IN A MANNER OF MY OWN CHOOSING

Death came to call last night.

Pulled up in his green-and-yellow chequer striped van,

and stepping out in the ribbed jumper,

corporate boiler suit and fluorescent tabard

looked a right smart bastard.

I wouldn’t have minded,

being – in a professional capacity –

usually happy to chat with his Grimness.

But we were just about to leave

for a well-earned Halloween break.

Asking no questions, he brushed straight past.

Although – as concerned neighbours –

inevitably we became involved:

hanging on grimly to chase after relatives

and keep the clogged road clear.

A shame we couldn’t do the same

for the arteries of our friend next door,

whose ashen face, when they emerged,

told its own story. Fifteen-to-two compressions

and breaths only for appearance sake.

He's been around too often lately;

we live in a No Cold Calling zone.

Couldn't he read the brand-new County Council signs?

The Reaper shrugged: second thoughts

were more than his job's worth.

I wanted to punch his lights out. Shout:

“You're not taking me till I’m good and ready,

and in a manner of my own choosing.”

But in kids' clamour to be dressed up,

he closed his door and slipped away:

a siren postscript of blue light.

vi.2011

Lesson for Darwin’s altar boy

Sanctuary

among the Lenten Rose -

in its mauve chalices

a host of potent stamens.

Genuflect

to weed out wild garlic.

It gets everywhere,

this straggle of bulblets.

Make a complete action,

don’t cut it short:

the smallest left pearl

becomes origin.

Between joined hands

lies its renewal;

in the crumble of soil

germ enough to start again.

Dig deeper down

visible to invisible;

microbes mutate,

surpass our human count.

Observe the outcomes,

unfold their lineage –

rich, inscrutable

as the wisdom of birdsong.

Water marks the credo

of a birch’s weeping habit;

shallow roots spread

unseen beyond its drip line.

From next-door’s bonfire

the incense of house clearance:

snuff out that flame,

in ashes new-create your kind.

vi.2009

SHORE THING

Windows ajar, awake to the dark:

a squeal and hiss of braking below.

But I hear the surf’s looped roll

smash mussel shells, pounding

their jagged fragments into sand.

Like spume in the wind, doubt nags my skin,

but does not crystallize.

Instinct, professes Winston, is what matters:

we’re hostage to our genes.

Queasy, I reach for the remote.

Another celebrity channel:

the stink of dead cuttlefish

washed up among plastic bottles,

glass shards and broken chairs.

Night buses jostle a stretch limo.

The mini-bar yawns, and houses tilt

seaward. Here in hotel limbo.

Over a rutted mudstone shelf

flood tide fills extinct footprints,

leaves question marks in pools.

Full English breakfast dawns:

mushrooms grace my plate,

the closed anemones of trodden water.

A cormorant suns its unfurled wings,

cruciform as my upbringing.

v.2003 / ix.2005

ALLOWED

“Do you never listen to a word

I say?” You ask,

balking at further repetition.

Pointless any protest that I've

(so audiology reports)

hearing of an eighteen year old,

since already my ears are full

with the creak of timber in wind

and some distant chain saw's buzzdrone;

with squelch of muddy bridleway

as trains grumble through the valley;

with a bird scarer's fitful claps

and crows' indifferent croaking.

And besides I'm otherwise occupied

searching hedgerows for sloes and rosehips both;

cross-questioning feathered small talk all around;

translating the tinnitus of a stream.

Yet I misinterpret a tone of voice

and over my own tongue stumble:

its barbed wire excludes the public

from what has been fenced in.

Abruptly then aware, I rush to meet

head on your silence waiting still

within earshot, at the next stile.

vi - vii.2011

LIFE AT A STONE'S SPEED

one

steady hand

kneads our nape

where a boulder's heat

is borrowed yet magnified

the shape of its ache polished

shoulder smooth with spilt regret

from a lifetime's dream that

tears were all cried out

ending as though

they never

began

vi.2011

THE DIP OF THE HORIZON

This day's for looking round,

for turning arthritic

necks and shuffling feet

to scan horizons.

In the showery distance

a rainbow's arc breaks through,

questions our assumptions.

Circling the full three-sixty

we eyeball each degree,

our heavens to divine.

Nimbus, cirrus, stratus:

middle years bank up

in layers of letting go,

between clouds one and nine.

Function, sense, control fall

prey (or will) to dotage,

heart attack and strokes.

A pyrocumulus forms

from waste incineration,

and children leave like geese

to make their own mistakes.

Our tide is on the turn:

we eavesdrop the plaintive

skirl of curlews' evensong.

Lapwing are loose pages, Dunlin wheel

with hundredfold glints of sun,

and crepuscular rays flood marsh

with myth of silver linings.

vi.2011

TIME OUT OF MIND

What flood discharged you here

at this meandering point,

where banks of crumbling psyche

burst, and morning bells peal

dolorous over pasture?

From room to room you drift.

Your shards of silence set

a crystal curtain tinkling;

brief the insight shimmers

in sunlight glanced off trees.

The cut-up montage monster

roars unlived choices, relapses

into dumb acceptance,

inevitable as single socks

escaping laundry baskets.

Coats are hung upon their hooks,

shoes put in their rack. When words

dry up grim duty calls;

letters sullen sit on stairs,

seek to catch you unawares.

The hood of cloud rips open:

over your shoulder daylight

moon peers down, traps - like fly

in amber - that template

of who you thought you were.

When perception's hinge came loose

what gate were you passing through,

which slammed behind? Unlatch

the snib, return, with heart

quilt solace from the remnants.

vi.2011

BREAKDOWN

Have you ever strayed

over the edge of reason ?

Driven by all-embracing logic,

become a metaphor in pyjamas ?

Driven, for that circle must be squared,

or crossed, or arrowed.

Every road sign, every street name,

every lit window is symbol.

Each number signifies, all actions link -

while the wide world chain smokes.

Your silent voice yells in an empty cave.

Where doors of perception jam open,

no one is neutral:

in any car’s colour, the driver’s allegiance.

Vision - a contraband daughter -

bathes perspective in hallucination,

sends wisdom a postcard.

Ears ring with the fallout in your head.

When diurnal rhythm lets go its hold,

time melts like a Dali watch

across the labyrinth of waking.

From one slug, or burn, or coffee cup

sleepless to the next;

each turning point an act of futile defiance.

Have you ever drifted

beyond your hidden depth ?

Reached deep within to grip

some outstretched hand ?

viii - ix.2001

SPARE CHANGE

I.

Already browning leaves

bask in focussed warmth:

the definition of sunlight

held in hard-edged shadows,

which slant bars of night

across the furrows.

I squeeze the most

out of time remaining:

removal of crumbs

from arcane elevations

with dampened fingers, thumbs,

and expectations.

Leaving is the absent word

on a torn page:

smoke in a blind spot

where one can’t be found -

trusting footsteps do not

follow you around.

II.

Taking a breather:

I turn the block to its corner, and back.

Retracing routes to a dead reckoning

of climb-downs, compromises,

and short-lived triumphs.

To stay is to swim,

to drink the poisoned river.

Limbs stretch, pull, kick and glide,

emerging silent for a year

beyond the point of no return.

Catching traffic at a halt,

I scuttle by, green lighted.

Place a coin at the bedside

should the ferryman not hear my rhyme.

Always there’s a fare to pay.

III.

Hung up on tenterhooks

a wet blanket of doubt dries:

the masks of here and there,

two-faced, waiting on a word.

Leaf-fall as rain soaks away.

The shouted team-talk of six-a-sides –

lunch hours played out

in swearing, sweating echoes.

Parking meters promise

“free use of unexpired time”;

I plot reappearances

to the rhythm of wheel on rail,

and doze in grubby compartments.

Sunlight and shadowed passages –

the clear-cut choice

long made, long unrealised.

IV.

Pressure on a button then,

for drawn-out if becomes when

in the blink of a moment.

Familiar faces, soon no more

than unsharp recollection,

count these eight years down to days.

I am my own dissector,

measuring mixed sentiment

with a metre length ribbon;

And seeking some balanced view,

which neither labels nor betrays,

is mere shift I’m working through.

Sliced strand by strand, the stale knots

loosen; expose my parting shots:

Home again. Whole again. Home.

viii - xi . 2000

FULL CIRCLE

Lush June spreads her untrimmed limbs,

reaches skyward where criss-cross runes,

like cloudy kisses, vaporise.

Approaching our meridian

on wheels, I duck its overhang,

gaze through windows and hurry past;

untaken timelines, glimpsed and gone

in the passage between stations.

Deep sat, my crows feet eyes backtrack;

someone's fading lofted photo -

lover’s keepsake of gilded years -

spins a distant, tunnel vision.

And there before you first fetched breath,

all mock demure, your echo smiles.

Youth supposes endless encores.

But leant on wall, hands tucked behind,

the image speaks of no return:

leaves me to plumb that pool of genes

for common features, weaving stitches

out of scars. The hidden birthmark

ageing, losing definition.

Decades later, from time to time,

the disjoined stories rendezvous,

make cameo appearances

along the riverbank. I'm perched

in blustery spitter spatter

on a barstool with espresso:

scanning the walkways' lit parade

to fit, in teatime’s suck tide, each

quick step in its place. Yet skirting

sentiment until - as five chimes -

out of the grey you stride, through spokes

and cantilevers into view,

all heels and legs and brimful

of confidence. Neck like a pillar;

bold as once I was, decades since.

Then marching off to the nearest,

noisiest pub, we talk full tilt

and reason you've reached half my span.

So from here on our ratio narrows:

as day dims slowly might-have-beens

get overthrown, while shared things grow.

v.2011