The Worry

It is as though,
everything
that you see,
takes a piece away
as it gives back
an experience.
The exchange
would have to be
precise or you
would wear out
very quickly.
But that bay and
that island
tore big chunks off me
which is something
I am just
now realising
as oil threatens them.
The mind picture for
my first good poem
came from there so
I count myself
ahead in the deal.
Although to think of them
choked and dead is
cold lead
in the stomach.
So I have the poem
and the worry
and the love.

In Perception

The small orange sticker
on the wall of the office
I am visiting
says "Perceptual".
Which gets me thinking
about the time it snowed
and it seemed to make
a theatre of our street.
As if the world was limited
to just this strip of asphalt.
The  intricate
stories and sagas of
the neighbours would become
the play which would fill that space.
I also remembered that dream
where the baby had eyes
full of blood
and it was my fault,
and then it wasn't.
How I felt very differently
about the story when
hearing of the stupid thing
that the father had done.
Because I wasn't him anymore.
But I still took great pains
to tell the other
characters that
"I would never do that"
while silently asking myself
"Would I?"

With thanks to my Mum for advice on the, now missing, last stanza.

Turned

Someone took a photo
of him coming back.
Hat held in the hand
of the arm his coat
is folded over, the
suitcase on the ground.
Squinting into the sun
first sign of the smile,
warming his face,
as he saw his mum.
He was back from the war,
though he told me once,
"You can't take it off
like a suit".
If you could, somehow,
arrange to have him in
the same place every year
and take a picture.
Much would not differ
from year to year
but the face would change,
especially in the 1990's
when he just lost interest.
Betrayed by Labour,
and scornful of the rest,
sometimes even hateful.
Until he seemed used up.
Compared to that arrival photo
when he is back, alive
and beginning to realise
that he had made it through
and knew that his country
would not let him down.

Crazy Mummer

Lust, the half remembered Harlequin,
steps up behind you on cat feet,
and whispers:
"That's a bit of all right".
Then saunters off,
leaving you, red eared
at the deliciousness
of the sin.
Monsieur Love is there then,
with convoluted, courtly manners
and elegant fol-de-rols.
He inspects the top of his walking cane
and asks you:
"What did they mean when they said
'Hello' and 'Nice day'?"
Then he goes to read his mail.
Finally there is Mr. Punch
with his slap-stick
and belled hat.
But all he says is "Putcha!".
Not much help in that.
So the play moves on
and you are trapped inside.
Foil to the actors,
unsure of your next line.
While desperately,
playing for time.

Gap

When you were there,
it was a time of two
and one.
In a sunny house
up on a hill.
So your mum,
called us Jack and Jill.
Which was simply,
how it was.
The tumbling down
was quick and shocking.

The empty socket
where you fitted
gaping, gutted, gone.
So much space
that I had doubts
about going on.
And in a sense I didn't,
that was some, numb
other who marked the days.
Who still drifts
around the wreck.
Too scared to say
it's unfair
that you're not there.

Lifetime

There was a moment
when it all made sense.
I could see my life
mapped out, like a farm
from the air.
I felt that the parts
were connected
and it was a body
of work that had
some history and
was enmeshed
in the community, here.
There was a feeling
of the larger whole
and I could see the
pathways radiating out.
Then it was gone and
I was back to the
feeling of unease,
waiting for something
that does not arrive.
Which is just life
the endlessly new
with no chance of review.
The effortless push into time
that starts to drag
once the flow is past us
and we move on.

Deconstruction

The digger crouches in the middle
of the crumbling buildings.
With precision and even delicacy it knocks down
and loads rubble that had been a workplace
into a truck, which takes it away
to become golf course
foundations.
And here am I at the fence
with my oldest friend
watching and commentating as
if it was cricket.
We talk of walls, loads and half
understood things our dads told us.
We criticise the digger driver
who's doing it all wrong.
And then it hits me,
like a freight train,
that this could be memory loss
we are watching and talk about.
The deft, telling blows
in just the right places
that the digger lands
to bring the edifice down.
The record of that place now gone.
A flat apron of concrete,
the only marker for a place
where people made ordinary history.
But the metaphor becomes unglued
because memories are organic
twining and twisting around the truth
gathering in stories and pictures
that are not ours, to the self.
Still it is close enough
to give me a chill as I remember my age.
So we leave and walk off quickly,
while the digger carries on.