HER FIFTIETH
You would have been
fifty this mayday, sis
five in the car, you drive.
nail in the tyre, too much
wine last night you celebrate
a workmate’s birthday
drive down the motorway
to pick up your son from school
a bottle of wine a night
amasses fat in your face
a business built from zilch
debts you hide from view
grieving for a mother
dead three years
bumps in the road
nails in your tire
car leaps over reservation
somersaults onto bank
and back again
the other four crawl out
sit on the bank
watch firemen cut you out
your excess weight
squashed against steering column
the only one to die
only thirty five
finally, with mum
I celebrate your fiftieth
my dear, dear love.
Her Fur Elise
I awake to Beethoven as Mam taps the upright
Piano downstairs in the through lounge
where morning light highlights dark brown dining table
And varnished coffee table both polished
with Pledge until you see yourself. Later
chemo will make her petite fingers fat,
Fur Elise break into fragments as disease progresses
and piano sold as her hands come to rest.
A Black Bead
I was given in Fifties by an Indian guru
in Madras with advice “Keep this
and you’ll be alright.” Correctly guessed
I had two girlfriends.
Eighty one now with asbestosis
a cough that hacks
at his body more each time we meet.
-You’re so thin dad?
-He said I’d be dead at eighty two.
-Where is it?
-I can’t find it.
-I’d best start preparing now.
-It’s a joke,
he says and spits
into his half full spitbag.
I find the blue paper
he wrote the prophecy on
dated 1962
the year I was conceived,
and take a photo of it with my mobile.
I give it to him
in the hope he’ll notice
it says he’ll die at 84.
He died at 83.
BIO: Paul Brookes is a shop asst. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017), A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018),Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018)
Forthcoming Stubborn Sod, (Alien Buddha Press, 2019), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). He edits The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews
The Unresolveables (An Heroic Crown Sonnet Sequence) by Paul Brookes at (sonnets 1-15)
Anthology Post: Finding a Wonderland in Alice by Paul Brookes (poetry)
Fevers of the Mind 
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