Poems

When I was young, nobody ran, unless, behind them on a dark and lonely road, they felt the breath of some misshapen thing, the aspens quivered and the willows wept; or if they’d spent their bus fare on warm beer, and they were overdue where duty called. Accoutred armies hurtle through our parks and boulevards, no good to ask them where’s the fire. Health oozes from their every pore. The race is to the swift, though only three ascend the podium. The rest are also-rans, way down the field, not troubling the judge. But now my ears are pricked, I pick up speed. There is the flag, and there the finish line.

There’s a magical muddle that clings to the pagelike mist to a meadow. No help in the hurting, no truth in the light,just haze on the harvest. I’ve cancelled my comeback and chosen insteadto be cloistered in clover. In the blare of the body the spirit lies mutelike a book in a bottle. I’ll hunker in hollows where wisdom is vagueand history can’t happen. There’s a heaven of honey in hives of friends’ hearts.They’ll humour my headstone.

                           1950s I Black as newsprint and round as bowler hats Tall chimneys puff away like cigarettes, Away, away... until the time that lets Them crumble or replaced by council flats. But smoke still tumbles from some chimney tops, A television set glows in a dark Room lit by coal. How long will time let park An armchair by a fire until it stops? II But furniture is changing, too; brand new With pine and plastic sitting in a room As pert as house plants that now people groom Beside the gleaming radiogram on view.

The house lights dim again: Willy Loman, Vanya, Lear talk to the dark before their eyes – while you glance sideways at your neighbours, who’ve brought their lovers, husbands, wives to sit beside them (or to occupy their minds). What do they want to see? The play goes on, into its last deciding act. A few will leave early: their spirits rise apologetically and drift toward the doors. Some women weep, some men feel anger at their own bald age as Lear is lost in grief. Applause is ferocious at the end. How can they leave? There must be more. What’s next? The pages of the programme have gone blank. ‘Shall we go round to see the people in the show?’ To find the dressing rooms empty, bare.

World’s stock of afternoons is running short And summer’s light is turning golden brown – It’s time to summon up our winter thoughts Since poetry will always be our sport And images, once mothered, won’t disown Our afternoons, though old, though running short, For in mind’s shadows metaphors hold court And new dreams swarm. We fully own It’s time to conjure up our winter thoughts, New entities of if and how, the sort That make us glad to live in winter towns Whose broken afternoons are falling short.

I give you permission to be grumpy on your birthday. Quibbles, Tussles… escalating to full-scale plate-smashing Rows are allowed. Hypochondria, Melancholia, Cattiness, Swipes, Barbs, Pollution Anxiety — all shall be smiled upon. Not literally. There will be a window at noon for a forty-five minute Tirade on Money Worries. Longer, if necessary. Don’t hold back. Anything at all till midnight is permitted, after which, with a swoosh, naturellement, you’ll be Sweetness and Light.

we’re outside The Apple Pie, sheltering. A jackdaw hops on a table nearby, twitching its hooded head, chit-chattering urgent news. Fixing us with beaded eyes, its charcoal plumage paints the rain-rod day. You message Steve, his house still full of Kath. Step-dad or Lydia? Who’s come to stay? Someone’s there, we hope, to ease the aftermath. Warmed by soup and pot of tea, we talk of Steve, watch umbrellas wheel down the lacquered street. read the Sunday papers, don’t want to leave. In together fug, rooted to our seats, just you and me with jackdaw recitative, we are the blessed. We are the unbereaved.

Take a walk with me down to the stream. It’s a cold, clear day. Frost underfoot. Tonight there will be stars: approaching home, we’ll crane our necks to count them, while billions of years whoosh past and next-door’s cat creeps over the shed. For now, it’s the stream we’re seeing through: billions of drops absolved of their differences, woven into one, a rippling pathway between two fields. Kneel down with me, and take these cares we’ve nurtured all the year in hand: our meek and jumbled offerings, our unsaid sorries, our pains. Let the cold, clear water stun you into wonder as it carries them away. There is time to do this at the closing of the year on a cold, clear day.

I was considerably perplexed for a long timeas to how they ensured each can contained a uniform amount. And what was the measurement?Gigglebytes? Guffaws? Microsnorts? I assumed there was a warehouse or depotin HaHa-on-the-Hill or Chucklington or some peripheral spot: HowlMart! orLarfs-R-Us! in dayglo on the side, but worried about the clowns who manned itbeing drenched by their backfiring buttonholes. How could they possibly handle bulk ordersin those absolutely massive shoes?

He left pawprints in the corridors.  Attendants followed at a distance, collecting  his droppings and listening for pronouncements.  When they saw his tongue lolling, they knew he was thirsty, pressing forward with a pail.  Some nights, hectored by matters of the state,  they would hear him roar in his chambers,  beat his paws against the walls and  hanker for the cold, black skies. His speeches  were fabled: beginning with a growl, building  to a pitch of fury across the despatch box.  They set them down in Hansard.    For counsel, he spoke with the kittiwakes    and warblers that settled at his window.

On a winter’s day, we took a trip to Wrabness. I was forcibly struck by Wrabness’s drabness. An empty street, as if everyone was ill. The air was preternaturally still. There was a single closed and shuttered shop. No birds sang. It wasn’t Adlestrop. Down at the estuary, the water was slate-grey, the sand and stones the colour of wet clay. The trees were black and bare, the sky was white. The windless air retained a wintry bite. When we got back to the station, our train had gone. We waited on the platform as an hour dragged on. Wrabness will remain with me, I think: a cold, astringent but refreshing drink.

Strange how the wind in certain placesbecomes your mindand your mind the sea.Shifting with degrees of perspicacity. Strange how the pines in certain placesbecome the fretand the fret the breeze.Tidal. Sputtering with incivilities. Strange how your bones in certain placesbecome the stones that make freeto stand. Or fall.Or to mutiny.

So as to not leave any marks on the freshly emulsioned walls by leaning the metal stepladder against them, and to save me the groan of starting next morning by heaving it up off the floorboards and lugging it into position, I stand it upright, dead centre of the empty lounge overnight, clothe the rungs with my overalls; no better place for my scaly gloves than snug on the ends of both stiles, as though waving or ready to grab you.