And so I will grow roses
And enthuse everyone with Jasmine, having sharpened
Everything with lemons.
Let children chew pawns
From my fresh chess set,
While I eat geranium
Chocolate with orange.
Garden, house and food –
May I never forget these blessings
And always look up
From my table with thanks.
He used to hoard his poems in a plastic bag –
They were heavy but the burglars threw them on their
Backs with the rest of his life – fill the cracks in theirs
With more crack.
Later, he came home and found it
Gone and worse, his poems taken, and he knew that
Somewhere, soon, they would decompose in the stink
Of rotting food.
Nothing was left, he had no insurance, he had
No chip that housed anything good he’d ever said
With dread the sink dripped and he thought how stupid
He had been to put his poems in a plastic bag that felt like money.
[To be continued]
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.
Being Every Day 