Ken's Poetry

Video Games

For Mark

Space Invaders, the classic,
Asteroids, Arcadia,
Phoenix
with its squawking wingless hawks.

Part of the excitement
like scraping a sand-track
with tunnels and bridges
for the radio controlled car,

sculpting towers and ramparts
and moats on the beach
that melted like jelly
at the lips of the slavering sea,

swimming and splashing and floating
warmed by the in and out sun,
balancing on the bright red oil drum
a low tide mile from the waves,

climbing the rocks at the cliff’s foot
and the tide coming in,
driving the car sat on my knee
along the five mile strand,

going out in the storm
where the waist high water
rushed though the footpath tunnel
out to the clattering sea.

But we always came back
to the sparkling arcade
and the video games …
and you always won.