Early Morning

ice, hard as stone

- standing – in the North –

bring it South, to home,

the hearth, the heart, the home.

Sons radiate upstairs

- I sit in new light

reading Emily Dickinson –

voices vibrate, doors

slam, open and re-slam.

The house cracks and a clock

ticks second by second.

Ice, hard as stone

- standing – in the North –

bring it South, to home,

the hearth, the heart, the home

and I feel a moment

(relax)

before slow steps

onto stairs;

an engagement

for needs,

hugs

Ice, hard as stone

- standing – in the North –

bring it South, to home,

the hearth, the heart, the home.

Beer of Distortion

The first drink is the best drink.

Smiling eyeballs meet and friendly hands

are warming up a foam potential.

 

The second drink is the second best drink.

Blue upholstery, tables gored by time:

talk is mostly travel and the weather.

 

The third drink is the third best drink.

Gulping down a fishy mouth,

twaddle on about the cricket.

 

The fourth drink is the one we cadge for.

Peripheral, a dizzy cocktail

spangles politics with passion.

 

The fifth drink slows indulgence.

Deluded space is filled with aliens squawking;

we do our best to bawl them down.

 

The sixth drink is the one we came for.

Dropping in the glass; thudding on the table,

toilet, stagger, dance and face the music.

 

Boy

I am alive; talk to me,

voices can sing to me, harmonise bass with me, make up the words to a ballad or yarn with me, loudly embark with me.

 

I am alive, laugh with me,

fall down and wrestle me, sport, spin and tumble your oneness in tune with me. Love me as I love me.

 

I am alive, approach me,

feel for the guffaw; believe that the bellies of folly live on in me, rhyming me, glance at me sideways and hope to encroach on me.

 

I am alive, notice me,

play up in mischief and open the windows for breezes to blow at me. Let me uphold you and so you can bolster me.

I am alive; distract me

in every direction, the clowning comes through to me. Shatter the eggs with me, clean up the mess with me, wear a chef’s hat for me.

 

I am alive; melt with me,

growl out a giggle and tickle me. Sparkle and yes with me. Make a fine mess with me. Yes with me. Yes with me.

Ode to Autism

‘Just a single.’ I raise a finger

and a waitress nods and leads me to a single

chair at a single table, deep inside

a City eater.

It’s several days

since I saw my son.

He’s a ‘single’;

spending big phases

alone.

The thought’s like a shudder

carried over water

to another shore

 

but in dodgems, where bumpers

bang and shock,

he shakes

with glee: delighting

in a burn and crash

contained in space

with loved-ones close

and surly fairground helpers

bound by electricity.

 

One time in Ireland,

the owner let us ride again and again

for free. He’ll meet Saint Peter.

 

But now I whisper to myself

below a lunchtime hubbub

in a City of London restaurant

that here are tons of people, tough

as gulls, alone, forever squalling

lonely

on and on above the sea,

buffeted by what happens next

and whatever’s meant to be.

Bear Market

I ask my son directly,

‘which bear best;

baby, mummy, daddy?’

He answers straight out

‘Daddy bear is best.

                        No worries,

he gets more porridge!’

 

Together

With unequivocal geometry, the sun

rises golden, tempts today on earth’s rim

and, by chance, we also see a silver moon

withstand an early wash of light.

 

Poets, of course, know it could be two faces

or an asymmetrical dumb-bell, levers

on a pivotal now

or Cyclops’ eyeing out from rounded caves.

 

We walk along after February snow,

kick drifts forwards and backwards, roll flakes into

unique snowballs

and chuck them at each other with intent

 

when, in mid air, two snowballs stop, hover;

pupils dilate and finally – finally - we know nothing.

Ice Fire

In a corner of our garden

we built up a massive snowman,

stood back and marveled at our work:

the darkling eyes and ivory cheeks

and ears made out of orange skin,

 

a moon shaped mouth from crinoline,           

an apple that we chopped in half

became a nose onto his face

(we chomped the other piece with zest),

stood back and clocked the snowman’s gaze.

We looked at him, he looked at us

or else that seemed the way it was

 

but then a wind harassed and dark

engulfed the scene, enforced a wrap.

Inside, hot chocolate warmed our hands

but rain started pattering hard;

telling tall tales from arctic times

on windows, walls; battering rams

attacked a house, attacked our home.

 

Next day, we ventured to sense him;

of how he’d changed, withstood a life.

We hoped for fire, a wink, a spark

but slowly he had, through the dark,

stripped of himself; become his block of ice.