Danny D. Ford’s poetry, illustration and photography have appeared in numerous online & print titles, including the chapbooks  ‘Raffle’ & ‘Wellbeing’ – Poems For All 2021, ‘Sunshine Junkie’, ‘Flexeril Haikus’ & ‘Slides for Alberto’ – Between Shadows Press 2021, ‘Perforated by Sirens‘ – Analog Submission Press 2020. ‘The Unfolding Head’ is co-founder & compère of Dust Your Broom open-mic night & print collective Never Kill a Rainbow, in Bergamo, Italy, where he lives and works as a teacher.

www.theunfoldinghead.com

Watch Daddy’s Pint

for it is the drink 
of a man
who will spend 
eleven hours a day
lifting the weight
of family grief 
from the back pallets
of his brethren
72 tonne forklifts 
are easier to deal with
than death

watch daddy’s pint

for it is a drink 
held by cracked hands
bruised by the blows
rained down 
on anyone 
who steps 
out of line

watch daddy’s pint

for it is nectar
it is laughter
on the back porch
by a garage
by a grill

in debt
& out of reach
from the law

CID cannot cross the borders
of a chemical universe

where joyriding spores 
encourage flowers 
to dance

like trojan horses
on the track
under the lights

watch daddy’s pint

cos it’s right there
on the floor
by your foot

Do Not Pass Go

You walk around
at night

66cl of warm beer
in your pocket

frothing against
the broken seams

a dead rose
for a dead lover
inked on your forearm

we were busy hating everyone
but you stopped anyway

handed 
the remains 
of your joint
to my friend

kindness by the bag
telling him 
next time 
he sees you
there’ll be more

limpet eyes 
in the bright light
your bald head
is a laughing skull

my friend later 
looked me in the eye
& told me with real regret

he was pretty sure
the tobacco
had been found
on the ground

Slides

(For Alberto)

The loaded arm clicks
 & makes clunking sounds

splintered cracking
like arthritic 
bones

‘I can see the mental state he was in 
from his photos’ she says

‘one box 
was just the same rose
over and over again’

but some
are of tourists
dancing in sunlit piazzas

of motorbikes posing like girlfriends
hair down & cigarette dangling 

sunsets over roadside railings

of soft children
acorn headed
& damp 
from summer heat

of tents on mountainsides
& unblemished faces
laughing in tracksuits

of church spires
& mist 
between pine trees

of ducks on rippled lakes 
formula 1 cars
& endless 
portraits
of horses

maybe we can 
finally understand 
something more

but even this

had to be salvaged
from a polythene bag
earmarked for the bin