Friday 29 July 2011

Goldilocks

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.

Thursday 28 July 2011

The Blues

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.

Tuesday 26 July 2011

1981

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.

Sunday 24 July 2011

Insects

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.