In my fist I hold a cheap red apple,
asymmetrical, ready to be lifted,
crunched, before we head out for a meander
into amber woods. It’s October
when autumn rattles branches to the floor.
This apple handles true and simple, impossible
to capture in words but snuggles ready for eating
in an upturned palm, enclosed, like when our fingers
intertwine, eyes meet and a lump, half-sobbing,
stops my throat in a form we have no words for.
Loving the lusciousness, splash of a bath;
lying awake in a bed or a cot,
loving the singing, the chorus, the noise
when grown ups try stopping but no, they are not
listening or clocking his shout and his meaning
to sing out in gusto, splash without malice, enjoy
all his loudness of manna and life force, bread
basket living by singing with passion instead.
Loving tonality, simply momentous,
he warbles his words and intensity lifts
a dramatist’s hand by directing the feeling
and his hand is an actor’s and so the scene shifts
into silence, a calmness, the wind now has dropped
and a clock’s movement stopped because he is stealing
asleep to rest nerve, bones and blood in his veins
as he flicks off the switch on a wonderful thundering day.
I have seen nervous men, heard voices with no power,
hands all trembling and at what cost
to bone and sinew, human tissue,
but you Ralph Mctell, now is your hour.
Two guitars lean silent throats;
their strings, when touched by a thousand fingers,
dazzle evening, angels, winds;
querulous, quivering, tingling notes
and an avalanche rumbles under chimes
gathered in the belly – a deeper voice
of tender waves, ramming my heart,
“I will show you
-something-
to make you change your mind”
Outside a ring-necked dove is cooing, Strong
spurs of sound bubble like a growling flame
guttering out. She rests and calls again,
less than my jumping mind, her simple same song.
Once more she gently calls and arcs around
with all singing now and here the same
until it fades and dies, vibration losing aim
but now and there again and never wrong.
Somehow I know my body-soul needs this
longing for the sweetness of her inspiration
and if inside my straggly lines you miss
a rolling rise and caroling creation,
at least you’ll not be trapped in mindful lies:
at least she calls without an explanation.
