Modern Poetry

We’re in the middle
of a poetry reading

almost as if
Milton was there

slight and wan
blind as a mole

lusting for epic
famous as Shakespeare

when Andrew burps

“What do you say?”
a lady whispers

“Oooops!” he answers
“What do you say!!?”

waiting for a “Pardon me”.
He looks around

sweet as a bard
‘A piglet!’ he says

‘I’m a pig!’

Meeting

A flipchart, and marker pen like lipstick;

between its nib and paper – fresher air.

People sit behind a wooden desk

and talk, from plastic chairs.

Aha: the sound-bites of business;

statements, coughs, unlistening

for moments, outside, like a blackbird

expressing his magical being.

Real Poem

It would be good to stop this train

and lie me down on green grass

ideally near a shady river,

special, like a king and queen

maybe sleeping face-to-face

or hand-in-hand or toe-to-toe.

Changing trains seems risky. It’s winter

now and many leaves have fallen

but I do feel something-like ‘alive’ and

it would be good to jump this train

and stop momentum, all inertia,

long and narrow tracks.

31st December 2009

Always there’ll be our story of a light

hovering moon and snowflakes alighting

around our feet. We’ll remember a new year

eclipse, a spotlighted sky and really much more

than turning a decade. Yes, let’s make

words come round to snowfalling dark

and wishing of lanterns, high, lifted in friendship

and spangled by flakes from a blackening pelt

of the whole of the sky. We’ll hope to God

to re-make the silence; transform the land,

occluding the norm. Was that a beam

when our lanterns flew high or a gleam

from a hope of the fabulous? Steady your love

and come to your senses, it’s changing above.

A Real Poem

In a Care Home, where my auntie’s dying,

the carpet’s red and orange, colours warm.

I have to be so careful – what I say,

the way I glance – or auntie, desperate, swoops

like a hawk ‘Why look like that?’, ‘Take

that smirk off your face!’ and, trapped by my gills

in falsehood, censure, fault; memory drops, blood pounds

and I get it, why, her tiny room is warm.

Quietly after bedtime

…a small cough runs from a door edged in light,

muffled talk turns to singing,

and then into whispers; Shhh,, Shhh, alright,

and a sudden ask - ‘How you feeling?’

of toys laid neatly on the bedroom floor.

They always answer ‘Fine!’

till he shouts loudly (in case you missed it earlier)

‘Good Night everybody – yes, yes, goodnight!’…

Hands

They poke and pick and prod in little battles.

They turn a key to get inside a house.

They twist a corkscrew into many bottles,

scratch an itching, you might never notice

several digits quietly make a difference

by signing cheques – and, sometimes, saving lives

- silent pirates, smugglers, warm, tenacious,

turn a button, link the other cuff.

They squeeze the scissors tight, join palms on Sunday,

feel the skin of people that you love,

open books, unclenching at the last page

and build up castles - so we all survive!

Without them we’d be disconnected,

they cup an ear so ‘oddballs’ can be heard:

wave, or clap, or point at, disregarded,

reach out for others others disregard.