Brenda Talking

My mother would have had my guts for garters

—      eating cream cake in public!

But now it’s permissible to buy a bottle of Volvic

and drink it at a bus stop.

Snap back seats,

especially made to snap back

—      on the disabled!

I’m going to stop talking.

Everyone is looking at me.

What is that old woman doing?

Making a fool of myself —

just trying to keep my spirits up.

That’s all, you see,

you have to — or life is just too depressing.

I went to London.

Discovered that I

can no longer use

the escalators.

They’ve speeded them up,

or slowed me down.

Of course the ‘thing’

you hold on to, moves too.

Absolutely murderous!

I usually go up every six weeks

but I haven’t been in a while.

First time in three years.

I’ve been so ill.

I went to two exhibitions.

I was blown off Blackfriars Bridge.

Such a wind!

Hobbling along thinking —

I’ll never make it.

I never will.

Flat Sharing

Apple crumbled evenings in October,

your guitar and two chords
drifting through the piles of paper at your feet. 

I am closing my eyes to the sound and
the green curtain and the old fashioned way
you boil a kettle and make sure that
I am more than ‘ok’. 

We talk without pause, although
Louis Theroux , the news at seven, nine, eleven,
Nigella’s pornographic recipes, Ikea catalogues
and The Yellow Pages, are all consuming subject matters. 

You bring me my name on a Sainsbury’s leaflet;
I am to be had with duck legs, indeed!

Doreen at 86

I was a seventeen year old virgin when I married your grandfather,
a blushing bride, pure in white and pure in heart.

He slipped that ring on, and with the beauty of it all, the whole church wept.
Smiling for the birdie, we cut the cake, drank champagne and cheek to cheek,

he spun me round the village hall. I knew his first dance was going to be my last.
Don’t ask me how I knew, it’s not as if I guessed the rest, but my kidneys can’t lie.

I was so brand new for him, he was older, more used up, but I thought he was
the sea and he could be cleansed, that he didn’t mean it when he said 
                                                                                                 he’d never touch me again.

SuperDan Shopping

I looked for your long lolloping walk,
amongst yellow-scented lemons
and pomegranates
that could be mistaken for onions.

Past the flesh counter, past the milk, I stop
to pick up butter, knowing you wouldn’t be there.
I looked for you amongst the chocolate puddings,
the vitamins and tonics –

how was I to know you’d head for the freezer
and chicken breasts?

Lewis: 23 hour power cut

I saw the lighthouse in Lewis, only once. 

It was lived in by an old woman,
mad local I was told,
and a dead dog left
on one
of the far beaches -
a place where sheep
went to die and you kneeled
with Sullivan to make a fire.

I saw the lighthouse by chance;
I thought there was nothing in Lewis.
It was just sounds, no heat, no fire 
but you, striking a light at dusk.

A test of will power and reason,
the water boiled
over and in my
second best
saucepan, we
brewed tea.

And it seemed as if we were meant to go,
keep warm and eat in the pub that evening,
and a goat was supposed to chew our window ledge
and a hungry neighbour
and his marmalade sandwich
were destined for the Kid.

It seemed,
In that small moment,
bringing home the bones
of a Ram’s head, years later, after dinner,
that everything made sense.

And the lighthouse
was from the future.

I held the Ram’s head to the light
and looked through
its eyes like
windows

and realised the death rattle 
was the sound of teeth
in an empty skull.

Green

Green wooden shutters open,

falling into the morning, I wake,

raining dull light, the clouds are dreams

caught on mountains; such green.

You’ve already left for work

I trail my fingers in the crumbs

of your almond pastry, smile

at the coffee pot on the stove;

I hear only Lorca

Verde que te quiero verde.*

In this noticing, such healing,

I am sky and land. Strange

intimate space to be silent –

to be absent from my own shadow,

this is what I yearn for.

Such courage to enter

into the heart of green, to leave

my known self behind, reveals

freedom to be:

the rain, the swaying

cherry tree, the storm that will pass,

the wind that pushes against

the green shutters.

I am without my senses:

the soul needs no interpreter,

only the hopeful state of light

calling to light.

* Romance Sonámbulo by Federico García-Lorca

Rhubarb

In Germany,I remember my mother
cooking rhubarb

making a crumble
- it grew wild you know
like it’s supposed to.

Rhubarb Revisited

I remember my mother,
in Germany,
cooking rhubarb

to make a crumble.
It grew wild there
like it’s meant to.

Richard Harper

Mr Harper is Richard to Paul, 

and the nice man to me.

The nice deaf man,

who let me into the building

one April afternoon when

my arms were busy juggling

fresh raspberries, greek yoghurt

and apricot cake.

Mr Harper has not heard the doorbell

in years, but he has his own teeth

and a tape deck. Soon you will go downstairs

where Richard is all smiles, ready with an open door

and ‘Paul!  It’s good to see you’. While you play

the saltwater music I sent, Mr Harper will sit

in his comfy chair and sketch saltwater lakes,

somewhere near Salalah.