pascal’s death

by Nick Power

Pascal’s death was a cliffhanger 

merciful and swift like the maintenance train 

the Kinsellas got him –

one in the ear one in the eye, like Morningstar 

he lay there outside The Blood Tub 

beneath flashing Bass 

a contented Sealion 

we gathered round waiting for a sequel

but the gritter covered him in stones. 

Danny Gloom, yes,

he was so handsome it was inevitable, his murder,

a hundred Hackneys parked up outside  

the Showcase Cinema in tribute 

and every time I walk Floyd past that croft 

he stops and roots and buries his snout in the turf 

like a drug hound, 

searching for Danny and his attaboy 

his kibble from Maccoomb’s 

spoiled him he did 

up there in his high rise 

up there in his wild church.  

The first corpse we ever seen

was blind Waterworth from the bungalows 

and the Tophouse shaped like a ship,

all the mingebags from Betfred 

hated him because he’d keep his tips to himself 

his arteries were sewers 

his big arm a bottleneck of infection 

he died shouting 

DEAFLUGS at his dead wife 

in the room where we could see in. 

One day we moved through 

the glass pyramid in Birkenhead 

Tuesday it was, a school day. 

Police crabbed the aisles      

I’d been crying all day about Jody

Outside, P.K. beckoned me into an alley: 

Jody cares, he said shaking his  

head at me by a Biffa bin. 

Why do you think she doesn’t care?

she gave up Bobby for us 

she gave up the world! 

The first time I saw Jody

I’d knocked on, looking for her brother 

she sat on the stairs staring beyond me 

eyeballing the universe beyond her dad’s broad back. 

I would that the whole world froze at that moment –

she, watching my pathetic green gait,

my stuttering at her beauty 

time was a fat bluebottle   

burrowing into a Christmas cake.  

Jody, we loved you infinitely more 

than you loved us 

and I will miss you forever.  

At the demolition of Clatterbridge Hospital

they brought in any old scal –

put planks in their hands, said 

tear this wing down, smash them windows out. 

Down hallways of prosthetic limbs 

a fuse box got him, 

Kareem was his name and he was well-

liked by the foreman, the union men 

as well as he liked smashing up 

live electrical meters, 

he lit himself up like a lantern, 

wallet melted into his leg like a cyborg 

his fillings quicksilver soup, 

smelt like a chip pan fire they said. 

In the foster homes of East Wirral: 

Wimbrick Hey, Heathmere, Sunnyside, Prenton Dell 

communal rooms of LSD, 

unwanted sex and 

Michael Jackson’s Bad posters,

Dawn Barker drifted through 

like a gossamer ghost 

realising that invisibility is a superpower 

a sacred dance of the old gods 

Dawn Barker became Dale Barker – 

telling people she was anything from 

a serial killer to a scholar,

sometimes in the same day 

(She could hide her million deaths 

even from herself 

at the top of those bunk beds). 

While we’re on the subject, what of Tanzie?  

She used to drop off Mitzis 

and Microdots to all the girls in those homes – 

GIRLS ONLY, that was her thing –

they felt safe with her, see and it was good custom.

She did other bits too; 

mushrooms, magic, ground up benzo  

in Wrigley’s wrappers 

she’d hide it in a tree in a field  

called The Arno. 

(I saw one girl down there rigid with speed   

on the old ralla, pregnant, 

a spot-lit deer in a hunter’s crosshair 

we tried to un-knot her, but 

she just went tighter 

and the baby, well, no-one knows  

what happened). 

Tanzie herself looked like a bad  

Blackpool waxwork 

Leo Sawyer or the 80s fitness guy 

even more so when she fell from the  

scaffold of the Taxi Club 

the day the Orange Lodge walked through. 

Remember? Mikey Rego at the top of 

the White Heights 

threw a tangerine down 

right through the drum at the front – 

they marched through Jason Street 

and Media Street    

Mikey volleying bricks and old footballs      

down into their cymbals and banners. 

They never came again. 

Me? I was born in the year of the dog 

the day Pope John Paul ll came to Liverpool 

under the gaze of HMP Walton 

and soon left there for the draw of Chinatown 

where I sniffed around like a stray 

throughout my hungry years, 

chaebols of Cantonese chefs 

and gambling restauranteurs 

watching over me 

with the great dragon, Shenlong. 

Christmas Eve, 1997 

the sky broke – 

me and my brother felt holy 

he and I, we’d dodged a hit-and-run,

plucked crowbars from the sky 

in retreat of Terry Lim 

to whom we owed money

overflowed sewers ran beneath us like death drums, 

everything drenched in  

St Etienne last-minute glory. 

But that night, we ate

in one of Terry’s Chinese restaurants 

with the laughing porcelain gods 

and banquet house owners. 

I picked them a winning racehorse 

right there at the bar

all of the community elders came around 

slipping blueys and scores 

into our top pockets

even Terry appeared with his dogs 

to give us passage through the Mei-Mei 

and called me ‘Lucky Nin’ for years after.  

Until one day Terry gripped me 

in the back of his wholesale supermarket 

an apparition I had made myself 

there with the wantons, 

the woks and cleavers 

not knowing what to steal. 

I was hung from a meat hook 

like a window duck,

the badge of my sweatshirt 

from Tranmere School of Excellence 

my John Doe bracelet. 

But I was reincarnated not far from there, 

rebuilding myself through the summer holidays –

piecemeal, patient, remembering our 

departed friends 

who were all killed and reborn in me, 

as I was in them, 

every one of us knowing 

both here, and in the other world,

that coming home at first light 

alive or not alive 

is the great adventure. 

Photo of Nick Power

BIO: Nick Power is a writer and musician from Wirral, Merseyside in the North of England. He has had a number of books published, notably Bright Angel Proof and tour diary Into the Void, both with erbacce-press.