INTO THE RAIN AND TWILIGHT

Travelling is always good inspiration for me, and I am lucky enough to have been able to travel. This is a poem I began on a bus and describes the place I had just left.

ABROAD 

He sat down at the next table,

began editing papers

written in neat long hand.

We were holiday lax,

lippy with the wine.

The freedom of being in another country

had set us talking ten to the dozen.

Suddenly it occurs to me

he could be writing down our every word,

for he’s turned the paper over

and is scribbling hell for leather.

I wonder if we’re worth such an effort.

As we stand to go for the bus,

he packs up and shoulders past,

into the rain and the twilight.

I think I like it because of the memory it describes. It is not a particularly accomplished poem. It does go down well at readings though.

The Womack Sisters have a new album out. It is well worth a listen.

Until next time.

FEATHER AND WING

I read a lot of science fiction, not as much as I did when I was younger, but enough. This poem is an oddity, I think it works but I also think it needs to be part of a sequence. I haven't written that sequence yet.

extract from The Song of the Variable-Sweep Wings

the silence of the great extinction

settled on the shoulders of the survivors

as if for the first time

they could see all that had been lost

and so set to refashion their world

shipping in from beyond the stars

mechanical birds to jewel their skies

and fill a space long vacated

by sinew and bone

feather and wing

having captured the thermal

see how their propellers idle

as they spiral ever higher

to spectrograph heaven with their metal tongues 

I like the epic nature of the poem, the feeling that the world will persist whatever we do. I know it will but these days I wonder if we will manage to persevere.

Here's another track off Maya de Vitry's new album.

Until next time.

HISTORY IS A WORD BANGLE

I've worked on this poem for some time, putting it in a drawer for months and leaving it there. It's the only way to gain perspective. 

England's Glory

Clock back Sunday morning

it could be bin day but it's not

the silvered pavement a foxed mirror

Mafeking Terrace in the rain

walk down Sebastopol

across Inkerman

Flashcards for past lives

history is a word bangle

these streets wear blind

The streets mentioned are all named after battles in colonial wars. We live amongst the dreck of others colonial atrocities. It's time we changed the names of these streets.

Here's Billy Bragg.

Until next time.

SWEET AS THE HIVE

Another poem written in a workshop. The brief was early memories and this was mine.

EARLIEST MEMORY

when me and my mum

came out of Berry’s corner shop

that overcast autumn morning

my three-year-old hand in her calloused palm

as we walked along Wallace Street

she said to me

let’s go home and have a nice hot drink

in my head I could see

the Camp coffee steaming

in my little white cup

milky mud brown sweet as the hive

You can look Wallace Street, there are many of them around the UK. 

Speaking of streets here's the Modern Lovers.

Until next time.

BACKDROP TO THEIR PRIVATE DREAMS

Situations can prompt poems. I was once on at a festival and while I relaxed on the grass watching the bands I could not help seeing all the rubbish that the festival goers were just throwing on the floor and the team of people cleaning up after them. This poem arose from that observation.

Human Geology

the band crank it out, urgent, loud,

such a brief time to impress

below them hands in the air

almost a single mass of flesh

caught up in their moment

others further away

drink, talk, laugh, vape

the festival the backdrop to their private dramas

everywhere

unnoticed in viz-vests

people paid by the hour

stoop to collect cans into plastic bags

It works but it never made it into a book. Never the less such on the spot writing is good for one's poetry chops.

Here's Alela Diane. Here latest album is excellent.

Until next time.

AS THE COFFEE GREW COLD

This is a poem about treachery and how those people who betray must live their lives. I suppose I had been reading a spy novel or thinking of traitors when I wrote it.

MY MEETING WITH THE STASI

After they left,

he had the time

as the coffee grew cold

to reimagine the interaction,

discount his treachery.

Not that he would ever talk of it

or even let himself dwell on his actions

until the next time they came calling. 

I like how economical it is. My aim always when writing is to remove the superfluous. I just want what is needed there and I think that it works well in this poem.

I don't know much about the Marxist Brothers. I was given a cassette of them years ago and I've always liked their sungara style.

Until next time.

THERE ARE BETTER LEGACIES

A confession poem.

FREEMANTLE 2018

he warns me I’d better watch out

that I will burn easier here than in Europe

points up to the bright blue sky

and confides there is a hole

with diplomatic cowardice

I refrain from admitting partial responsibility

forty years ago I worked in the chemical industry

involved in the negative alchemy of turning brine

into caustic, hydrogen and chlorine [the basis of all CFCs]

the side effect of which half a world away

is this hole in the sky

There are better legacies

Yes, I was involved in manufacturing the materials to make CFCs in the 1970s. At least I can say that the governments of the world agreed to ban then, eventually.

Here's Laura Nyro and Save The Country.

Until next time. 

 

THE SMELL OF WINTER

I wrote this poem over a couple of weeks taking aspects of dreams and memories of waking in the night. For me it is a long poem. 

THE NIGHT IN FIVE SEGMENTS

hypnagogic patterns

or people endlessly morphing

projected on the cave wall of my skull

always I wonder if I’ve seen them before

weigh their significance

fall into the black

...

but for not as long

as you might expect

just one hour or two

hydrangeas flood the house with the smell of winter

the night is still

...

so I don’t look at my hands

though there is something I must do

this buzzing internal puzzle

I walk through that door and

am under the ocean

...

awake at three or four

this house a dreamscape

the floorboards in the bathroom

wooden warm smooth

the tree dances in the street light

...

this final waking

in the winter’s miserly light

the rich day waits

at the kitchen table

It is impressionistic, dream-like and hopefully conveys that otherworldliness that can come on when you wake some nights. 

Here's the great Anne Briggs, such a voice!

Until next time.