out of a shiny, painful child
and its wedge of fat face by shouting
‘ Oi ! CHARLIE BOY!
YOU' VE PEAKED - AND NOW I'M A BOO- IN'
NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP!'

His temptation mounted a noble stead
and trot toward a mist of tolerance,
and with it came a toothy grin from salivating chops
and bubbled plosives before a choir of carriages
cleared their metallic throats before joining them both.
Rocking and swaying to the rhythm of time
and into the arms of a slumbersome nod
before their disembarkation
together with the mayhem of exuberant youth.

Leaving him, a stranger, left alone
with the names of vintage stations
and butterscotch villages,
and those that would sound so beautiful
to him, who was simply sitting
and staring at life
through linguistic tinted spectacles


OLIVIA

You have never looked into my eyes
or held a thought about what you see.
You have never heard the voice that
gave you your smile and your tears.
You have never held the hand
that failed to guide in its darkest moment.

Yet would you want to look into my eyes
and allow me to hold my thoughts?
Would you want to listen to my voice or let it
tell you how beautiful you are?
Would you want to hold the hand that
let you go inside confusing thoughts?

The silence forces me to imagine
the beauty of your soul.
The silence forces my silent prayer
through which I hear you.
I smell you. I touch your face.
We smile together.
And in those almond shaped eyes I see your pain
and wonder how forgiving words could ever pass
those perfect lips?


WASTED DAY

I have waited a lifetime for today.
Now that it is here, I ignore it.
Like I do the sitting man
holding his dog or a flute.


MEMORABLE DAY

Every day that passes
is an act in a talent show.
Each waiting patiently
one behind the other,
called to life’s stage by
time.

Some days cannot
sing or dance, standing
in line queuing patiently
behind or in front of the days
that we will never forget.

The days that shock. The
days that will make us cry.
The days that will bring life
or take life as they tap
dance or play piano.

A star performance
by nine eleven
and in the wings and the
shadows, unseen and
unheard - the day we die.
Waiting to be dazzled
by the light of life’s stage.




HEROES

Through a cataract of net curtain he is staring.
Entombed within brick and age,
a struggle with a fading mind.

On a dark mantle rests a sepia past
inside veteran gilt edged frames
over which hangs an image, a
face inside the flowered wall.
Watching over a parent with
a two dimensional concern.

The rhythm of a beating clock
the countdown to a turning page.
Answers and his questions
left rotting inside a home.

Outside, Policemen walk and
all is well with the world.



WEEKEND ENDS

Ankle deep in the aftermath
of a town’s festival of litter.
Watching girls dressed in Primarni
frocks walking home to baby sitters
feasting on greasy meat and
clichéd compliments from the man
walking with her to a bed that glitters
in the darkness they call weekend.
Intimate moments spent upside down
inside a house filled with toys.

Nothing more expected from a town
where its people shop inside catalogue
aisles of debt and its men and boys
are fed on a diet of Rugby League
and bravado and intercourse with
women who they know but have never
met until last night.

Inside the sounds of reality
brought with the morning stew and sobriety,
he flees leaving somebody else to take
their turn inside the soiled sheets.
Where an innocent heart will break
over time and repetition
of hollow words.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.