Poems by Daniel P. Stokes

Separate Dreams

A kiss upon the cheek. I hear the door close.                                  
Footsteps crunch the gravel to the gate.                  
I hang my apron on the door hook                                                         
and bring a glass of Chablis to the couch.               

Knowing, as a girl, I had potential                                       
sufficed me. To pursue the perks                               
it promised, too much bother.                                             
Yet waited, as of right, for them to show.                             
Dreams, unlike goals, are fate’s                                                                     
to fashion. And, if they’re not,                                                                                       
we’re spared the effort to employ them,                             
free, when fancy takes us,                                                 
to envision them fulfilled.                                            
                 
                         **
                                                                                          
Tonight’s contentious twaddle
is gay marriage. Queried,       
I shrug, as if it’s beyond me, unfold
a borrowed Herald and reorder.                                          
When I go home at half past nine                                
I’ll boil the kettle and watch                                            
whatever she is watching on the box.                                
Then go to bed together and,                                                        ,  
back to back, dream separate dreams                                
that neither needs to share.   

 

Sunday, Toffee and Monochrome Kisses

     Sunday duly started with the inescapable tedium of Mass
     and communion.  After breakfast we'd gather near a doorstep and discuss

     the merits of films, soccer players seen in photos, wooden over plastic yo-yos
     (safely demonstrable).  Rarely was football dared in our Sunday clothes.

     Back to gobble dinner.  Then sometimes, someone at a loss for company might call,
     but I, quiff stiffened with soap, would go anyway.  You know, I can't recall

     if it was to the North Strand or the Drumcondra.  Each cinema was in quest
     of a new respectability and internal renovations were meant to put to rest

     once and for all rumours of fleas and rats and trouser legs carried over from its days
     as a 'Fourpenny Rush'.  I was let go now because it cost a shilling to gaze

     at the monochrome images.  Abstemious by nature, I was untempted by the common urge
     to flit away the remainder of my weekly two-and-six in one mad splurge

     of minerals, crisps and sweets, right down to the last ha'penny's worth of Honey Bees -
     seven a penny - guaranteed, I was warned, to rot my teeth.  I suppose these

     pictures had plots, but I can't remember one, not even vaguely, nor put a face
     on any of 'The Chaps' - the heroes we'd cheer for.   Nevertheless, it was customary to embrace

     one of these as your own and prove with the aid of invention and magazine cut-outs
     that he was the fastest, toughest and best looking of all.  My allegiance tended to turnabout

     until Elvis, my father's favourite, came along.  But none of this matters, even to me.
     The story starts at the pictures.  We met, and for several successive Sundays I went to see

     her there.  I suppose it's no surprise that I forget her name totally.
     But that day I was with Nipper, and, following advice and instinct, we

     prowled the aisles ritually, peered down the rows.  To all intent
     pursuing the improbable.  But this day it was different.
                                                                
     The girls we sat behind actually giggled at our comments.  And Oh how one knows
     intuitively when to continue kicking the seat in front and what's a flat no go.

     And those giggles were to signal my initiation into the fleshy mysteries.
     It went like a drill, from behind to beside her, arm slinking by degrees

     from chair-back to shoulders, and, without ado, jutting our mouths together.  This
     though she needn't have chewed toffee the while, was a milestone, my first real kiss.
                                                                                                                      
     It had nothing to do with puberic passion.  It was a sort of practice.
     And I, delighted with myself, was even more delighted to notice
                                                                                                                              
     old Nipper wasn't doing too well.  She sat, eyes determinedly forward,
     while his arm on her seat-back did its best not to look awkward.
 
     Now this (like no Santa earlier and no God later) was a surprise I'd somewhat suspected.
     That he was Nipper, the one on whose team we all wanted to be selected,

     to whom suggestions were made in deference to what he might decide;
     whose presence gave events substance, meant nothing to the little girl at his side

     who'd a different yardstick.  Well, it would have been a feat for someone
     far more generous than me not to gloat, and, gauche and brash as I now am,

     I was then ten times worse.  I smiled kindly at Nipper and, to ensure being seen,
     laughed inordinately, kissed audibly and turned for approval.  Seldom have I been

     more persistent and devoid of invention.  Lips pressed.  Toffee was chewed.
     Only the duration varied.  We didn't know what more to do

     or what was beyond this.  To kiss was an end in itself.  So we did it.
     Instinct and action concurred in its pleasurableness.  Its only benefit

     outside itself was that it signalled we had reached the stage
     where kissing was more than talked about.  Anyway a stoppage

     was occasioned by the brocaded usher, who, torched for trouble,
     patrolled the aisles shining and threatening clenched couples

     till they sat single. (But was all this fuss
     to protect us from each other or him from the sight of us?)

     However, we waited in muted defiance and as soon
     as he passed, a splutter of guffaws and the clenching resumed

     till the lights came on.  Then, nonchalantly as the thirty yards to the foyer would permit
     we let slip we'd be here again next Sunday.  Now that was it,

     But it brought me an unexpected acclaim, which the next Sunday grew
     when Nipper's young-one snapped, "At least, he's better looking than you"

   
      after he had jibed at my nose's curious construction
     to some mates behind, who had come to watch the action.

     And spurred by her words, I smirked and slobbered, guzzled quarts
     of mastic juice, aware that this was in marked contrast

     to a few weeks previous when Nipper in serious mood
     asked why I couldn't (except for fighting and running) do anything good.
                                                                                                                          
     This inquiry, prompted by my lack of friends and football prowess,
     left me wet-eyed with gratitude that he should express

     such interest, no compassion, for me.  But now I was the one
     envied, the one with the knack.  And before long Nipper's role was forgotten

     and the retelling had me nuzzling a girl on either side
     of me.  This, I knew reluctantly, had to be denied,

     not because it was a lie, but a lie liable to be exposed.
     But more than the lads were impressed.  Neighbourhood girls showed

     a new interest in me.  And (you can explain it away if you choose
     as puberty coming into its own) my football improved.

     But my tact stayed brutal.  I beamed when questioned, reflaunted
     my new-found success without occasion.  I wanted
                                             
     everybody's admiration, and this awful gaucheness
     gave rise to an incomplete metamorphosis
                                                                 
     of gosling to gander with the strut of a peacock.  O I knew
     I could be easily urged to plunge into things they were too cute to do.

     Things they could blame or profit by as the wind turned, and could see
     the smirk in eyes that thought they were pulling one over on me,

     pained they could do it - the gobshite and classic outsider
     observing his behaviour, analysing, and acting none the wiser.

     Anyway, at this time around our area evening "hops" began to boom
     out of basements, and through the railings we'd gog into a dim room,

     impatient to age, at heads and the top of backs.  Now this phenomenon
     gave rise to a new pastime that, although of spontaneous origin,

    
     developed into a punctual gathering before the gate where
     steps led down to a hop on the more tenemented side of Mountjoy Square.

     Here we (myself to the fore with an ill-fitting brashness that would irritate
     a Buddha and a reputation to wield) would lay in wait

     for girls just old enough to have tits and tight sweaters to arrive
     in a cocoon of perfume.  The procedure was heckle their approach, contrive

     to get a kiss by persuasion or stealth and, when they'd pass,
     tip-toe quickly behind and grab a good handful of arse.
                                                                                                                           
     There were a few "Jaysus" and "little bastards", but none were really
     upset by running the gauntlet.  But one thing led me inexorably
                                                                                                                                  
     to worse.  And one evening I went my customary ninety degrees
     beyond the limit.  Having a resistible urge to squeeze

     the pert young tit of a girl in pink, I did so.  She yelped
     in genuine surprise, and I can remember quite clearly how it felt

     and how I liked it: acrylic, the ribs of a bra, and within
     the soft, soft inimitable fleshiness of breast.  An unsure grin

     made it difficult for my associates to gauge how to react
     until she and her friend giggled down the steps.  And that was the climax.

     After this, the congregation and the daylight dwindled. It might
     have been lost novelty or school and not being let out at night

     but I've a feeling we were rudely dispersed by a management
     seeing no advantage in our presence outside his establishment.

     And since, armed with the grudged respect my deeds of derring-do had brought
     I've lied, smiled, insinuated, half-denied that I'd be thought

     the boyo I wanted them to think.  (Moot, if you like, whether passion for seduction
     stems primarily from display or lust, conquest or accumulation).

     But back to the girl in the pictures.  That, as I recall, just fizzled out.
     Practice was over.  The diversities of kissing with and without

     toffee had been exhausted.  I don't think it had to do with Nipper,
     rightly aggrieved at hearing me call his young-one "a little specky yapper",
                                                                                                                         
   
     retorting mine had a hole in her dress.  I hadn't noticed, nor would have cared.
     But versed in the values of the tenements, he'd no doubt this could be stirred

     into a serious detriment to any girl's worth.  But he attacked too late,
     for by now I had the tit-squeeze behind me and rumours of worse.  And to this date

     success, renown and women have been indissolubly linked in my mind.
     As a youth obsessionally synonymous.  As a young man I inclined

     somewhat spuriously to grab what was there and leave renown for later. But now,
     reluctantly approaching my sixtieth millstone, I am willing to avow

     the superior merit of renown if it entails the unassimilated
     will creating its own purpose to strive after.  This is, of course, stated

     with moderate modesty. For even fierce convictions, I suspect,
     are never quite secure against the lure of undulating flesh.