Peep

peep

Sound Of Silence

drip

drip


drip



drip




drip




,






.

sat near the exit

Only five minutes of visiting time left.
I walked past the nurses' station,
turned right
passed a toilet
into the little side room.

A white bearded stranger in John's bed.

Back to the nurses' station.
I'm looking for John Cato?
Oh, you've just passed him
- he's in there?
Er, where?
In here - over to the blue door,
holds it open,
Ah - John Cato sitting on the toilet.

I left them to it.

You can sit here with your friend.
A day room with widescreen tv
- not pink and out of focus,
just a little snowy.
The blue sky out the windows looked fresh and clear.

George, burly 'n black, hobbled by on a stick.
Mind, my friend - from John, tucking in his zimmer.
You're no friend of mine - from George with no neck
in an over eighty deisel-ish sort of way.
Eye roll and twitchofthelip from Cato,
with a murmer of which I only heard
uncouth, cut, and arse.

Lunch came in on trays.
I sat John at the large table.
Cut it up very small.
I did. Steaknkidney mashnpeas.
John fed himself.
Cecil, on my left, passed me
little packets of salt 'n pepper.
I tore them open.
He sprinkled them over
pureed peas, mash, chicken
finely sieved.
He spooned enthusiastically.
Adjusted the oxygen when it slipped from his nose.
The nurse said well done.
She smiled at him.
I smiled at her.
John started on the jelly 'n ice cream.
George ate a big dinner with a big spoon.

Paul sat across from George,
also looking West Indian,
but as different as you can imagine.
Black, but chalk 'n cheese.
Sonny Liston 'n Gary Sobers.
Dave sat opposite Cecil.
White. Different as sleep and alert.

Tony sat beside John.
Looked a little Chinese.
Had pilau rice with olive mash.

We zimmered back to the chairs by the doorway.
John didn't want - him (George) listening in.
George cleared his throat, noisely,
looked like clearing his nose, didn't, luckily.
George slept. Paul, looking interested, nodded off.
Dave slept in his lunch.
Cecil gave me a wave, mouthed Thank You.
The sky was still blue outside.

John talked, hugged his zimmer, slept a little.
We walked his zimmer to the toilet and back.
We talked a little business - what needs doing,
what sort of care home.
No, money doesn't mean much, he said. I agreed.

Nurse I hadn't seen came in, officious.
I thought she must be checking the afternoon attendance.
No - forms to fill in for tomorrow's lunch.
What about you, Dave? He was awake.
Orange juice?
Mash, Olive Mash or Rice?
Beef, Fish or Chicken?
Would you like the beef, fish, or chicken?
Beef, fish or chicken?
Life or Death?

I left John. Gave him a pat on the shoulder.
Went downstairs, stopping at the toilet.
Felt young.
Walked home, stopping at Tescos:
smoked salmon, cucumber and crusty french bread.

Buried In A Blog

Last night, in the small hours,
I lay awake for a while trying
to sketch out a poem in my head.
The title would be something like
Buried In A Blog. Maybe in years
to come, archaeologists will dig
in the ruins, whatever those ruins
may be, unearthing objects of
possible interest. Bits of bone,
coins, some metals. Does vinyl rot?
That led me to remember Keats's
Ode To A Grecian Urn. What is our
equivalent? What would be on it?
And what of Truth and Beauty -
not to mention fame, influence, money.
And how famous or not is Robert Hooke?
Why is/was he over-shadowed by Newton?
Make a poem of that lot? Hmmm...

waiting for something to happen

Egg

It is true,
is it not?
An ant
can 'do' moral philosophy.

Lucretius said

the Sun is the same size
as we see it.
I'm not sure about that.

He says Death can be feared
if you look into a future without you,
but if you look back into the past,
way back before you that is,
then you are not there either.
And that feels, maybe, a bit O.K.?

I must remember to remember,
Lucretius that is, or was,
a good guy to have around.
Not sure about the Sun though,
or was it the Moon?

That Death bit is good though.
I can live with that...

apple picking

Grey lichen-covered apple tree branches.
Chest-high stinging nettles test trouser legs.
At least I remembered some old trainers.
A couple of old plastic crates, ladder,
two long-reach pickers with the orchard's name,
and off we went.

What a beautiful morning, I envy
the warden his snug environmental
shelf-lined house - he lives here among
badgers, butterflies, wasps and look straight up
a buzzard hovering high in the sky.

No sprays on these apples - unlike those Kurds.
Joe plonked his ladder under the branches,
well, from far off the apples had looked nice.
Unlike Saddam, or his prisoners, Joe
climbed down, strode off to try somewhere else.

We walked round the huge pond. No bodies floating.
Two woodpeckers rattled out, so Joe said.
He pointed, but it was into the sun.

We were lucky ones, with a picker each.
That mother and little boy over there,
he jumping to reach some little fruit.
So Joe gave them his picker and ladder
- with a 'well, you use the picker like this'.
You can bet it's not like that in Dafur.

After a look at some wild flowers, rabbits,
and lottery-funded hide for badgers,
someone called it was time for coffee,
so we joined the little band by the cars,
a large pot of tea, milk in a jug,
mixed Fox's biscuits out of the packet.

We'd only picked two boxes of apples,
Michael said the Bramleys were good.
Joan and Lily made back for the pears,
and there was a Red Admiral by the wall.

As we packed up, Joe said Lewis Hamilton
had grown up nearby. We were quite surprised
we both followed Formula One racing.
That's another Sunday morning ticked off.
Nothing much there to write home about.

Coole Park

It may be Yeats
(but I doubt it)
or the Laurie Lee essays I brought
but Ireland does move me to write
of charred sausages
microwaved colcannon
apple tart and Maud Gonne.
Celebrated Autograph Tree
- more trite bark than bite.

Ne'er a swan of any sort in sight,
the lake is low and peaceful though.
I cast a cool eye on life on death
try to forget the Ford Focus
with leather seats mark you.

Driver pass by.

What rhymes with drains

Washing up the supper things
- stewed gigot chop, some fish,
new potatoes, carrots and peas,
if you must -
at the bit where glasses 'n plates
lead on to a few pots
a poem came to mind, line by line;
that will do, I thought.
So neat it went down the drain
before I even pulled the plug.
Maybe it will surface, somewhere,
sometime. Though it won't cause
ripples

Breadrin

There, on top of the freezer:
brown soda bread;
coconut bread - more like cake
for buttering. And it was a fresh
coconut from Ridley Market,
cracked with a hammer
between the eyes.
Lincolnshire Plum Loaf,
- more like a fruit loaf
for buttering.
No, indeed not,
the cupboard ain't bare.
An' Bix Beiderbeck breaks
into song - well it was
Seger Ellis - eighty years
ago but still fresh out
of the oven:

"There's a cradle in Caroline
A bough in a tree, a bowing to me
There's a cradle that I call mine
A carpet of green, you know what I mean"

MP3 Banks And Fields

Houses in De Beauvoir 'town'
have spaces in between;
all look different.
Flats, blocked not quite
in De Beauvoir, are tallish,
flattish, sameish.

Finding myself striding out
too fast, stopped under a tree,
fished out my MP3 player,
walked on, more slowly.

Large black male, Royal
Mail, rooting from the red pillar-box;
suddenly looked my way as I passed,
dark swept-around sunspecs;
tapped me on the shoulder:
"You have a nice evening".
"You too".
Nice guy.

Our usual postie sits
plays with next door
comic-cut cat. Gives the old
man time to get downstairs.

Yes, compress some audio files,
easier to store and carry.
Lives? Leave those
empty spaces in between.
Don't go for lossless either,
guaranteed to fail under
cold grey slabs of mud.

Excuse me! Could I have a quick word?

sometimes
a word
is not
enough
not even
quite a few
of them
not
even
set
to
music

Rabbit on

The flowers on the kitchen table
looked happy and fresh,
white, yellow and blue.
Sunlight streamed through
the basement window.

Harriet, only five but
with an eye for pretty things
stood and admired but
said nothing.

A few days later those flowers
drooped, wrinkled.
"What happened to the flowers?"
"They don't last long when
they've been cut - especially
in the kitchen".

Harriet was stunned. She
looked at me, stared,
"I don't want to die!"

What could I say? It was easier
for her brother - well at least
he and I watched Star Trek
with its occasional sense of
cosmic recycled dust

Months later, in the heat
of Summer,
we were in the garden. Still
hot dusty bare earth. Just
their old swing. And a hutch
for Bandit, the white rabbit.
At our old house he used to
come in the kitchen and sit
watching television, we said.

'Uncle' came round with his
sledgehammer. To drive metal
stake holders for a new fence
- Bandit liked to jump the brick
walls as well.
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP
in the dusty heat of the sunny
day. And the rabbit stretched
out, quivered. "There's something
wrong". "He's not well, dying,
dead".

Harriet had disappeared. I looked
downstairs, upstairs, in her room.
Back in the garden, there she was,
kneeling in the dusty earth,
beside the rabbit,
stroking it very gently. She looked
at me, stared, calm.
"See, I'm not afraid any more".

So we buried Bandit, the rabbit,
by the wall, where the apple
trees grow now, and the lawn with
visiting foxes. And the newted
lily pond where the swing used to be.

Train Of Thought

A sunny evening,
outside the Hope and Anchor,
and I was twenty-two.
Swelled with London Pride

looked across the Lea,
where nearly green fields
met marching pylons,
thought "I like this sort of scene".

Now Hugh Masekela hammers
rod on iron in the spotlight,
hammering a South Africa choo
chewing men into the mines.

He remembers all those deaths,
some of those little victories,
and those few men who rose above
it all - many with no names.

Mandela, like a sign of the cross,
stands on top of the hill.
But the fields around are full
of tyres and crosses.

And x marks the spot head
or foot meets ball and shoots
over the line of human dignity.
Or figures with grace on ice,

or dance floor, of course.

Face in the water

A bottle of whiskey.
Yes, I promised Alan that
if he could teach me to swim.

Glide!
Streamlined, like sharks,
arms straight ahead,
hands pointed front,
legs straight,
feet pointed back.

With more confidence,
less panic,
more lung control,
we could kick off the side -
in the shallow end, of course,
and usually get to the other side.
Or just stand up, splutter, and laugh.

It even worked, eventually,
lenthwise in the pool -
swimming towards the shallow end,
of course.
When we relaxed, we could glide well
over half way, before cocking it up
trying to make strokes.

So, yes, here I go again:
kicking off from the side.
But at least I know I can write
doggy-paddle.

x-mas factor

no, i wouldn't go so far as to say i hate it.
i don't like all the sales hype.
not a good time for those who go hungry
or any other time for that matter.

so we had a tree in the corner,
with lights flashing cos they are meant to
and a fire, for the coziness of it
'n plates laden.

it was great sitting round the table,
all five of us,
even milkshake, our cat, had a salmon
head - well seasoned.

maybe a midnight mass would be good
with all the pomp and singing;
otherwise, i have to say, we did ok
today without god, queen or prime time

tv viewing. mind you a squad car did
drive by, lights flashing but no news
of men, or women, or little children blown
to pieces like in some parts of the world.

so greetings to all who get this far.
thank you for all you have done. amen.

oh, the champagne was a bottle left from
the launch of the jazz cafe, parkway that is,
in 1991 - turned out to be an expensive bottle
but today worth every loving sip.

mind you, freya said she hated champagne
and had every right to say so.
i drank her glass...

Next To Godlessness

Ridley Market was awash
with cleanliness.
Going by the bananas 'n mangoes,
a stocky black guy, phone
clamped to his ear,
"mek sure yu wash yur hands CLEAN".
By the bagel shop, another two
black guys talking in earnest,
"yu get gangrene in yu finger,
yu CHOP 'T OFF".
Over aubergines, red peppers,
ginger roots, 'n bunches of
coriander, there was a little
crowd. A woman in a pink
shop coat shouted,
"well put it this way, I kept
my flip-flops on".

No Hands

Late teens,light Caribbean
-looking,riding his bike,
no hands, on the
wrong side of the road.
Zipping up
his jacket 'n turn
ing his head
to see any opening between the cars.
An impercetible lean
of the hips
veered him on to the other side
of the road.
Amazing what people
can do when they don't put their
minds to it.

Looking Ahead

The little brown-skinned girl started it
with her lime-green knitted hat.
The cabling reminded me of all those
blue or brown jumpers.
Looking to cross Stamford Hill the
other way an Ann Widdecombe look-alike
but with a straight set white baseball cap.
A Hassidic Jew sported his hat covered in
a Morrison’s carrier bag to keep the rain off.
Further up a swarthy brownish Jew
with a brown knitted skull cap stopped,
greeted a very respectable looking Jewish
man pushing a pram with a little girl
hanging on. Brown knitted skull cap
walked with a limp. During the pleasantries
he sort of hid a cigarette behind his back;
hellos over, he limped and puffed away.
A tall slim woman in a full length black burqa,
I could just see her tall tapping high-heels.
A fairly elderly flat-capped man steered a
vintage three-wheeler onto the pavement,
fingered his numbers into the Lloyds cash machine.
A very dark black guy, not young in years, pedalled
along – he wore a sort of black tea-cosy but
you could still see his furrowed face.
His front wheel had three yellow tennis balls,
stuck between the spokes, going round ‘n round.
A big red double decker bus, rested up under a tree,
swallowed a little diesel, showed off some
fetching khaki yellow locks.