Peter Goulding

A lighthouse keeper greets Christmas morning

The flamingo pink sun has flicked its first
gossamer lines over the horizon
and is now reeling in this special day.
For once, the sea is flat and calm and grey,
the dancing sparkles chatting like children.

Since dark midnight I have carved and painted
the final piece and placed him in the crib,
among the seals and selkies, the shrill gulls
and fishermen, the rocks and the jetty.
The refraction above casts deep shadows.

Doubtless, my children will be washed and dressed;
They will have trailed the path across the fields
to Mass, the goose still draining on the nail.
My wife will wear her special hat, with wild
white heather pinned proudly to the wide brim.

I must put the kettle on for Smeaton.
His hob-nail boots will soon be clattering
up the spiral steps like a prisoner
embracing the gallows. The poor wretch feels
this time of year worse than Doyle and myself.

And then it will be time for me to dowse
the burner that I have nurtured nightly
throughout the endless hours of deep winter.
Sailors, rest well. There will be light enough
today to illuminate the whole world.

Attack on Falmouth

Beneath the haughty gaze of the two castles,
whose cannon remain strangely mute,
the galleon moors outside the harbour,
her bows glistening gold in the sun.

Along the waterfront, a shiver of anticipation
runs through the townspeople
and the tradesmen busily prepare
for the imminent assault.

Then there is a moment of silence.

Then a shout; and a fusillade of small craft
is launched at the harbour walls,
searing through the calm waters
like heat-seeking torpedoes.

Inside each boat, eyes twitching nervously,
a division of gung-ho soldiers,
armed to the hind teeth
with digital cameras and credit cards.

Building block of the future

after Ozymandias

Disjointed pictures from a hand-held phone
convey with earnest words, the late-loosed hate
that one mad oligarch can generate.
With ropes and many hands, the hand-hewn stone
is toppled from its plinth; his day is flown
and spittle-firing jackals cheer his fate,
while photographs in Newsweek illustrate
the storms to which the desert king is prone.

But now that breathless messengers have left
and old men squabble in the market place,
where does the toppled tyrant incubate?
Dragged into the desert, now bereft
of hawkish features, its sand-blasted face
contemplates the past and lies in wait.

The last chough in Cornwall

An als whath Arthur a wyth,
Yn corf Palores yn few:
Y Wlas whath Arthur a bew,
Myghtern a ve hag a vyth.

For seven years after his consort's death,
he patrolled the wave-lashed north coast
in a memory of mourning for her
and for all those gone before her,
ring eye anchored on the great grey sea
whence all things spring and have sprung.
They would drive for miles in Subarus
to point out to strangely silent children
with leather skin and dark, curly hair,
his blood-soaked bill and tousled coat
as he fingered the sky with ferned wings,
brushing the tear-drops from the clouds.

By the ruins of Tintagel, he barked his orders
to the buffeting wind and leaden sky
and the waves crashed against the cliff
in a royal fanfare that shook the earth.
A sliver of scarlet between the rocks,
the seaweed smell closing like mist.
And then one day, the summons came
and the chain broke with a crack that snapped
back the heads lining the cliff top,
and in disbelieving silence,they watched him
silently fly off into the setting sun,
until he became a speck of solar dust,
a grain of sand, the lost soul of a nation.

High definition

After many months of pixelated mood swings,
the man with no name finally asked
and screams of joy rampaged through our Tudor cottage,
before slipping into something cooler–
a deep, gut-gnawing anguish. So my wife
was roped in to design a costume of blouse,
shoes, jewellery, perfume, handbags, make-up,
her name already pencilled in the credits.

From behind my newspaper, I was secretly
impressed by his choice of an old Jimmy Stewart,
remastered, "colorized" and digitally enhanced,
its traditional values galloping over the brow
of the grainy days of my childhood.

I cannot remember what we watched that evening,
eyes flicking to the black hands on the wall
that moved slower than the clock in 'High Noon.'
And then, finally, her shoes clacked up the drive,
the key turned swiftly and smoothly in the lock
and in she pushed, her face glowing and flushed,
a beam of pure happiness paused in real time.
And we could see immediately that she had been
re-mastered and, dare I say it, digitally enhanced.

Ctrl Alt Delete

He was taken completely by surprise,
his dazed eyes not seeing the danger
until it was too late.

Two rows of sharp teeth,
glistening and gleaming in calibri font,
snapped out of the computer screen,
clamped over his head,
like an exotic flower catching a fly,
and dragged him into the monitor
before he could click Dislike.

In desperation, he sought to hook his feet
around the screen edge, but the metal
dug into his soft flesh and he yielded.
Soon, the ripples subsided and
the glass lake became calm.

Inside, he frantically palmed the glass
seeking an egress where there was none.
He put his shoulder to it,
tried karate-kicking it,
headbutted it, punched it,
but he may as well have been
trying to pushing a stream uphill.

When his wife passed by
on her way to bed, three hours later,
he banged his fist to attract her attention.
Bemused, she watched him
gesticulating for a few minutes,
then bent down
and yanked the plug from the wall.

The Halstatt charnel house

The corpses are stored vertically
in the thin layer of clay
upon this outcrop,
until they are matured enough
and the grave is required.

Then they are slung out
onto sheets for two years
like dried meat,
bleached white by moonlight
before being examined
and deemed worthy of a place
in the grisly theatre
dug into the cool, dry rock.

Sporting gay garlands
of ivy, oak and lavender,
the skulls, waiting in tiers,
grin at the joke
of five hundred years,
each one adorned with the name
and death date of its owner.

We are the entertainment.

The stalls are packed,
waiting for the next gawping specimen
of modern day soft living
to be wheeled in,
open-mouthed and dumbstruck,
sporting bright ponchos
and Armani sunglasses.

And they whisper silently
among themselves,
doubtless disappointed
at the wretchedness
of their legacy.

Fowey

As another car rumbled down the narrow lane,
again we slammed our backs against the cold wall,
like prisoners evading the searchlights' glare.

This is no country for pedestrians, we thought,
as the polished chrome caressed our clothing
before blundering blindly on.

Quickly, we headed for the harbour and sunlight,
for here, in these labyrinthine lanes,
chill with the shadows of centuries

the sun would not intrude.

Ugolino's lament

The raging beast rips at my flesh severely,
its savagery increasing as the hour
approaches in this high and hopeless tower
when shadows will fragment these walls unclearly.
The thought has crossed my mind but it is merely
hunger's bid for overweening power;
besides, what howling jackal could devour
the cherished bloodline that he holds so dearly?
Far worse, the helpless torment of the young
and innocent, who suffer for my crimes
in these most (dare I say it?) treacherous times.
The arteries within my heart are wrung
as death's momentous toll in silence chimes
and Satan's fatal battle-hymn is sung.

I contemplate their bodies and have gnawed
my fingers. May God look into my face
and search for any vestiges of grace.
He alone will weigh up my reward.
Political intrigue? The charge, though flawed,
may certainly have merit in this case
but were my crimes so heinous and so base
that simple justice should be so ignored?
For it must surely wound the Lord above
to see those punished who have baulked at sin.
How will he fare, this pious priest clad in
such holy vestments and the devil's glove?
I curse him with this body, racked and thin,
that he may never know forgiving love.

Church bell in Codalet, France

Every fifteen minutes, the church bell
marks the passage of time
to a disinterested village,

whose only clock is the great pagan god
that determines the humour of the day.

There has been no mass here for years
and the splintered church door
remains locked to curious tourists

seeking sanctuary from the midday sun.
So they sit on the hard benches

on the shaded side of the church
and break baguettes and gulp Coke,
and every fifteen minutes

the bell, primed by an absent curate,
explodes like a terrorist bomb.

Pas de la Casa, Andorra

Down the coiled rope road we slid,
descending in great hairpins
from the top of the pass.
Then the border, disinterested
custom officials, smoking,
blue short-sleeved shirts,
glancing up as we passed.
Around another bend and it hit us
like a blow to the solar plexus.
halfway up the grazed grass mountain,
a multi-coloured, multi-storey monstrosity
of red blue and yellow rectangles,
lifted straight from a bygone age,
like an old sea captain
dangling trinkets before big-eyed natives.
At its feet, a neon scorpion village
of gift shops, Euromarkets.
supermarkets, eurosupermarkets,
eurosuperdupermarkets,
heaving with frantic families
scrabbling for duty free goods
as though the sky
were about to turn black.
Cars snarled for spaces,
owners shouted in shops,
rails and baskets littered the paths.
Whiskey, wines, cigars, cigarettes,
perfumes, hi-fi, lo-fi, cameras,
luggage, beer, chocolate, iPods,
all manner of electrical goods,
were wheeled in on pallets
and wheeled out in trolleys,
cramming roof-racks and boots,
becoming booster seats for toddlers.

And right in the very heart of it,
invisible in the descending heat haze
sat the church that we entered
when the sun became too intense,
a sanctuary of cool and quiet,
one tiny candle flickering in the dark,
the light barely escaping the corner.

A moth fails the litmus test

Her sudden laughter smashes on the floor
and shatters in a thousand sharp-edged pieces.
An involuntary flicker of my jaw

is caught by her wild eyes and she knows well
that we are at the point where this thing ceases.
My stammer thus becomes a sounding bell,

a litmus test, precise, yet so demanding,
turned red by smiles or stifled bottom lips
that signify a lack of understanding.

Is it unfair of me to thus employ
reaction to communicative blips
as reason to summarily destroy

relationships? Should I let these things pass,
these puerile pupa caught out in the rain,
when lazy laughter barefoots over glass?

Or will this moth, spotlighted and surprised
for one brief second, disappear again
to surface later, metamorphosised

into some large-winged and raging beast
upon the flimsy-painted windowsill?
I smile back, my laughter lines uncreased.

Panicked now, the moth attempts to flutter,
flickers briefly, twitches and is still,
piously machine-gunned by my stutter.

Bird

A scrawny piece of piss,
afraid of its own shadow,
vivid yellow, save for the black mark
stamped on its tail feathers,
the mark of Cain, he'd joke.

It was a birthday present
to give me a bit of company
while he was out working.
He said it was called 'Bird'
and so it was.

When he went out, I'd open the cage
and Bird would flutter straight to the window
to watch the sparrows on the bird table.
Then it would hop around the work surface
scavenging for crumbs.

Sometimes he'd come home unexpectedly
before I had time to clean up the shit
and then I knew what to expect.
It was my fault.
I had to be punished.

After three years, Bird got sick,
some kind of parasitic infection
that browned the feathers round its eye
and made it fly into walls.
It'll get better, he said,
no need for a vet.

I found it one morning slumped forward
on an article about Qaddafi,
like a fried egg yolk freshly spilt.
Before he came down, I wrapped Bird up
in a kitchen roll shroud and buried him
beneath the Arthur Bell,
whose yellow roses will bloom in Spring.

The prayer of St Ita

A scowling face,
obstinacy in wrong-doing
and too great a confidence in the power of money –
these are the things that God detests.
True faith in God with a pure heart,
a simple life with a religious spirit,
and open-handedness inspired by charity –
these are the things God especially loves.

Do not scrunch up your face
in the teeth of a vicious storm.
It can do you no harm.
Rather let the wind part your hair
and the rain run down smooth skin.
The pricking of your fingers produces blood
when you reach too rashly into the thorn bush.
Learn from the mistake
when your greedy eyes spy the bulbous fruit.
Trust in the power of what is right –
it is a force greater than gold,
so cherish it closely to your heart.
The Will of God is in all things
so cherish it closely to your heart –
it is a force greater than gold.
Trust in the power of what is right
when your greedy eyes spy the bulbous fruit.
Learn from the mistake
when you reach too rashly into the thorn bush
and the pricking of your fingers produces blood.
Let the rain run down smooth skin
and the wind part your hair –
they can do you no harm.
In the teeth of a vicious storm,
do not scrunch up your face.

These are the things God especially loves –
open-handedness inspired by charity,
a simple life with religious spirit
and true faith in God with a pure heart.
These are the things that God detests –
too great a confidence in the power of money,
obstinacy in wrong-doing
and a scowling face.

Yuen Po Street Bird Garden Hong Kong

Old men shuffle down tough streets,
muslin-covered cages in hand,
to sit with other old men
while their birds tweet to each other.

The canvas-roofed stalls contain
colourful finches in finicky cages
stacked several feet high.
They gnaw the bars or engage
the sparrows scavenging seed
like tourists flocking for bargains.

An idle wind blows leaves
along the market. It is hard
to tell flora from fauna,
where all is movement and all is still.

For a few minutes, the sun
escapes the skyscrapers that stamp
the Hong Kong skyline
and the old men remove their caps.
The twittering is everywhere.

Sunless solstice at Newgrange

Upon an ancient mound we loitered,
hands thrust deep into pockets,
casting despairing glances toward
the ridge on the far side of the valley.

Some snake-charmer coaxed a tin whistle,
its reedy voice, though, bent in the biting wind
and was brutally slapped down. Maybe
we should have clashed stones in unison.

In the crisp air, we stamped the ground
to keep the blood circulating,
blood that had its origin in the beings
that hauled boulders to this magical place.

We waited for the sun-god to come,
rampant and virile, thrusting himself
down the long narrow passage that we
had created solely for his pleasure.

But the dark clouds melted into the dark hill,
our offerings rejected for another year,
bandaging us all in deep disappointment,
like mummified remains broken in the shadows.

The prayer of Margaret Ball

I know it's night, for then I hear them scurry,
though goodness knows, the pickings here are lean.
I feel their fur brush past my leg unseen,
scrabbling, sniffing, always in a hurry.
Their days, like mine, are measured by a flurry
of moving shapes that pick this dungeon clean.
At first, I prayed that death would intervene
to bear me from this dark, nocturnal worry.
But slowly do my aging eyes adjust
as if strong sunlight bathes this fetid cell
and I do not recoil in disgust
but throw my fellow prisoners a crust.
For though, in life, we share this squalid hell,
redemption is the payment of the just.

They say they cannot fathom how a son
could do this to his mother. It has earned
him a ghastly name - he has been spurned
by many who would see this deed undone.
The thread of new religion has been spun
and many good men, honest and well-learned
have from the true faith resolutely turned.
And so the dreadful torment has begun.
But ink won't rightly flow from broken quill
and faulty stitches slowly must come loose.
These walls may keep the air here foul and chill
but I will wait in pleasant warmth until
he comes for me, with penitence profuse,
restored at last to God's almighty will.

Balloon flight

They say that, with your final breath,
the soul becomes released by death
and rises to a certain height,
looks down, then sweeps off to the light.
And as we vaulted hawthorn tangle,
floret forest, sprawling farm,
there came on me the inner calm,
of life viewed from another angle.
O'er Rathmolyon church we lifted,
angels now, our freedom won.
Bathed in golden light we drifted
on toward the setting sun.
Silent witness. All is clear –
if this is death, I have no fear.

St Michel de Cuixha

The miracle was they still had faith
after the waters rose and
destroyed the monastery;
faith enough to start again
and build this time on higher ground,
despite yet another broken covenant.

Villanelle villanelle

The only problem with the villanelle,
As Wikipeeja fervently explains,
Is that the repetition grates like hell.

It is a form not easy to write well,
Although the repetition still remains
The only problem with the villanelle.

Like children sitting on a carousel,
The thought, as their initial wonder wanes,
Is that the repetition grates like hell.

And even Seamus Heaney, I've heard tell,
Has called the most ubiquitous refrains
The only problem with the villanelle.

The poet-felon, pacing in his cell,
Admits his gripe with these unyielding chains
Is that the repetition grates like hell.

This poet, though, is anxious to dispel
The notion, till in tears he ascertains –
The only problem with the villanelle
Is that the repetition grates like hell.