GOING ROUND THE SUN AGAIN
Going round the sun sixty eight times
Takes some doing
Even if you are merely a passenger.
The first time round was really a blur
No sense at all that we were
Doing almost seventy thousand miles an hour.
Mother said I screeched most of the way
And that the snow piled high
For months every day.
Even the tenth spin
I don’t recall a lot of that
Except that it was the year mother got fat
For a while, anyway
And then she was thin again.
The years stretched to decades
Still round and round we went
Sometimes I travelled in the company of steel bars
And sometimes I journeyed with the stars.
And there were times when writers came to stay
Becket, Behan, Millar, Hemingway
Of course the children came too
But for many years I have tripped with you.
My father got to number sixty nine;
I wonder how many rounds will be mine?
poetry
MILKING TIME
MILKING TIME
Father always hummed at the milking
Pausing only to say ‘easy girl, easy there’
When a troublesome horse-fly struck
Sitting on his three-legged stool
His pail clamped between his thighs,
He caressed old Daisy’s belly with his head
And sometimes sank his fist into the wrist
When she lashed out
The sound of milk hitting the pail
Was like rain dancing on corrugated steel
He could hit one of those flies
At three paces with one long squirt.
Sometimes he practiced on me.
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TWO POEMS
UNTITLED
This man’s war’s not fought
With cannonball or shell
This piper plays in places
Where the mind no longer dwells
This piper raises all the rafters
Left in hell
MY TIME
This then is my time;
A ribbon of memories
Stretching back to an age
I can hardly remember
Anymore
With an indeterminate
Number of coils
Still to be unrolled
From a drum
Revolving ever faster as it
Unwinds
HITCHBOT THE HITCHHIKER
HITCHBOT THE ROBOT WILL ATTEMPT TO HITCHHIKE ACROSS CANADA, STARTING ON 27th JULY. GOOD LUCK HITCH!
HITCHBOT THE HITCHHIKER
Hi! I’m Hitchbot and I’m hiking not biking
From Halifax to Victoria
Then maybe reverse the process
From British Columbia to Nova Scotia.
I have no driver’s licence – yet –
Otherwise your services I could forget.
I am short of stature
And I wear wellies when it’s wet.
I know I look like a dustbin on legs
And my thumbs are really
Just glove-covered pegs.
I have no neck to speak of
And there are times to be honest
When I am tempted to just sneak off
Into the Canadian dark
And comfort myself in some technology park.
I mean – a welly-wearing droid
Is something most drivers
Would swerve violently to avoid!
THE MARCH OF THE GREY MEN
THE MARCH OF THE GREY MEN
The march of the grey men
Hurriedly away from Number 10
Followed by the catwalk queens
Legging it briskly
Through the door of their dreams
Parading their beauty, after the beasts
Whose usefulness has clearly ceased.
Oh, for the days when women
Were more like men
And had to do more than pose
To gain entry to number 10
THIS LAND OF OURS
THIS LAND OF OURS
For land is not to own
But to walk over
To lie in tall grass
To swim in clear water
In the river that wends past
To smell the new-mown hay
To watch the lambs at play
To see the stems of barley
Grow taller every day
To watch the crows farm maggots
From newly-turned turf
That, surely, is enough
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I KNEW KENSAL GREEN BEFORE ITS RISE
I KNEW KENSAL GREEN BEFORE ITS RISE
I knew Kensal Rise, or is that Kensal Green
When upward mobile and genteel
Were hardly to be seen
When Harlesden was such a pain
And we all avoided poor Scrubs Lane.
The Harrow Road was long and lonely
Fit for trucks and tractors only
Most estate agents did a swerve
And said that sellers had a nerve
To say it was just off Queens Park
Where gentrified had made its mark
The cemetery stood gaunt nearby
With its patchwork bricks
And walls so high
Though Ladbroke Grove might still be seen
By standing on a mausoleum
Queen Victoria and Mark Twain
To Kensal Rise they both came
And a library they did endow
That’s the talk of London now
Today there’s cafes, bars, boutiques
And Chamberlayne’s the hippest street
Where Lily Allen and Sophie Dahl
Rub shoulders with the great and small
And Ian Wright and Zadie Smith
Have made the area quite a hit.
I wonder if they all will stay
Like Harold Pinter to decay
With William Makepeace Thackeray
BRIEF ENCOUNTER ON A TRAIN
Written yesterday – Sun 23th July – on a London-bound train
BRIEF ENCOUNTER ON A TRAIN
Blue-green compact
Hazel green eyes
She powdered busily
Then blinked in surprise
When I winked
Not once, but twice
The train rocked on
She powdered her nose
She looked at me slyly
But I feigned repose
She stuck out her tongue
And I winked once more
Then the train came to a stop
And she dived for the door
LOVE LETTERS IN THE SAND
LOVE LETTERS IN THE SAND
I watched you in the sand
Drawing shapes with your left hand
Shapes that seemed to show
The face of a long-haired man
Then the tide rolled gently in
And his face was quickly gone
But from the fleeting glimpse I got
I swear I was that man.
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FATHER AND SON
FATHER AND SON
My mum says you’re my dad
The words ripped through me
Like a chainsaw through soft timber
Then scattered like spindrift
Along the sea wall
Lean young people glistened in the sun
While my heart pounded
And the young boy,
With shoulders rounded,
Hurried along to keep up with his mum
It was true; I was his father,
Of a sort.
Ten years ago I was for sure;
Ten lifetimes since I
Had slammed the goodbye door.
My Writing Life 