John Mackay, born in South Yorkshire in 1963, works as a freelance jounalist in London. Before studying English Language, he worked in farming. He trained at the Institute of Education, and became an English teacher in a Further Education college. At he age of 35, he did an MPhil in Modern Poetry at Stirling University, and completed his dissertation on elegy. In 2001, he joined a Poetry School workshop run by Myra Schneider, and has since had work published in a number of magazines. He has given readings at venues around London, and at Tongues & Grooves in Southsea.
Quelle: poetry p f

Territory

Pricked by Christmas whisky and righteous
indignation, we sparred at the scarred
oak table for hours and hours, the hopeless
idealist versus the sold-out cynic, fighting
their corners after the women
had scattered. We smoked and drank
and snarled as the old grandfather clock
bonged off its rounds and the sound
of canned applause surged and subsided
like high tide over shingle. I flagged
my delight in the black-and-whiteness
of life—the only good capitalist
is a dead capitalist. You were the advocate
of the devil—I’d rather a Thatcher
than a lily-livered liberal—revelling
in the ebb of my pleasure. I was
as mad at the world as I was at a dad
who looked at me aghast and laughed.
We fought some more, wild-eyed,
and when the bottle went down and rolled
on its side, we knew it was over. Mother
made her entrance in a flap and flung
wide a window to let out all the hot air.
Then, red-faced, unsteady, we took a step
towards each other for a second
but thought better of it, as if one inch
given might threaten what we had,
these times spent together.

published in Acumen, May 2006