the Bonfire

 

It would be at the back end of summer.

A dry spell, with luck,

before the chore of timetables pressed in.

 

And long before we thought

to worry about emissions.

Nobody had a carbon footprint then.

 

To be fair, he would wait

until late afternoon. Time enough

for neighbours to have their washing in.

 

Dad was not a man for compost.

 

Heedless of their nature, all arisings

got higgledy-piggledy piled

on a heap. Some years, two.

 

mown grass

weeds     hedge clippings

spent blooms     fallen fruit      

tired tomato stems

pruned twigs     deadwood branches

raked-up leaves     dug-out roots

 

Wheelie bin collection not yet a thing.

 

Out of this raw material

we would fashion a chest-high pyre,

ramshackle but well-balanced.

 

Laid with care, unaided by firelighters.

 

From a scrunched-up newspaper base

upwards the kindling grew.

We kept the green stuff to one side

 

speculated on effigies,

which Orangeman or Tory grandee

might deserve to burn.

 

Talked about the new school year. Mine, not his.

 

Lighting-up time: we’d fetch matches,

blow whole lungfuls of air

into the hesitant, firefly heart

 

and dance half-blind around the smoke.

When flames took hold, finding what else we could

to feed a blazing mouth.

 

old cardboard boxes

rotten fencing

broken furniture

 

Each armful magnified its hunger.

 

Overnight, we’d damp the core with grassy sods,

let acrid billows fill the sky.

Look for embers glowing still next morning.

 

vii. 2026

Signing off

NO OTHER LIFE

 

In the pause between lives, we did not recognise ourselves

at first. Perhaps you were beardless – a young man, or shaven

 

on your deathbed. Maybe I laid down my glasses – absent

minded – remembering our common lineage, the farewells

 

we had to settle for. In letters from behind the fallen

Iron Curtain, your love who could not leave the snow-bound woods,

 

her homeland occupied. Those were the rules of engagement –

‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ became your chosen mantra.

 

Within that settlement I’ve drawn breath, made my own choices

sometimes, whether bad or better. But now my years creep up

 

on yours. We’ll climb this hill to its triangulation, hug

each other, see below a new world order on the brink

 

and cling to my inheritance, a gift for platitude:

you always said the darkest hour is just before the dawn.

 

ii. 2025

Looking for dead neighbours on Google Street View

Observe the well-heeled home improvement –

once crumbling fascia boards renewed

and paint-peeled window frames

now double-glazed. Mostly.

Stained glass panels, here and there,

remain in doors

where uPVC adjoins Victoriana.

But rusty gates, jammed open, have long gone.

Shrubbery, overgrown, cut down

then paved to park a second car.

 

Prompt after early Mass

(old man Choat expected you on time)

you would pick up the heavy bag, bulging

with Sundays and their supplements.

Start out, interested less

in the lurid banner headlines

than racy lingerie small ads.

 

Every dropped off slab of half-truths –

left in hallways, squeezed through letterboxes –

would lighten the burden.

Halfway round, at Mrs. Name Forgot,

a second load awaited.

Your hands already black with newsprint.

 

Stacked coins on window ledges, hidden

in eggcups, under pots, behind milk bottles.

Tips from many;

thruppenny bits the favourite.

Its twelve-sided rim like a parapet,

a nickel weight in your palm.

Sometimes you’d stop and chat.

Never mention the daily boy

who, in his pre-school rush, had no such time

and was scarcely tipped at all.

 

Reach inside, retrace your steps – like as not

you won’t return this way again.

From scummy culvert crawled through once

(in your own escape movie)

to alley where the town’s sole punk

sprayed RIOT NOW in Day-Glo pink,

these modest streets

they run like veins within you still.

 

xi. 2023

NOT FAR FROM THE TREE

If we listened, we might hear their tearing:

the taut skin pierced,

tart flesh mangled to juice.

A kind not sold in supermarkets.

The windfalls lined our landing sill; put there by Dad

to hurl at cats who dared trespass.

Gardening was a chore for him. He cut the hedge,

mowed grass, kept trees in trim.

From that window we could contemplate

the lumpy ground, punctuated

by unsure fruitfulness.

Somehow love of it rubbed off unrecognized.

 

* * *

 

Consider the skill of pruning: how to learn

not everything can be revived,

that what you plant should be no less

miraculous than the tree cut down.

Steeped in autumn’s raspberry twilight,

we sort the last pickings

from Mum’s one-time realm, a far-end greenhouse.

I brush the trellised vines,

smell their terpene fragrance.

Side-shoots pinched out to train the energy of growth.

This the inheritance we think we know,

but forget to notice.

 

v. 2023

Littoral Magazine - Beltane, 2024