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,

he 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 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 the 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