Standstill (Friern Barnet 1969)

The frosts get sharp, the regulars appear –
clever dossers come in from the cold,
sectioned for a bed and three square meals,
a glass of beer on Christmas Day – not bad.

I’ve seen the other wards by now
and romantic thoughts of madness are dispelled:
there’s no-one to release,
even those who should be – nowhere else to go.

Alcoholics, depressives, those who just can’t cope –
“Which nerve broke down?” the nurses smugly ask –
straightjackets come in pills and draughts,
while lobotomies are rare since ECT.

I’ve carried Xmas cards around two weeks,
too low to send my greetings anywhere,
I skive off with a phone call Boxing Day,
to say my wife is sick.

The new Chief Nursing Officer is unimpressed –
he’s gay and I’m supposed to be unmarried …
“legally” I say and disregard his threats,
I’m leaving in a fortnight anyway.

I’m his predecessor’s parting gift –
so nice to be a pawn in someone else’s game –
but all this will be over soon
and I’ll return to my normality.

Breakfast in Cayenne (1974)

Seeing that name on a map of France’s oyster coast,
I had to find out what was there
and if it might have been the spot explorers left
who built a pepper city on the farther shore.

For two days I’d been desperately in search
of work to earn the cash we’d need
to get us through a winter in the Pyrenees,
minding someone else’s farm.

I’d traipsed round every ostréiculteur’s cabin
in Marennes and La Tremblade –
from tin shacks to solid warehouses
they cordoned off the waterfront.

The third night found me outside with no place to stay,
frost was in the air and sharpened stars to needles;
walking on a causeway built of oyster shells, it seemed,
I found the cabin of a boat marooned upon the levee.

With nowhere else to go, I crawled inside this plywood hut,
made a mattress out of mares tails –
all that grew on such a wasteland –
got into my dossbag and gave into fatigue.

I woke up, shivering, well before the dawn,
and carried on my hunt for somewhere warm.
according to the chart, there wasn’t much to find –
a dozen houses at the most – the end of the Atlantic line.

The café was just open – a sort of bungalow
where fishermen would eat and drink –
the woman at the iron stove,
bent over, making up the fire.

She didn’t seem surprised to see
a stranger in her establishment
so early, even one like me,
while, outside, night still hid the sea.

I ordered un petit café – the funds were low –
said I’d been looking for a job;
she asked if there was unemployment back at home
I said there was – in my case, true enough.

She was a while out in the kitchen
but returned with coffee finally,
plus bread and hot milk in a bowl,
and told me that these came for free.

I felt as grateful as it’s possible to be.
She’d clearly known hard times
and what it means to give and to receive.
My shipwreck then began to look like victory.

Language lessons (1982)

Heading north by auto-stop

out of Basel down the Rhine,

I’m picked up by a trucker Freiburg-bound.

My German isn’t bad but to me his accent’s strange

and shouting cross the engine makes it hard.

 

We chat a while quite amiably

about what I did and where,

then he passes me a beer and one for him.

I struggle for an age with the pliers he employs

till he shows me, single-handed, how it’s done.

 

Then he starts in on his story,

with the bottle in one hand,

how he should be on vacation with the wife

but, instead, he’d had to buy a headstone for their son.

I sympathise with caution, as one does.

 

It’s a touchy point of etiquette

how to make sure I heard right –

should I ask him how and when the young man died?

There’s a stage in language fluency when the major errors come

and all kinds of mixed-up wrangles are begun.

 

As I sat there questioning

how well I’d understood his speech,

it occurred to me that he was really drunk

and wondered just how reckless grief can make a man,

flying, tanked up, down the autobahn.

Walk like an Egyptian!

egyptian 

Now, that’s what I call ‘the Big Society’

Dancing cheek to cheek

(Ode to heels)
I know that for your posture they’re not the best

and feminists say that they’re a sign of the oppressed,

emphasising the natural rotundity,

professing a woman’s claim of her fecundity,

while, for the short, they raise her elevation

if only in her own imagination,

but, when those arse-cheeks dance and sway,

they get men’s full attention any day.

rs 27.8.12

Dancing with Madiba

‘Another man done gone’
in the words of that old song,
a big man who fought hard to free
his people from hard tyranny.

Praise and honours in his name
fall around the earth like rain;
tears too, let’s not forget,
from those he never even met.

In his homeland mourners sing
battle songs, remembering,
and dance their joy that he’d held fast
strong and true until the last.

But now’s not the time to overlook
those names who’ll never reach the book –
heroes may show us the way
for which millions had to pay.

              rs 5-6.12.13

Things ain’t what they used to be

Crocodile Tears

“I miss all those dinosaurs,” said the old croc to his mate, I haven’t seen them for a while. Where’ve they been of late?”

“Lizards, lizards everywhere and not one worth a skink; Komodos might be scary but they create such a stink.”

“I’ve not tasted cœlocanth for many, many a year, I could be mistaken but they’re dying out, I fear.”

“Evolution’s in reverse, the going’s getting rough, it seems only bacteria are made of the right stuff.”

“Alligators aren’t the same – they haven’t got the weight – and caymans are so flimsy, that’s why the world’s in such a state.”

“The birds are so much prettier but they vanish in a blink; you need some pterodactyls to make you stop and think.”

“The insects are still with us – thank Darwin for this skin! – though they grow smaller all the time. Are they giving in?”

His missus answered finally in a voice both deep and gruff, “Are you eating that wildebeest or have you had enough?”