REVERSING THE CHARGES

 

With eyes wide shut, I saw

that unchanged box: the crown above

a concrete base, cast-iron sides

and dome of currant red.

Four fingers crooked to prise ajar

its glazed, teak-heavy door.

 

Inside, the glass is uglified.

NF stickers clash with brazen ‘massage’ ads -

hate meets hanky-panky.

 

I unhook the hard black handset,

unwind its cable, tightly coiled.

Paused at the dialling tone

 

my head fills with excuses,

speaks to those ghosts of lost entanglement.

The nagging hum of piss,

 

patting pockets down for 10p pieces

before I get cut off.

Outside a geezer, glaring, checks his watch.

 

Headstrong nights had ambition then.

Listening for things to come

my shape became an ear.

But round the bend and out of sight,

in dreams I hear just nameless cars

pass by as streams of light.

 

 

                                                viii. 2022

 

Crowstep Journal - collection 5 

CANICULE

In that dark hour before the morning comes

bright Sirius arises; oversees

our hottest weeks, their breathless hush.

 

Listen. Hear those gorse pods popping open.

Touch the sticky birch. See willows

weep their seeds as snow and watch the urgent

 

dragonflies, who know how short time really is.

For day after day after day

a heatwave kneels on the land like a yoke.

 

The sultry air sinks, gets trapped, bakes the soil

in thirsty lumps. As cracks emerge,

there’s greater spin to play on cricket pitches.

 

The boundary is long. In blinding light

we are more often stifled now.

Cars turn into ovens. Air-con is king

 

of false relief. Still, simpler means exist:

paper fans and water pistol.

Orion’s dog howls for unlocked windows.

 

 vii. 2022

WASHED UP

 

Along this grey margin waders keep their lookout,

thread a placid tide. Sometime familiar species:

seen at binocular distance we find the joy

 

of recognition. Come closer now. A dark shape,

under the gingerbread cliff, lies wrecked in seaweed.

Emaciated. Turn the body face up with your foot.

 

Look on those glazed eyes, dried and dull. Feathered omen,

razorbill no more. Whether sandeel – trawled out – or

toxic algal bloom to blame, no state to end in.

 

 

 

 vi. 2022

To my daughter about being grown-up

(after Mila Haugová)

 

No, I have no secrets to pass on.

Cannot explain how self-doubt

picks out a mind to live in.

 

With patterns of our shared sky

I see your shadow come and go,

but cannot open the heavy door

 

into brilliant daylight.

People keep pushing through –

all that knocking never for you

 

or so it seems. For I don’t hear

the language of your longing,

nor question your regrets.

 

But picture those ghosts

who left you standing: their bare faces,

behind unanswered texts.

 

In the making of your own bed,

it isn’t good enough for me to claim:

‘All men are not the same’.

 

ii. 2022

Poetry Is Not Dead - May 2023

fridge poem for May Day 22