You never spot the build-up
- how spoilt she gets -
how quietly she turns a door latch,
sneaks down the drive - early morn -
and tiptoes out from Dad’s big house
or mystery how Mummy Bear
decides on the family’s health-kick:
memory-foam, massage-chairs, porridge, hikes
and how this feral girl and bears and story
dance their destinies, in tension, truth.
Pencils get sorted out - blue ones
to the left; red ones, grey, white - teams
in colour-puddles; ready for a quiz. Andrew
(as the host) will look intently, set
the questions - only he will know
the rules and which of seven coloured
groups can win each round - and prize.
‘Ready black team. Start the clock!
‘Dodgems, Waltzer – which one?
Milk Shake or Chocolate – choose!’
He questions them on food and music;
marriage, Jesus, stage show, songs
lyric is the key to feeling
and there will be a tie-break moment
between the blue team and another.
Predictably, the endgame settles:
- one team always wins the battle –
rightly, since they are the blues,
and little blue pencils are humble.
ZX81
- fully QWERTY.
Thank you Dixons,
Christmas Eve.
Flicky screen,
- weirdly - green;
all the magic
of new BASIC.
Dad and I are Batman, Albert,
logical as billiard balls:
ping-pong, pacman, space invaders;
dig-in digits, digital.
They fly and settle; settle, twitch and stand on
legs, necks, stems, windows, buds;
endeavoring not to draw attention to themselves.
Two hundred million of them for every
person standing on a wet planet.
You get on the weigh-scales one sunny day
and two tons of insect drop and spin
the dial you focus on critically;
thirty times your weight, twitching and writhing
- a pyramid of little aliens, crawling.
The Campaign Against Cruel Sports,
Beethoven, even poetic Shakespeare,
are tiny human accidents compared
to terror, anger, revulsion at these mites
and the fear of your own insect-like state.
