She had bright
Red papier mâché,
He, a thick oak.
Between funerals,
The years, brittle,
Wan, now mingled
With the best ones –
Dusty joy,
Shared; striding, touching,
Swimming through the wind.
death
Untitled
There is no way out, the
Present is everywhere I go;
In every state I stop or start
The only EXIT is sleep;
Unless death is a dream.
Remembrance Sunday peace and sound
We ring the bells for
Babies, we ring them
Then for brides and
Grooms, we ring them
Every Sunday, in politeness
To our Father, his Son and
Of course, the Holy Ghost.
Today’s bells ring and ring
And clash with the drums
And brass blowing down
The street to the pound
Of feet remembering flesh
That was blown to sand
Or mud or stone, depending
On the time, the place and
The type of luck or
Bravery that graced
The soldier who didn’t know
The shortcut was It.
Arpeggios, majors, no
Minors – Don’t dwell
On pain, keep calm
Carry on – Don’t clock
The fuss civilians
Make about bombs.
Drums for triumph
Beating out a time of
Red and gold and
Sabre mounted on the
Field, blast through the murmur
Of stealth or chocolate bars
Mingling with Kalashnikovs
In the long-distance lorry’s bowels.
Drumming stops and the
Ducks go quack quack as
They paddle in the
Lake and the leaves
Break out in chatter
Now that they can hear
Each other better without
The dreadful stacks
Of beats that back
The boots that crack
The streets to remind
Them that another year
Has passed and more
Bodies are piled on
The old ones who died
Young. God rest their souls.
Snow Globe
A person and a penguin , in conversation
Person:
‘Accessories are what it’s all about –
Hats, scarves, bangles worn over gloves,
Keeping warm in the snow, nothing
Else counts when you’re cold and wet too –
Suddenly life contracts to a quick pulse
In the chest, trying to beat Frost and reach
Hands and feet first.
Penguin:
Keep the shuffle going, to and fro,
Across the glacier, here
And there a slide and skate
Punctuated with the odd skid
And backwards swirl, churning
The blood through warm wings or,
As we call them, waistcoat fins.
Person:
‘Where are we going in all
This white, what paths shall
We black when all previous
Tracks are under four metres of
Soft silence and the only clues
are foxing paths deviating on
a scent we’ll never crack?
Penguin:
Why ask where we are going?
There is no direction
To go in because we are
Home, our feet make it
Newly, every step
into top snow .
Person:
‘Don’t you ever ponder,
One day, ice gone,
you’ll be swimming Through
to Death or simply,
wait for Life to
Pass, from the last
Raft of rock?
Penguin:
‘And what does it matter?
I feel my egg between our
Feet and know to protect
And honour –
Our pact – we three:
Her, egg and me.’
Another conversation, same person, same penguin
Person:
What use is breeding? One
More penguin when there
Are thousands
Picking fights to
Get to the inside.’
Penguin:
Who are you to ask why?
You have over engineered
Your brain so that
No fuel is compatible and it
Eats itself for food.’
Person:
‘Still, must be more to Life than
Eggs that may
Never survive and hatched,
What will it do? Make more
Eggs like you?
Penguin:
Better that than
Unhappy with what
I have, thirsty for what
I haven’t need, hungry
For what I’ve just gorged on.
The ice is melting
And we’re all on it –
Melting it more
In the warmth of shared space – nothing
More, nothing less.
Reality abides with us,
Quietly, no fuss at the fading snow.
Killing time, over a nice cuppa
Sitting cold next to Arthur,
Tea brewing strongly.
Tied the knot in 1952, now
Tightened too flat to tell knot
From rope, you pop out to shops,
You pop back to tea, he pops
Upstairs to find his crossword. You pop
Out again for more tea from Maggie’s cups –
Same bags but the milk’s not
Not gold topped. Still, there are plenty of biscuits
Arthur couldn’t eat.
Mown Down
There once was a girl with blue-tits
Standing on the corner
Of a dirty street
Letting them sing in the lamplight
At half past five on a wet autumn eve.
Lucky to have them
Printed on nylon, somewhere
In China in colours to match hers.
Lucky to be there, at the dirty
Street corner, no care but getting
Wet through the wet autumn eve.
Moving into the twilight
She breathes holes in
The air, past the day’s paninis
Left out by Cafes for tramps to eat
On loose-knit streets
Paved over fields, gradually, down
Decades, first cobbles then tarmac,
Bits of both, interweaved, gum daisies
Sprouting pink and yellow and green
Through each kink-
About to cross the road
The blue-tits stop singing but
She ignores their hiatus and makes
For the van, white, common type
And BANG
The blue-tits go red and
Death fills the street.
Leighton Cemetery
Left there the corpses,
then the skeletons,
first alone, then to-
gether, their beloved
wives newly carved on
the head –
stone.
Left there the flowers
fade, made of nylon,
or decay, if alive once,
foil and cellophane
are blown away and
vase is
cracked.
The ground is pinned down,
there is nowhere to
be, only thin waves
lap each grave where we
wade to reach that door,
key-hole
free.
Let’s go down to the sea, like you used to, with Grandpa
We stretch for blackberries
In the sun, walking slowly
Along the bay, here to commemorate
But bereft of memory
The chilhood talks, the driftwood fire,
The sausages and sticks
Were too light to sink and
Be saved for deep sea divers
To find.
One lone tanker
Heaves past as we
Leave. Do its crew
Marvel at the sunset?
Probably not. Do we?
Yes, in our minds eye,
But our hearts are
Elsewhere, trawling,
Water and memories
But the catch
Is empty, the
Hoped-for treasure,
Through it slipped,
If it was ever there.
Lifelong
Life’s too short
For rushing
And ruing.
Let it run
Thick and slow
And rich and
Deep and velvet
Smooth over
Boulders and
Into cracks deep
To the bottom
And long down
The valley,
Silent and soft
And warmed
In the sun
And black
Through the
Night yet
Teeming
With song
Lifelong,
No rush
To rue.
8:30 am, Heart Attack Road
Death stopped his
Clock at 49 years, 38
Days and 54 seconds.
Enough? No sense in
Asking nonsense
Questions, his measure
Weighed no more
Nor less than 49
Years, 38 days and
54 seconds. No
Use holding
A bicycle, a
Cigarette, a
Curt phone-call,
Suspect , no murder
Here, only Life
Then Death.
Rerouted
So abruptly,
Where does he stamp-stomp now –
Swear or
Hack a laugh
And scratch
His ear to
Chase a thought?
What’s that sound
We hear on the
Stairs? Silence and the
Flaccid patter of
Other people’s feet,
Not his firm
Tread.
Who’s that voice
That Northern
Lurch? – No, not
Him, too mincing,
Not his whirr from
A tar-blacked pipe.
His last weekend,
His last of
Life, what
Passed, passed
Clear and
Flat, as if
To expose,
Not far ahead,
A fork in the road.
Off he veered,
Yet visible in
The morning glare, but
Shrinking,
Slowly, steps
Grow softer
As his edges
Fizz their last,
And crackle warmly
Into Horizon.
In memory of a man, a salesman from Nottingham, fond of sailing and his 3 children.
Being Every Day 