Clarinet Lesson

Walking home

After my clarinet lesson

Anticipating supper

Humming the theme

To Coronation Street

I open the door to my first floor flat

A surprise on the stairs

A snake

A hissing, hooded cobra rears

Ready to strike

I reach for my clarinet

Man Goes Into a Pub

I'm waiting for Robb

Nursing a pint

Two men discuss the Arsenal

The conversation goes on for half an hour

And is full of interesting and detailed fact

And conjecture

And opinion

I wonder if Wenger

Might consider

Employing them

In a coaching role maybe

Or as tacticians

Or scouts

Then I think, No

That’s silly

They probably have

Perfectly good jobs

Already

A Poem Is Not Just For Christmas

A poem is not just for Christmas

A poem is for life

It’s for a child, a mum or dad

A husband or a wife

It’s for the changing seasons

For the many, for the few

But this poem is for Christmas

This poem is just for you

I Am the Song of Winter

I am the beard of icicles

That hangs beneath the eaves

I am the rock-hard mud

The frosty crunch of frozen leaves

I am the chilly wind that searches out

The cracks around the door

I am the wet scarf on the radiator

The puddle on the floor

I am the bustling of the birds

The seeds thrown in the snow

I’m the blue tit on the bacon rind

The patience of the crow

I am trees drawn with a fine black nib

Against a troubled sky

I am a pensioner. All alone

As another day creeps by

I’m the awesome silence

When the final snowflake’s fallen

I am the halo round the moon

The dark the day has stolen

Yes, I’m the gloomy afternoon

The leeching of the light

I am the growling, howling song

The wind sings in the night

Sometimes I’m hot buttered toast

As the snowstorm roars outside

But sometimes I’m untimely death

And the feeling hope has died

Fairyland

The hundredth anniversary. Disney

lures the children to the rink

in their satin pinks and creams. Buy an angel

on a stick. Mickey Mouse inflatables

only a tenner. Parents trudging

from the car park. Bambi lying dead beneath

the Christmas crowds. Dreams packaged in silver stars.

You see, it’s not the traffic that is far too loud

for hollow carols. You can’t blame the band.

It’s just the eerie silence of deserted fairyland.

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What Grandad Did Next

After he’d battled the baddies

Vanquished the knights

And dealt with the dragons

Grandad decided to have a snooze

In the garden

So he fetched the sun lounger from the shed

And set it up

Under the cherry tree

In a patch of shade

He took his shoes and socks off

Lay down

And closed his eyes

But he couldn’t sleep.

He was comfy enough.

The birds were tweeting in the trees

Which was very pleasant.

And he wasn’t too hot.

And he wasn’t too cold.

He was just right.

But something was nagging at him.

A tiny thought in his head.

It was saying, You can’t snooze yet!

There’s something you’ve forgotten.

Something important.

Grandad tried to think what it was.

He’d locked the car door.

Yes, of course he had.

He’d given Granny a kiss

Before she set off for the shops.

Of course he had.

He had put his screwdriver and screws away

After he’d fixed the shelf.

Of course he had.

Granny got cross

If he left his tools lying about.

And he’d changed the light bulb in the bathroom.

So what had he forgotten?

Then he remembered.

Of course!

Grandad sighed.

He put his shoes and socks back on.

He got up from his sun lounger.

And he whistled for his horse.

Then he called for his special assistant, Sammy.

What had he forgotten?

To rescue the maiden in the tower of course.

Come on, Sammy, he said,

Let’s go!

Glass Tunnel

In the Sea Life Centre

Is a tunnel of glass

And you can pass beneath shoals

Of silver fish and rays

And sharks

And Harry notes their names

In his book

Kettlefish

Ironfish

Lupinfish

Stinkfootfish

Teacherfish

Hometimefish

Busfish

Bedfish

And Dreamfish

Paradise Ahead

When I was young

I asked a girl on the bus

Where will you be getting off?

Paradise, she said. But first

I've got to go to Tesco’s

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Water in the Well – a Villanelle

A chance encounter with a Texan Belle

Leads to lunch - the café at the zoo.
You wonder if there’s water in the well.

Do crocodiles get tired? How does one tell?
You wonder what the meat is as you chew.

Most poets write at least one villanelle.

She takes you to the desert. And it’s hell.

Your dry cough’s captured by a camera crew.
You wonder if there’s water in the well.

Back home your life’s a cracked, unpolished shell.

Your Texan babe has left. What does one do?

Most poets write at least one villanelle.

Betrayal. Loss. And loneliness. That sells.

An empty sheet of paper. Start anew.

You wonder if there’s water in the well.

Most poets write at least one villanelle.

Not a Poem About a Fish

A dark red leaf

Falls on my orange shirt

And is blown

Down to the dried-out lawn

There, many dark red leaves

Are snagged by the spiky grass and thistle

A winged insect

Teases pollen from a clover flower

And an ant

Whizzes across the cracks and chasms

Of its giant landscape

And, as often happens,

I am distracted from the poem

That I am trying to compose.

A poem about a fish

The Truth

To be honest

I’m happy to be part

Of the lesser design of things

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Plum Tree

A photo of the tree

Would certainly save this description

A thousand words – at least.

No need to write cherry plum

Or dark red leaves

Or discuss the depth of shadow

In the French afternoon

A film of the tree would say more, of course.

How its leaves shake and shiver and hiss and rustle

In the blustery wind

But only words will find the thousand tiny plums

Hidden in the dark red foliage

And only words can tell you about its relationships:

To the lawn, the house, the stables

To the bugs and birds who live in it

Or visit it

To people, like myself, who sit beneath its shade

Or contemplate its past, or present, or future.

Who use it, maybe, as the inspiration

For a story. Or a poem such as this.

And words can suggest it role

As a handy backdrop for tales of love, or lust, or loss

How, long ago, a young woman,

On a night lit by stars,

Wearing a white nightdress,

Ran beneath the tree’s branches

Like a ghost

And into my young arms.

Schroedinger’s Coffee

Here’s your coffee, love

Said Shroedinger’s mum

He wondered if it was sugared

And decided that

Until he tasted it

It was neither sugared

Nor un-sugared

Parc Botanique, Tours.

April 2011

The bear pit is empty

Giant slabs of cracked concrete

Litter and weeds

The wallabies say,

Good day, mate.

Good to hear the mother tongue again

I ask the emu,

Sitting on his own, in the wallaby enclosure,

Feathers all shabby and grey,

Don’t you have any friends?

No mate, he says

Only these bloody wallabies

Thirty Five Minute Poem

Thirty five minutes ago

The alarm clock woke me

It was cold

I put on a tee shirt

Went downstairs, made a coffee

Peered through the blind

It was still dark

Half dreams, thoughts, drifting fragments

I watch the clock

It’s five to

I have to get up at eight

The window-fitters arrive at half past

Thirty five minutes to go

The phrase passes by again

And I wonder if there’s a poem there

Probably not

A Tough One

So, you think you’re hard

Said the tortoise

To the rock

The rock

Kept

Its own counsel

Reflection

As the ball

Hit the bat

The bat

Reflected upon

Its defective

Sonar

New Look

I have a new eye

Through which you look

As beautiful a being

As I ever beheld

Missing Poem

This poem is missing

This isn’t actually the poem

This is just something

Written in the space

That the poem would have been in

Were it not missing

If you find the missing poem

Please return it

To its rightful place

Right here

And then I can go home

Thank you

Castle

Every day Sam (two and a half)

Walks past the building site

Granny asks, What are the builders building?

Sam says, Castle.

And, as the scaffolding rises higher

And indeed
It turns out

To be a castle.

And who will live there, Granny asks

Knights and dragons

And indeed, it turns out

That they do

Thanks a Bunch

I wondered, worried, on the train

About my debts and how to pay my bills

When all at once, as the train slowed down

I saw a bank
Of lovely daffodils

Seeker

Where are you?

In the dark

What are you doing?

Waiting

What are you waiting for?

The usual.

Is it night where you are?

No

Are you below ground?

No

In space then?

We are all in space.

You’re in a room?

Yes

Is there a light switch?

Yes

Then turn the light on

It’s broken

Are you alone?

I think so.

Progress

Monkees to Gorillaz

Steam to atomic

Hot air to propellers

To jet (supersonic)

News with real news in

To rolling news updates

A shock-horror diet

Best be quick on the uptake

Email and texting

From pigeon and letter

Dark ages, e-pages

Things can only get better

View from Café Window

Black-clad police force

On Canterbury’s main drag

Touting for business

Brass

I filled the three brass cylinders

Each the length of a hand

With wet mud

And left them overnight

When I emptied them

The next morning

Bizarre creatures

Had hatched in the mud

A black bug, half spider – half nasty

With thin, stingy bits

Squeezed itself from the tube

A coil of wet mud

Became a short, fat snake

Or maybe it was a worm

The dream is already fading

The Hotel Blues Again

It’s clear

I am here

Where you are not

And I have got

The Hotel Blues Again

I watch distracted

Hand with pen

Write these words down

I’m in a foreign town

The Hotel Blues Again

The room is fine

The pictures on the wall do not offend

It’s clean, uncluttered

The bed is comfy and the wine

Has travelled relatively well

To dull and spark my brain in turns, I’ve got

The Hotel Blues Again

I phone you

And we chat. The train was late.

And I got wet in unexpected rain

The meal was Thai (red curry – hot)

And it’s not just being here alone

Upon a rock that’s doomed in time and space

In truth I can’t explain
The how or why I've got

The Hotel Blues Again

When Did That Happen?

I’m reading about a parallel universe

When I notice

That the train

Is travelling in the opposite direction

It must have changed direction
While I was in the loo

Coming Home on the North Downs Line

From the Great Western main line

Cross country in a grubby train

From Reading 4B

A smudgy pencil of a platform

Crossing stockbroken hinterlands

Of pre-fab housing and forsaken warehouses

We shadow the chalk ridge of the Downs

Wokingham

Blackwater North Camp

Trees seem barely able to summon up the energy to bud

Allotments, a glass-less greenhouse

Bungalows and council houses

And an English flag

Ash

Guildford

A tunnel

To the North the Hogs’ back

Scrubby fields

We amble through Chilworth

In the window reflections

A woman in a headscarf

Tucked in to a Brendan Behan polemic

A woman in a pale mac

Leather bag on her lap like a small dog

Engrossed in daily dreams

Dorking Deepdene

Rusty rails

And what do the three horses

Make of us shuffling past

As the cold night approaches?

Ryegate

Redhill

At last Gatwick

On the Brighton main line

Keepsake

Oh

Where can I hide my heart

Those hot and secret feelings?

In a forest of well-loved trees?

In a book of scrawled-upon leaves?

In an abandoned tin in the biscuit cupboard

Where the golden light

Won’t escape the on-tight lid?

So

Maybe I won’t hide it

Wear it on my sleeve

In the time-honoured

Or attach it to my hat

With an ostentatious silver pin

No

I’ll keep it in the kitchen drawer

With the out-of-date seeds, the too-short pieces of string

And the plastic bit of something that may be important one day

Yes, I’ll keep it there

Next to yours

Happy

I’m waiting

On the steps for Jill

A young woman

Crosses the road

Gazing at her mobile phone

A big happy grin

Valentine

As sure as summer

Follows spring

As sure as a pebble

Flies from a sling

As swallows mate

Upon the wing

As Bob and Dorothy

Follow Bing

As Elvis Presley

Was the King

As a ready microwave

Goes ping

As your morning smile

Makes my heart go zing

You dazzle me

Like a rapper’s bling

Because you’re my Valentine

And that’s the thing

A Million Tons of Junk

Look at all that stuff!

Without electricity

It’s nothing but

A million tons of junk

Like me without you

But when you flip my switch

I am cathode rays
Neon signs
Humming radios

Radar blips

Torch lights

City lights

Satellites

The cries and shouts

And wails and hurrahs

Of Fender guitars

Of bands in bars

I am transformed

Capacitated

Transcended

By your loving

Electricity

In Good Shape

I Circle you

Like picnic bears

And cuddle you

All night

Triangle you

(Each corner

A space filled

With delight)

I Oblong you

My obligation’s

Elongate and sure

I Square you

To my conscience

And consciousness

And more

I Diamond you

You’re priceless

Your Star shape

Cannot fall

You’re my sweet

And sexy Hexy shape

But I Heart you

Most of all

You’ll Be Here

When the ice is as thick

as an ice-maiden’s shtick

and the sky is as grey

as Sam Beckett’s lost playand
the wind is as keen

as a miser is mean

and the winter’s as deep

as philosopher’s sleep,

you’ll be here for the ride

with a smile as wide and as warm

as a schoolgirls’ dorm

with a cuddle as close

as warm, buttered toast,

with a laugh as out loud

as a sky without cloud,

with a love as intense

as the sky is immense:

you’ll be here by my side