Poems

Women aren’t allowed in so we lurk on the threshold – wives, mothers, lovers waiting for our men to appear in their new changed selves. Prime among them comes the boy, trying on his new blue suit for next week’s prom. At once we recognise the occasion, know it’s not a suit  he’s trying on but grown-up-dom. A clutch  of mother hens, we bond in fuss and fret, dress him in our very best wishes. Now what colour tie should he wear? Which shoes? We’re all over him, our fledgling  with his acne, his awkward stance, his excruciating embarrassment, his beauty.

Some of us are not cut out to be happy.  Our role is to suffer undramatically, quietly,  at home, while the world goes by outside.   We are the ones who pay for your daily joys. Our marriages fail; our health; our wealth;  our prospects turn to dust.  If we pluck up the courage to venture  out into your world, we become  scarecrows to frighten the black birds  from your sunny fields.  How we make you laugh!  You think we’re pathetic.  At dusk, when we close our eyes, the birds  gather on our outstretched arms and crow.  This is the best we can do: to sing  along with the black birds at evening.  So you can find us funny.

Naming these things is the love-act – Patrick Kavanagh Brighton House and MerrendenRoslyn Villa by Milford House Arthur Cottages one at AnnanElmwood and St Leonards meet Charnwood and the Park View HouseMalvern is three down from Cedars Shakespeare nods down to MiltonLike Poplars on a Holly Bank Tennyson knows the Lindum HouseFern Bank and Carew too Ashwood House VictoriaThe Stamford and the Ashley Villas An East View of MorningtonPark stretches down to Woodbines Wardley Cottage by a Daisy BankElma and the Oban House Adolphe Cottage Fernly VillaMelbourne dreams in Myrtle Bank.

How many years since we ate here – nine, ten? We called it the smoky café before the ban, took the kids upstairs for pasta each time they stayed with us. Now they wake inside their lives, miles away, and we (who feared this place had shut) share pizza on our return: olives dotted over cheese, as if minutes are mushrooms, aubergines like cities we love. Sure, the manageress behind the bar has a subtle map of lines across her face, though her hair-dye is red as history. The leaning tower fades on the wall above our forks. We’re old, not wise, savouring chips with mayo, crusts and wine.

from 20 Days in Mariupol, directed by Mstyslav Chernov After the bomb burst the hospital, her wounds were incompatible with life, the life she should have had to include dancing and, when this is history, if not a piece of theatre, chasing her laughing toddler along the beach. Yet she had life to give. They filmed her stretchered to the ambulance, to bump off full speed for Hospital Two in Mariupol.  Having started, the story must finish. They did reach Hospital Two, outlined her scene one, guessing her thirty or so years. Gynaecology was noisy. Stretchers kept coming in. But a doctor grabbed a moment for the camera. ‘She was Irina. Shattered pelvis. We got her baby out and tried to make it cry.

Somalia breaks off relations in 1963 so hurried packing is the order of the day and there she is in black and white swishing down the years in a gauzy frock past hat boxes and tea chests while servants hammer down the lids. Mosquito nets predict a breeze. The camera leaks her fear and sweat. My father won’t believe his eyes or ears. ‘And me?’ he roars, unable to account for scenes in Mogadishu where my mother is the star and he’s not even a prop or a walk-on part, just a scrap of footage casually dropped on history’s floor.

Leckhampton chimney has fallen down’ – Ivor Gurney In fact, it’s still much as it was,if you can find it, and if the dogs(nobody walks the hill without one)will leave off for a moment jumpingto press their muddy scrawl on you. Out here, I’m protected, surelywith three jackets. I missed the bus,lost the path, then climbed the mostdifficult route, up the oldtram incline to this stack of limestone. Walking, he imagined its collapse,yet here it is. Smokeless. Solitary.A cenotaph for something quarried.Headquarters, chapel, school,government building, home, asylum. The Devil’s Chimney. Its partial viewof Gloucestershire makes it seema healthy peaceful place, but hardespecially on lungs. In Stone House,he walks and walks the level grounds.

Pull back the carpeton last year’s compost.Amid the richness:ratholes, a snakeskin;the fetid carcassof a wounded muntjac. We grow our foodbetween such influences.The body incorporateswhat the mind refuses, so there’s a hintof rat and snakein all of us. Our kindsoft hearts springfrom moist darknesses,the wasted ribcage. ‘Om’ is a sacred syllable in Hinduism, mystically considered to embody the essence of the universe. ‘OM’ is gardeners’ shorthand for organic matter.

Well will wounded Wilko wieldhis bloody red/black axe –fingers fast on Fender.Watch him as he chops, attacks,his hearers hoarse ring rafters Weighty wordsmith’s word hoard wandersthrough the streets and down by jetties.Long his living lays will lingerin the wide world’s towns and cities So, for fearless friend and friendship,many moons and miles rememberedin the Great Halls of our minds,Rock on! Sing on! Play loud and tenderas your flame bursts from the embersstill yet you steal a march on Time.

Ironing is her favourite task. The rhythm and the steam transport her to an outer state more vivid than a dream – a place of creased and crumpled hills, a wet and heavy land through which a burning body moves, directed by her hand. Each stroke a stride, the rugged earth dissolves into a plain whence she can touch the brooding clouds and taste the coming rain. This wide expanse, this untrod moor she spreads out fresh each day and, godlike, when she’s done with it she folds the world away.

Your phone still works. All I have to do is dial your old number and I’ll hear your voice sounding almost like yourself. Perhaps you are not feeling well? I am walking in a part of London unknown to me but for the fact you live here, and always have done – an alleyway I never knew was there. Now here’s the tall house at the corner of the street, waiting, a faint glow at the window dark as a beetle’s wing. There’s something the matter with the door, its heavy, rusty hinge won’t give way. How will I explain why I haven’t been to see you all these years?

Robin is dead no more shall sing nor ruffle his wing no more shall sing Robin is dead no more shall wait at the garden gate no more shall wait Robin is dead his soul has flown but whither gone oh wither gone Robin is dead and all my joy my sweet bonny boy and all my joy.

My son, who’s never been allowed to tread on the scarce, yellowed lawns back in Spain, hesitantly takes a few steps in Priory Park, glances back, checks for approval, then breaks into a wild canter. And I, who played in our garden all summer long and who took it for granted, learn the amazement  of running over springy grass, the fear-free tumbles, the green stains. I wince at them like his Gran did.