Neville Moore (after Poe)
One day I will depart the train at a station with no name,
The emergency cord I'll pull, take the plunge thru automatic doors.
I'll pack no suitcase and no bindle - in my head young, free and single,
I will be a living swindle; wherefore art prat poet of before?
New job doing something I've never shown an interest in before.
I'll say my name's 'Neville Moore'.
I'll do a Reginald Perrin, leave red herring threads at Sherring-
ham, then dice-rolled palookaville of new self I shall explore.
When Palookas call me Neville, they won't see this wasted rebel,
But numpty Neville, on the level, who misplaced his wasted days of yore.
Amnesiac clerk stoical over mist-shrouded days of yore.
I only know I'm Neville Moore.
Nev'll moonlight at a night-school, pick up a trade that's practical,
In minimalist digs dossing on some unforeseen saviour's floor.
Time's sandstorm will obscure lyrics, John Doe-penned hieroglyphics
- lost soul Lysander's from Norwich, mind shut like a shoved closed drawer
To Poesy's Pandora's box of bollocks in an indigo steel drawer,
shut to mind of Neville Moore.
Neville will be straight arrow, nice chap whose mind is narrow,
Tepid tryer temping at call-centre, lockjaw forevermore.
The blandest of mystery men, what was Neville's name again?
Memoryless man blends in, my dead ringer stunky and strong- jawed.
Threescore-and-six the years of eye-witness statements I'll abjure.
The court calls Neville Moore.
In absentia, leftover Lysander is eternal loose end, the
Inner poltergeist interred in some indigo steel drawer.
A bog-snorkelling John Stonehouse, was I such a grandiose
Loser who fled his rut injurious, a selfinflicted bore?
Abandon the ship for one fool, the HMS Big Ego, for a lowkey
life. It's less of a bore
Being boring Neville Moore.
Shall I meet a girl called Sybil, Palookashire our idyll?
Where a man with no past once just washed up upon the shore.
If the child is father of the man, Neville, be my upbeat orphan,
all the labels torn off clothes from Oxfam which Memory's Outlaw wore.
Such clueless clothes our newfoundhometownbound Mr. X, he wore:
Bare-pocketed Neville Moore.
Sybil won't be type to probe, at night she'll pop her Zopiclone,
Cuddle up to normal Neville, earnest th'embrace of our average amour.
We will rent a little bedsit and put in a lot of effort
So our place seems white-picket-fenced tho'
situated on the 13th floor.
Here no updraughts whistle dirges, here no faceplants from a 13th floor
Love nest tempt Neville Moore.
No temptation, but something racing, th'unexplained midnight pacing,
And murmurs in Nev's sleep of reams in an indigo steel drawer.
But in daylight we'll have daughter, from the blue the name 'Cobanja'
- Nev wouldn't dig Nirvana, fin de siècle scream's aural chore.
Please, no nihilistening pierce ludic zen of household chores,
numb lugs of Neville Moore.
Neville wouldn't get promotion, Neville doesn't have much
gumption.
Homo domesticus by design, Nev's puff's a swollen snore.
Lice would have mocked, 'Call this living?' Lice is dead, would
always give in
To windmills' wheeling withering, gravewatching raven set no store
In what life we have worth living, which is what life life has in store
For incurious Neville Moore.
Neville, don't devolve into snarling slave, snafu your master crafter made,
Be complete now the only piece is the missing piece of the jigsaw.
Radio receives no 'roger', they won't see Cobanja as a toddler,
But for famalam of the fugue, some succour in an indigo steel drawer.
For Lice did leave literally living will in that indigo steel drawer:
Poem entitled Neville Moore.
Nev and Sybil have their ups and downs, cracks in facades become
gouged frowns.
In Nev's eyes, the fury of a castaway - curdles his Florida coleslaw.
Nev didn't need Sybil's mithering, or is Inside Lice overthinking writing
(did we do Jack Nicholson in The Shining, too nuts too soon in Neville Moore?)
Polter-Lice rattlin' in indigo steel liar's den, a mor-
bid symptom for Neville Moore.
Witness protection program that hid me from self-hatred's hitman,
But, like Miltonic Satan's heart cupped Hell, the killer within is law
Unto himself. Fagend before Year Zero stubbed out my alter ego's
One trick phoenix photo album. One soul's civil war
Greener grass of everyman Eden scorched. Schizoid selves at war,
Lice negged out Neville Moore.
Can't see the dream, it's ultraviolet! Deed poll lifeboat down the toilet.
Sybil wagging finger with thrust of fishwife's wapenshaw.
Cobanja's obnoxious tween, Nev hears fin de siècle scream
At u-bending of th'incognito dream. Entombed below a sycamore,
Man from nowhere nowhere now under a suicide's sycamore.
Quoth the engraving, 'Neville Moore'.
O sweet phantom Cobanja, I hope she ends up saner
Than her Canoe Man old man, whose own unconscious shot southpaws
till Neville swayed with no selfworth, punchdrunk on bad self burps,
his split personality dam burst. Yet Cobanja's dad once burped her with awe,
a pneumatically patting doting dad into errancy overawed
By humdrum Heaven worth more.
Bathos to quote Ocean Colour Scene beneath a sycamore willow-leaned,
But 'day I caught the train' derailed, my malaise of glory took detour.
In black with punky highlights, Cobanja grieves strange dad on the quiet,
and Sybil's indignant that the senseless, existential eyesore
Option was all her lost-and-found, her found-and-lost hubbie saw.
Quoth the engraving, 'Neville Moore'.
Nev won't watch Cobanja grow up: she never existed - s' good job!
Yet I'll miss driving lessons and wedding, what ifs of shaggy dog's dewclaw
Which scratched itself out, vestigial scythe. Neville was never alive,
Just mask recast by an indigosmith from a smelted steel drawer.
My Self 2.0 has vista cenotaphic, as within a darkling drawer.
Quoth the engraving, 'Neville Moore'.
'After Poe' might be a misnomer if you're inclined to crunch the numbers,
yet stanza count encodes birthday of old dud cub who overroared
a last-ditch striped leopard, tame un-me. Lord Lucan, he WAS lucky
- there's a freedom in fake ID. But for demons such as Neville's?
S'only one cure,
Which is two becoming one sigh of relief filling a sallow sycamore.
Phew! Lice, he is no more.