One (after Rilke)

Largely on his own, young Andrew sits

considering his crayons, woolly toys;

more single than the loneliest of boys

encoded in a matrix, special net:

Down’s Syndrome his recurring epithet

and, in his head, a special kind of noise,

‘contain the world, oh hold it!’ cry his muse’

and woolly toys and crayons are his mates.

But aren’t we all like that, within our ways,

stabilizing bubbles in our head,

turning inwards - into iphones, net -

(not ambling forward like the tiger, lamb

open to the river or the land)

hyonotised by spouses, girls and boys?

Poetry or Booze

It’s nivver easy being a poet

fra Yorkshire, wi an accent set to confuse

‘do ya like talkin’ wippets?’ Nah, forgedd it

let’s hit the booze;

no longer bothered by any rhymes, hooray’s or boo’s.

But Larkin, Armitage, Harrison, they upset

t’establishment - summat like Ted Hughes -

by spoutin’ swear-words in a sonnet

(even in a luv sonnet)

using bar and bitter as their muse.

A genie fra t’coal-hole’s what ya get.

No wonder Friday night’s the night to booze.

It’s reet ‘ard graftin’ as a Yorkshire poet;

done now and I’m off to turn to booze.

Winter Colour

We wobble through the woods, conceal crayons

in the nooks of old trees or in bushes

so that Andrew can amble there, find one,

and exaggerate joy when he gets them.

His bedroom’s full of thousands of crayons

(so we inch them out into these wood-walks)

creating a constant new colour;

like blue, black or green, maybe yellow

and we reckon we’re conning the rascal

with a weaving of colours in the country

but I know that he clocks every action,

peeking sideways, pretending they’re new.

Why would he support such reprocessing?

Why? Returning fine splurges - delight.