Tag Archives: Joe Crocker

Sonnet: Joe Crocker, ‘Stick and Twist’

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The more that you dislike the way I am,
the less I worry what it is you like.
I let go the way that you don’t like
the rattled heart of me, the way I am.
 
Perhaps we’re going through a sticky patch.
The patch that stuck us down long years ago
is not as sticky now. But even so,
its tar has held us close enough to catch.
 
It covers up the cracks and hides the shabby
seams we couldn’t mend. We still pretend
to rub along regardless. In the end,
perhaps we are just averagely unhappy.
 
The way we blister love and twist its scar.
We sort of stick it out. And peel apart.

*****

Joe Crocker writes: “I wrote this poem a year or two ago as an expression of frustration and sadness about the slow decline of a long marriage. The title is  an allusion to the UK card game Pontoon (Blackjack in the States?) where you can either hold your cards (stick) or ask the dealer for another (twist). It’s written from the perspective of one person in two voices. The italic lines are pained and self-pitying and the middle stanzas are him trying to figure out what has happened.”

‘Stick and Twist’ was originally published in the current Rat’s Ass Review.

Joe Crocker has a 25 yds breast-stroke certificate, several Scouting badges and “O” level Epistemology. He has won prizes – bubble bath mostly, a bottle of Baileys once. His poems squat in obscure corners of the internet. He doesn’t have a pamphlet or a website but if you Google his name and add “poetry” you’ll find most of his published work (as well as links to a deceased Sheffield rock singer.) He gets by with little help from friends.

Photo: “Playing Pontoon with tiny cracker cards” by Rain Rabbit is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Joe Crocker, ‘What Sunflowers See’

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They lift and fix their heavy insect eyes
upon the East, from where the sun will send
the bees to stroke and lick and fertilize.
 
They wait, where once they craned their necks to see
his passing arc. They wait, amazed. Surprise
has painted yellow lashes, perfectly
 
coronal round a crowded, dark eclipse.
Its buzzing beauty pixelates and stares.
An alien array of cells unzips.
 
A thousand thousand sisters nurse the same
regret. His warmth is gone. And left behind
to hang their heads, disconsolate, they blame
themselves. Their tears drop hard and black and blind

*****

Joe Crocker writes: “The French call them Tournesols because, when they are growing, the follow the sun. But when the flowerhead is fully formed, they all face East so they warm up quickly and are more attractive to the bees. The poem came about because I’ve been seeing them more frequently in our local supermarkets and my wife grew some this year. Seeing them close up, I was reminded of the reaction a friend from many years ago used to have. She liked them but kept her distance because she was spooked by their dense busy centres. So the insect eye was the starting metaphor and then the poem led me on. Big, beautiful, disturbing, and in the end, sad.”

Joe Crocker is no relation of the Sheffield-born rock singer. But he does live in Yorkshire and gets by (with a little help from his friends). He is a bit old now to be starting out in poetry but was infected by the muse during Covid lockdown a couple of years ago and has had a few things published, mainly in Snakeskin magazine (where this poem first appeared) and other online venues. He doesn’t have a website but if you Google him, you’ll learn a lot more about a certain Sheffield-born rock singer.

Photo: accompanied the poem in Snakeskin.