MY CAR NOW TALKS TO ME
Hello
Goodbye
Raising the lights like a stage curtain
Playing little movies
Serenading me with melodies
The welcome – farewell experience
They call it
“An emotionally resonant experience”
And that digital note of appreciation
“Thank you for driving a hybrid”
As if it was something…well
Unconnected with this thing on four wheels.
And those door handles
Illuminating when they sense my presence
The needles on the instruments
Snapping to attention as I open the door
There’s a welcoming theme
Part Hollywood soundtrack
Part plane swoosh
And that puddle lamp!
A welcome mat of light.
My car is a robot I think
With a personality not just in its body
But also in its behaviour.
“How can I help you?”
It asks now
As I prepare for take-off.
I really feel like telling it
To shut the fuck up
But I don’t want to hurt its feelings.

 

 

 

 

 

OH, FOR THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES

 Falling in love with a poet
May be the closest you will come to living forever
Be the wild card in his pack
In a world where lonely queens never say never
Go live in the desert rather than a fancy hotel
Eat with rusty cutlery, drink cider instead of Muscatel
Visit no man’s land, but once only
Then come back and you will never feel lonely
Remember that underground city that once glowed
Red in the dark
Go limber up in hilly Montmartre
Then go barefoot in Gaudi Park
Dance with demons and devils on some remote island
Then go toss some cabers in the godless Scottish Highlands
All this you must do, while your poet’s mouth opens and closes
As you dance along some cobbled street singing
Oh, for the days of wine and roses.

 

 

ACHTUNG BABY!
This refreshingly quiet street
Round the corner from Checkpoint Charlie
A miasma of tourists
Taking selfies
Next to two fake American soldiers
Dressed in full cold war regalia
Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata
Keyed by unseen hands
Drifting through the lazy afternoon sunshine.
And you framed in the cafe window
Waiting for me.
*
All quiet on the western front these days
The almost musical sound of jackboots
No longer linger; no Stasi lurking
Berlin is no longer east or west
Just plain Berlin will do
*
Twenty five years ago this was no mans land
Then the walls came tumbling down
Almost by accident
A flurry of missed communications
Garbled orders; fearful guards;
People shouting
Let us out, let us out
And we on the west side shouting back
Let them out, let them out
And you shouting
Let me out, let me out
And it happened
*
Today a row of plastic flowers
Mark the line where the wall stood
Mark the spot where we met.
Someone is watering them I see
Making it more difficult for me
To come and tell you
That the cold war has returned –
For us anyway.

 

TAKEN TODAY AT RYE HARBOUR

 

CALL ME DRELLA

Andy or Drella

Perhaps you were a dipsy female

In your last earthly visit

Or you might have been

A shepherd

A horseman

Or a forester

Painting broad strokes

On the graphite landscape

Before being reborn

As a God

Whose numinous cans

Are now worth

More than a hoary hill of beans.

And later,

You danced in your velvet underground shack

With Lou Reed going round and round

And forever coming back.

You knew that Lou

Wasn’t much like you

But you liked him nevertheless;

You weren’t sparing

With your largesse.

I wish I knew what you were trying to express

Perhaps it was the salvation of your superstars

They say you almost died so they might almost live.

But you were fearless too

When you saw how much your precious

Candy Darling had to give.

 

NIGHTHAWKS

 Down at the end of lonely street

The fools to misfortune must forever meet

Behind a thousand glass panes all the lonely go

Where hatless strangers swim to and fro:

You can see but you can’t reach

Because you cannot learn what you cannot teach

Real loneliness comes with a price

Those paralysed by loneliness aren’t always that nice:

Loneliness is a very special place

It has no proper name or face

There are miles of glass triumphantly smiling

But those behind it are endlessly toiling

Silently mouthing all they wish to be

I want to be free, I want to be free

I just want to be free.

 

 

HOW TO MEASURE RAIN

Walking through an ancient woodland

Wildflower meadows glinting through the trees

Man and nature working together

The whistle of unseen songbirds drifting on the breeze.

**

Watery flatlands and Roman dykes

Juxtaposed with hydro-electric pumps

Stratiform precipitation falling from nimbostratus

Condensing into water droplets that look like rainy lumps.

**

Grey unchanging weather that doesn’t go anywhere fast

Two woodpeckers on a grass verge looking for ants

A kingfisher unzips the air

And a shrew lies dead by the river banks.

**

Worms brought to the surface by tapping rain

A sparrowhawk hunched in a leafless ash tree

While above a coven of goldfinches cause a riot – again.

An April walk through the sunshine and showers

Huge, creamy candles of horse chestnuts hang down

Still locked inside ripening green flowers

**

This is farmed arable land

But laymen have long lost interest

Where food come from anymore

Apart from what’s written on the packet inside the supermarket door

The rain falls on everything

Both the living and the dead

Walking has deepened my feeling for outside

This is my week of getting wet.