Filed under: childhood, eating, memories, nature | Tags: ball, childhood, daisies, games, lawn, repunzel, sherbert, young
Twister twister
Lucky dip
Sherbert dust
And Tizer pop
Daisies strewn
Across the lawn
Chains made from
Lime-bright stems
Held in grubby
Young hands
Laid around the
Circle band
Before the lawn
Mower man comes
And hoovers up
The carpet, how
Absurd,
A barricade is
Made. In outrage at
Adult atrocity
It guards the
Survivors chanting
‘Save the daisies’,
Still alive, yellow faces pleading.
Another day and
Daisies gone, balls
Fligh high through
Leaves to greet
Plastic bags stranded
like Repunzel with
Short hair bleached
White in the sun.
Games come like old
Yarns, never learnt
Never forgot, Hop Scotch
Starboard, What time is it
Misterrr..
Too lat to be up
Remembering this-
Ball games like cricket
But not, rounders with
Socks for bases,
Blankets fo birthdays
‘Givim the Bumps’
Smash goes the racket,
Crack goes a window
Clean through the net,
Old enough to read
‘NO BALL GAMES’
Young enough to know better.
Filed under: Cuba, Travel, eating, fishing, food, hope | Tags: fisherman, hope, hunger, luck, sea
Sitting on a polystyrene float
Fishing for something,
Feet soaked in salt water,
Cold on the ankles now
As the night-shift approaches,
Watching the water, hoping,
For some late luck to
Dangle off the hook,
As lovers sit, some, backs to
The sea, others, backs to
The road, always pairs
Unless a fisherman,
Solitary, but for bucket, rod
And hope.
He sits, sits, polystyrene
Squeaks and creaks and
Waves lap skin and vessel,
Taunting, teasing, ‘What?Still
No catch?’ They seem to say,
Those little bumps and ripples,
Carefree in their endlessness.
Time to go, back over the
Malecon*, home, to hunger and
Hungry Rosita, nothing to
Go with rice and beans
But chilled ankles and
Guitar strum.
*Malecon is Havana’s conrete wall, about 4 feet high and 2 wide, erected to keep the sea out
Filed under: Cuba, Travel, eating | Tags: afford, cheap, havana, hot-dog, ice-cream, line
Long line for icecream
Eyes are full with expectation.
All lines are long here,
Even Cubans can afford Time and sun,
Basking in warmth,
Softened with icecream.
Stomachs cool with the cheapest light fluff,
White like the linen worn without
A crease through the heavy
Diesel fumes, past spitting hot-dog stands.
Filed under: acromegaly, cafe, eating, food, growth, pain, regression, strength, weather, willpower | Tags: bricklane, closing, coffee, guidance, Kipling, life, lost, money, neglect, regret
Sweeping round my feet, no ceremony.
Customer-centric ? What?-
Too close to closing time.
Anyway, this tables’s mine for now,
And on its pink lino I’ll rest
THis little black book,
And a tweed elbow
Like so many others, hordes, in fact,
Vintage with Youth.
I’m here now writing, instead
of Yoga or eating, to stop time
And take stock.
Of what? Of myself, of course-
Narcissism or self-awareness I can’t
Tell, self-indulgence, perhaps.
‘Soup of the Day was three pounds ten.
Why ten, what’s in it for them?!
Three pound is round.
Rhyming won’t get me anywhere.
One day I hope to be above all this.
Taller trees generally have deeper roots to
Counteract the blast of the wind.
Blast this music! Always the same
Here at Coffee@, NOISE,
Racket designed to be heard,
No need to listen.
Why have I come here
To get myself in tune – all this din.
Well, if I can’t tune here I can’t tune anywhere..
Thats it! Back to Kipling,
‘If you can keep your head when
All around are losing theirs
And blaming it on you..’
Yes. I’ll keep my wretched head and
Forget regret and neglect
The errors of a self
Lost, waiting for a way out
Not picking up Ariadnes’s
Guiding thread.
Filed under: eating, health, pain, regression | Tags: breathing, dark, deep, feelings, fish, sea
Beneath the solar plexus
Is where it starts
That is where all the year’s
Undone things crowd for
Warmth, shivering like tramps
Round a spitting petrol drum.
Undone, why? Because I
Filled my cup and bowl too full
Scared that if
Too light
I might float up to the
Surface and, breathing,
See the whole universe.
Things left undone, good things,
Real things,
Like collecting leaves for
Compost or supporting a
Shoulder stand.
Things that require presence in a world
With me at the centre,
Such things are left undone.
Instead, come feelings,
Doubts, thoughts about the size
And shape of things unseen-
THE thing, the tumour- shhhh-
Not that, don’t think it,
What if thoughts be things!
Better to sink back into
The dark Deep for a while,
Where life is lightless and
The bloated stomach cannot
Taste or choose,
Programmed like an angler fish
To digest all passers by
No time to wait for hunger:
A leisure for the light.
Filed under: control, eating, happiness, healing, health, hope | Tags: expecting, host, lefe, next, plan, slow
Patient no longer
lips warm, feet warm
Hands soft and sentient.
Gone is the rumble and
The heart ache within,
here is Life soft and sweet
And ready to eat whole,
Nothing to peel off
or hack through.
Eyes whole, heart WHOLE,
Life long and waiting:
Where have you been?
i’ve been expecting you all this time.’
‘What have you planned for me?’
‘Plan? You’ll see- Be kind
To yourself as you find your way, make it easy and slow, as befits a guest,
Remember, I am Life, your host,
From this life to the next.
Two times me:
One here with cake I didn’t want
Already consumed,
One there, in the future
Maybe, or now, if I let her,
A better her.
This cafe’s by the the lake-
For longer than a cake
And a cup of lemonade
I’ve sat and thought,
Watching people pass,
Making what they can
Of squirrels in the rain-
Nowhere to go but round the lake,
Past swans and reeds
Again.
Filed under: eating, happiness, healing, health, hope, pain, shame, sleep | Tags: afternoon, cruel, happy, night, shame, sleep, sxplore, tasks
Firm and awake is how I feel,
Now that day is done
And night is
Come to stop
The whirr of consciousness.
Today was easy,
There was no drag,
Low air resistance and I
Soared high, even
At my desk, sat on foam.
After lunch came cruel gut,
Prompting truancy, again
the shame of crunch and swallow-
But it passed and day dawned anew
With afternoon and bloodstream teeming-
Tasks were done and now,
I’m happy to explore the night and trip on sleep, by chance,
Busy looking for a dream.
Filed under: eating, food, happiness, health, hope, thrill | Tags: floats, sense, song, today
Hope fits nicely into Today.
Yesterday was small,
An awkward size, to small to
Hold an egg-
It held salt, as much as filled it, instead.
Hope fits today,
Fills it full, pills
Throb through veins,
Skin drinks up the breeze,
Food floats light and
Sense is song
Filed under: eating, happiness, healing, health | Tags: balnce, disrupts, hunger, seek, steady, thirst
What disrupts balance?
What brings balance?
Perhaps it is not a thing sought but
Rather, the knowing how to seek-
I won’t summon thirst and hunger,
Let them call me when they will,
Let them approach with steady paces,
I’ll greet them them with slow, frugal
Hospitality, and hope they’ll be the kind of guests
Who leave early, to beat the traffic.
