In boyhood he stalked the Warsash shore
intent on treasure, found preciousness
in cuttlefish bleached like polystyrene,
light as cork. Lifted stones disturbed
with light translucent creatures a low tide left,
awaiting the lung of a flood tide freeing them.
Among the tarred stones and green weed
were barnacled bottles filled with darkness,
archeological cans, driftwood smoothed by
a hundred years afloat and, once, a pirate's chest,
like a piece of left luggage he hid in the marram grass.
And now these images, worn like the driftwood,
haunt his declining nights sleeplessness.
He spends his dreams rearranging the contents,
picking over life's findings like flotsam,
discovering again those things he counts as treasure.
Magpies
Magpies
If only you could taste the way they stare,
Disdainful as a lemon, bitter as gooseberry.
Their mock Tudor plummage neatly pressed,
They line up in pairs with jocular eyes,
Calls, half cough, half a swallowed laugh
Waiting for the next jape they can pull.
Of any birds you'd like to have a pint with,
Let it be these avine comedians.
The Crab Road
The Crab Road
Leaving Trinidad we drove west
to find the tobacco fields,
fringed a green Caribbean
filled with weed swells.
That week we’d spent punch drunk
on rum sun, Havana Club No.7,
a bottle a day bursting our eyes to starlight,
could not prepare us for that drive.
We were making good time-
before the oil stopped,
soviets fallen, sugar and cigars
decaying in the fields-
careering with cicadas in lime groves,
plantain and banana bulging green.
We sensed the scents for miles
before we came upon
a seafood salad boiling
in massive waves of air,
a mirage of pink tar, hovering.
There was carnage there
but still they came,
small robotic armies
spawning from the woods,
impulse driven to the sea.
We braked hard but the locals
knew better, better to accelerate,
wind up the windows and sauna than hear
their crunching screams under hot tyres.
Instants before annihilation they’d rise,
pulling up to full height,
as big as two hands, claws akimbo,
snapping in mimed shows of hubris.
We crawled for miles
weaving through their flesh.
For days the stench stayed with us,
that hour on the crab road.
i.m. Awaab Ishak
Awaab Ishak
How do you write about
a tiny boy who's died
coughing mould up from his lungs,
his fragile body robbed
of all its preciousness,
despite his parents' pleas,
their belabouring of those
who could have saved his life
but inexplicably chose
not to? Whilst they luxuriate
in their 100k's and liberal debate
his ashes moulder further still.
There are lessons to be learned
but, given the history of these things,
I doubt they ever will.
The Battle for the Pub
The Battle for the Pub -A Sestina
At six p.m. I'm heading to the pub,
A local situated on my street,
The Bird in Hand is swinging on a sign
Enticing would be drinkers come inside
To sit around the crackling, cosy fire,
enjoy a hand drawn pint of foaming beer.
There's few round here who can resist a beer,
Though lately say, I don't want to buy the pub!
At this price I can't quench the raging fire
Of my thirst. I'll likely end up on the street
Or bankrupt, spend a year or two inside.
Give me an I.O.U, where do I sign?
Discerning drinkers see it as a sign,
The end of joy at quaffing down a beer,
Of congregating with your mates inside
Social spaces like your local pub.
We can't descend to drinking on the street
Bereft 0f darts or cribbage by the fire.
I heard a landlord set his place on fire,
Such was his desperation when asked to sign
For a rent increase or be thrown into the street;
A rise that couldn't be met by the price of his beer.
For he loved his job, he loved that parish pub
but could feel his mind uncoiling from inside.
Such economic woes aren't felt inside
The palaces of those shielded from the fire
Of neo-liberal thugs who want our pub,
Those oligarchic thieves who would consign
Us all to gristle pasties and small beer,
Gloating on their rampage through our street.
Unusually there's two pubs on our street
Both called Bird in Hand! I know the inside
Story. How these two purveyors of beer
Came to be named. It was in the raging fire
Of sibling rivalry, as sure a sign
As any of The Battle for the Pub.
This pub and its twin were set up on our street,
Two brothers' signs beckoning inside
To a blazing fire, pints of foaming beer.
Farewell Performance
Farewell Performance
I'm reading the later poems of Vernon Scannell,
idiosyncrasies of ribald humour,
love, regret, not a little flannel,
penned in his fervent race against the tumour
clinging to the inside of his voice,
a voice of perfect diction. His form of phrase,
confirming always fine poetic choice,
brings laughter, tears, linguistic holidays.
He loved the scan of a pentameter,
though he composed in other forms as well,
with its rhythm of the human beater
pumping blood and love in parallel.
So too, he scribed a craftily wrought sonnet,
always his wry humanity stamped on it.
A Clerihew, or two…..
A Clerihew or two......
Rishi Sunak
Won't have your back
Unless you're a multi-millionaire
Or Tony Blair.
Sunak, Rishi
For some is public school dishy.
Winchester has beaten
Eton.
The Do
The Do
i.m. Mike Pentelow
We all turned up,
we wept, we laughed,
we drank and ate
our fill of you.
Your ghost was here,
we felt it strong;
no one can quite
believe you're gone.
The sky lit up
above the Tower,
communists
across the lands
sat up, noticed
something wrong;
a falter in our
strongest voice,
a missing note,
a poorer song.
We're out of tune
now you are gone.
More of the Shame
More of the Shame
We walk this morning to the reservoirs,
these great pools filled with winter rains,
filled to overflowing like broken hearts.
We await the coming of the geese
skimming in like military drones.
Far away the cruel satanic choirs
of shells chant barbarous refrains
reminding us humanity departs
when ignorance undoes our sense of peace.
We hear the sound of tramping from their homes,
the several thousand years of refugees,
their haunting songs bewildered on the breeze.
At Seventy
At Seventy
Is there more to say, much more to know?
You'd think in seventy years you'd have seen it all,
had heard all wisdoms, sown the seeds that grow
luxuriant grasses, fertilised and tall
with understanding, comprehension like
a second sense, a knowing, winking eye.
But no. This age is more a Pennine hike
than a country stroll, each step a swallowed sigh.
It seems a shame you've not made more of it,
stuck at something, chased some small success.
Yet not for any transitory fame,
more, participating in the game
continuing around you as you bless
all those you've loved. They're the core of it.