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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.

English at an Indian

Wedding, sitting in

The crowd among

The drums and

Auspices like weeds

Among the cultivated

Saries with their

Yellow and magenta

Blue topaz and

Peridot sheen.

Looking on Indians,

At home in their religion.

At One with

Whatever it is that

Made them.

The English hope It made them too,

When they come to looking

In the dusty files labelled

Wedding, funeral, birth.

God and gods and people and family weave

Together and in this

Web, the couple

Catch the tricks

They need,

Sharing the cords,

Keeping them taught

With Love,

The remover of all obtacles,

Ganesh.

Mary moo Mary

You were there

When the blossom

Came, Mary you

Were there when

The winter

Went, Mary you

Are here just like

A Gran.

Standing ironing

Sitting moaning,

Laughing, crying,

Listening to ‘Lipstick

On your collar,’

Telling tales from

The betting shop or

You and Marge’s

Latest trip to Wimpy,

 Brian, Moreen

Leighton,

Patrick the Irish

Queer next door.

Have some more

Cream slice,

Bread pudding,

You’ll buy four for

For me,  ‘Only a paahnd

Fifty’, to take home.

Or pie and mash for sister.

YOu? No, no you

Don’t eat like

You used to,

In the caravan,

Round, happy,

Just the sun and

Slot machines and

Walks along

The sea, girls

On leads, so’s

We dont ‘draaan’.

Please remember,

We thank you

And love you like a

Gran.

Grand old Mare

Inside a whale sits

Jonah, pondering

How many more rotting

Tuna he’ll

Stack up in the corner

Before he dies of

Stench and despair.

Not a scale can he see

Only slime to the touch

As the creature heaves

Through the Deep,

Filtering fish through its

Radiator teeth.

Jonah dreams out

And up, into the light

And over this rut.

cards fall on the table,

Dry, clean in the sun,

Behind the horizon,

Life’s line, noone

Can question

The silence beyond.

Always there.

Forever, back

Down fathoms and more

To our whale and

Trapped Jonah.

Never to see the sky

Split from the Land

And the sea

By the line.

There in the gut’s leviathon walls his

Murmurs sift the

Gloom for gold

But none drops.

Patience and hope

And his jaws will part

And out he’ll fight

Then float like a

Ripe apple, spongy after

The long winter store.

That skull there on

The pillow,

One two three we

Heave him up,

Belch,

One two three we

Let him down, down,

Death bubbles in his

Guts,

Fiddles the clockwork

In his heart.

A nappy smothers

Paper skin and knees hover, angling,

Buzzards above the

Wan skeleton, barely

Worth the fuss.

His eyes are lidded

And the curtain’s shut

But for the odd crack

Of Pain and Cricket,

Outside.

In they come, ‘The family’,

He mouths and seems to say,

As he lifts bone to

Palm, before the bridge

Breaks and his life flows

Off, prisoner no more,

Away.

Round and round it swings

With centrifucal force,

The cycle of pain and self torment, the

Frustration of procrastination

Why not do it today?

Cant! Wont?

Loud the pound, Narcissus

Streaming round the brain,

Pumping full the eardrums

With the sound of sheer

Doom

Boom, it goes, again.

Forget the sun, what

You had won through

Ernest Toil.

The boil on your leg is the

Clumsy spy, whose

Yellow fuss gives away

Conspiracies beneath;

Self sabotage.

The house was built in 1864 or thereabouts

With bricks and mortar

In the usual way,

Set down on the street

‘Tween two just the

Same.

No, I lie. Next

Door was a shop,

Greyed out now, modern

Style, frosted windows, the works.

Behind doors to the house of

A family, bent by

Chance into odd-

Shaped rooms, tombs

For the spirits of eras

Passed, mingling now and

Then with the plates on

The rack or a glass in the

Cupboard, no harm meant.

After twenty five years

No surprise at a flying saucepan.

The family lived in the house,

Part of it, kin to it,

Whatever its freight.

Besides, after twenty five years, they

Had their own ghosts as guests,

Those former selves in former

Times living on,

Resonating in overlapping lines.

The cello practice, the barking

Dog, the sleeping dog,

The trampoline, the one that

Broke, the roller blades,

The skipping rope.

The time when budgies tweeted

In the kitchen

And Ma cooked at 6 for me

And 8 for him, again.

The time when garden’s shade

Was less and next door neighbour

Had a cat called…called….

Times gone but still present

In the ether, round the stairs, up the blocked chimney,

Or the skylight, then,

Down, over mossy steps

And at the back door, again,

With a ratataptap, like a

Ghost..

No, it must be Jack

The new next door neighbour’s

Cat.

1.

My name is girl

My age is when

I feel the day

My height is fringed

With misty things, the haze

That surrounds all,

Air , or something like it,

Electrical.

Part 2.

My fate is but a worm

Squirming in the sand

Beneath an apple on the

Beach.

My rubbery coil senses Autumn’s

Mellow fruit but feels

Only grit and cigarette ends,

Yellowed with spit

And the odd spat of sea.

Part 3.

My Date is a round

Can of something fizzy,

A man, who’ll pop

And bubble over

With sense and tunes

Told well, with confidence

Like some voluntary tramp.

Part 4.

My ache is a bell

Bent out of shape

Chord twanged by the wrong

Hand. Who’’s hand?

Who cares? Lets fix it,

If it’s copper it’ll meld well.

Part 5.

My tune is a song

Soldered on to the side

of my liver, an odd

Audience, granted,

But keen, it knows exactly

Where I’ve been and what

Deals Life’s dealt.

No, livers make grand audiences,

They’ll tell you whether or not

You were truly magnificent,

With their view from the stalls.