recycling

began a poem
about recycling
but decided
best bin it maybe
something better
will emerge from it

passing comet

in the beginning
at the end, during the middle -
the start is a star;
falling trees;
fingers clawing turf;
flint and steel.
throw another log on the pyre.
let the sparks fly.
let's have another story...

fall back

that man over there
may well be right
looks like Auden
did say "poems are
never finished,
merely abandoned."

so I'm off for a
pot of tea and a
hot cross bun,
whether in honour
of last Easter
or next, who knows?

at this rate we'll
be putting calendar
forward a month in
Spring and back in
Autumn.

Pathological Assessment

Sue would have made a model Nazi.
I said so at the time and more than once.
Small, slight and mousey, but with a
glint in her eye when it came to
targets, assessment, performance,
excellence in cities, performing
people, rationalizing, downsizing
upsiding, capsizing..

She liked to refer to DOG - division
officers group - for budgets, she knew
PUD: predictable unpredictable
discretionary.

She had two cats. She ought to have
had a large dog, but she did have a
large bloke who padded around after
her.

Now she is dead - done, dusted -
and I hope when she died she felt
she had met all her targets -
no scrub that last line - I hope she
had found a little fun and recognition
and love - even from the large bloke
who padded around after her.

And it is not just young people who
are turned off education by too much
emphasis on targets and assessment -

and Sue did occasionally smile - the
half-real one not the fixed one - and when
I left she gave me a little smiley
face - not on the official reference
you understand - just on a hand
written compliment slip.

And it is not just young people who
are turned off education by too much
emphasis on targets and assessment.

People need names not numbers
People need names not numbers
People need names not numbers

A School of Thought

Past sixties concrete school, 'n a large plane
tree lifted 'n split the little wall.
Two 236 buses nodded at each
other, looking busy at it. They

passed a roadside shrine outside some flats
- a young - black - guy with a pretentious name
stabbed. Died. Reference to the smell of weed
'n local residents had wanted cctv

-well that's what the newspaper cutting said
alongside the bunches of flowers on the
railings, cards, candles in wine bottles.

An escalator of paddling pools, in Atlanta,
for Martin Luther King - 'n that little garden
a more loving, personal, touch.
'n a long silence after the speech.

'n the earth will fold it gently unto itself
- though probably not for a little while.
Steve frowns when I run ideas by like this,
but that's how it works - folding sleeves.

Late night smack

Stereo types annoy me - left 'n right
- but an insider dealer unreliably
informs me

your typical american looks in the
refrigerator and wonders, "What would
I like to eat now..."

your typical brit looks in the
usually smaller fridge and looks to
see what needs using up....

[on a purely personal note, you under
stand, we have a big fridge - hot and
cold running ice...]

so there in the cooler we have Iraq,
'n Afghanistan, way hot enough to spoil
any ice box...

North Korea still dripping vital
fluids all over the plate; N.Ireland
perched up in the unused egg thingy;

'n the lower salad drawer, no the
left one, has a wilting bag of
Palestinian leaves.

People Traffic

Corner of Mare Street and Morning Lane -
Large African woman, JB carrier bag one
side, Tesco's the other; big golden moons
tightly stretched on black skirt and
buttoned top; black, hornrimmed, walks
by.

Greyed shrivelling West Indian man
ambles on, clutching Tesco bag, newspaper
sticking out.

Under the tilting black lamp post
a late twenties white guy, black wavy
hair and thin framed specs, light blue
open neck shirt, black trousers - maybe
a little Italian looking - is facing

an olive skinned woman, similar age,
black dress with half length sleeves.
Her hair is long and shiny black, done
with a long thick plait hanging down
her back.

They talk, holding cigarettes
down by their sides, sending little
smoke signals up into the Sunday
watercoloured sky blue October air.

Fat wha'?

Macdonald's?
Bin Laden?
fat chance...

soldiers
have mobiles
fat chance...

txt messages
fat chance...

happy meals
fat chance...

fat chance...
fat chance...
fat chance...

Don't forget...

£2.50 per week for Joe
with early Alzheimer's
is just not worth it.

We need to spend more
on helicopters 'n bombs
for Iraq 'n Afghanistan.

'n a young girl picking
firewood in Darfur, to
cook some food - forget it.

Valerie

Don't remember this
- the handwriting is mine
- and I remember Valerie.


I'm Valerie
An' they pick on me
They ban me from school
For acting the fool.
Is it brains that I lack?
Is it jus' that I'm Black?

Two's me, two's me
Cho man, talk t' me
Don' mek me feel bad
D' ye think dat I'm mad?

Well I plan day by day
Try to get my own way
I don' have to behave
I can joke - I can rave
Push the teachers aroun'
Rub their nose in the groun'
Well tha's bad, but it's me
An' I'm called - Valerie.

Version

Early on in London, Colin taught
Religious Education in the next room.
I got a kick out of comparing notes
with him and we had many a laugh.

One day he came into my room in middle
of a lesson - later he said how I was
just talking and they were all listening.
By the end of that little chat, I had

offered to do a re-write of The Parable
of the Talents. There is a lot of merit
to the parable - at least it is about
talents, not special needs or targets.


Version

Leh me tell yu 'bout a guy name Lloyd
Dat come from up Wood Green.
He must've been de coolist cyat
Dat I mahn ever seen.

Shoulda seen de clothes he wear,
He was a real smart dresser;
'is clothes an' ting come from Take Six
An' 'is suit- all made-to-measure.

Cho, de time Lloyd tek fe comb 'is locks
- I never see no one so fussy,
But he reckon it was wort' it
If it help him capture.

Didn' tink much of school, yu nah,
He always actin' clown,
De only ting Lloyd want real bad'
Was fe own a real big Sound.

Pretty soon de guy get rich.
He start a club - Four Aces -
It was a real cool place back den,
One of dose Soul an' Reggae places.

Den Lloyd decide it time fe res' up.
Sit back an' mek de breads.
He clean forget 'bout Babylon,
An' Ras - de God of Dreads.

God clap him down dead one day,
Poor Lloyd's head full wid Thunder -
Dat sure one set o' speaker, he thought,
How many watts? I wonder.

"Dyam wutliss fool", roared God,
"Look: Clubs, Money, Fancy Clothes -
I gave yu all a Life Time,
An' yu spend it all on those?"

limbo

best draw
a veil
over it

A Sort of Blonding

"On no, I like a man
to dominate me",
and she tucked his
high-heels, flares,
flawless afro into her
Fiat and wheeled him
back to his baked
potato supper.

Encounters

As I lined up this morning for one
of those traffic calming narrow width
things that drive me up the wall,
a tallish smartly sporting dapper man

was escorting two black spaniel dogs,
each on its own lead and at slightly
cross purposes. Another tall rosy
cheeked suited man passed the dogs

in the other direction. They two men
exchanged smiles, and when the younger
man who was giving a preliminary
suck at an an yet unlit cigarette had

gone on some yards, he took the cigarette
from his mouth, turned rounds and looked
after the man with dogs, and looked as
if to say "Who the hell is that guy?"

You can see the little urbane scene
settled in my memory this morning,
maybe to remind me that it is good to
be alive - well I think so - and that

it is deadening to be always eating
plates of brown beans and rice.

Spell Check

After six fat volumes,
much read,
we ought to look out
for Potter.

They are much banned,
those books and
"Every burned book
enlightens the world".

A click on a portkey
and you're there:
morphed, transfigured,
transported.

Pensieved memories, erased?
Windows, Apples, Vistas
- one William Gates -
more snakes slytherin'.

Basking in the dark,
under the lady's umbrella,
watch out for
Harry Potter
and an encore from
the Sorting Hat.