Spaces

Pause a while it won’t take a moment
Think between the lines and the ends of things
Listen to those silences after the words we speak

Hear nothing except our heartbeats beat
And feel following full stops at sentence end

Those wisdoms that from the heavens transcend

Truth resides there on bated breath
Miss a beat and the message is lost

In shadows deep or in the wings of time
In the space between we are able to think
Don’t hesitate don’t count the cost
Or it will remain forever beyond your grasp

There in the fiery space between
The deaf can hear and the blind can see

Only they can fully understand
For they know far more than you and me
Who can only glimpse at life through blinkered eye
And freeze our imaginations from breaking free

And never soar above the wondrous sky

A Magical Hat of Tricks

But after the final curtain
What of me was left

I was a stranger to myself

I was told
Never be yourself on the stage dear boy
After all who is interested in you

Heroes villains servants dames or fools
I never let the audience see
Deep inside the heart of me

It did not matter who I played
Kings gay icons or motley four legged creatures

I only met people as other people
Beyond the footlights

Who could they see behind the mask
Did they see ME dare I ask

Or did they see the character I played
Illuminated by the light of day

Exhausted I would stagger home to bed
Picking up pieces of me that lay shattered

On the way home

Had I banished my stage fright
Before the lights had dimmed on that last night

And the applause in the Gods
Had faded on the small player

Trespassing in other people’s shoes

Goodbye Mr Read

I

Ninety two years young
Mr Read sat on his old
And very comfortable leather armchair
Switched on the table lamp
Stroked his grizzled beard
and sighed

His fingers fumbled for his pipe
Lost in the folds of his long white beard
Worn in memory of Merlin the Magician
Now stained with tobacco

And the daily diet of eggs and tea

An east wind rattled the panes of glass
The smoke drifted upwards
In arcs of blue grey light
Here in this home-made conservatory
Put together in retirement
Out of old sheds wardrobes and a creaking gate
He sat out the rest of his days

Does me good to see you dear boy
He said as I entered the living space
That was kitchen bedroom
Library and observatory

Here from dawn till dusk he watched
The birds in his Eden
And the goldfish glide
Between the lilies in the pond

I have twenty three sparrows this spring
Two more than last year

His eyes stared beyond the garden
And then in lost reverie he said

Oh yes, dear boy I remember
When I retired from the school
Every day was mine every day
No more timetables
Except my own
They were the best of days
They were indeed

I had a real water dog way back then
He followed me everywhere

Do you know
When I threw a stick into the old mill race
He would dive in whatever the weather
Even in snow and ice
And he always
This will make you laugh
He always always returned the stick to the very spot 
Where I had stood to throw it in
But you see I had moved on

It always made me smile

Then silence
And the song of birds

Mr Read smiled again and rubbed his beard

Oh yes old Shep always made me smile

He paused and fiddled with his pipe
And gave a wise man’s shrug

A deeper thought appeared

Just like the children
Just like the King Street boys*

His mind was elsewhere now
Puffing his old clay pipe
Transfixed in memory
Of homework long ago

Now he was back in school

II

Down the glass corridors
The first school bell chimed
Among the playground throng
Of conker throwing boys
And then clink clink
The first distinct echo
It was a most familiar
Haunting sound
Heard by generations

Mr Read cometh
Be on your toes you boys

His hobnailed shoes left then right
Steps coming down the hall
Chiding and correcting
Even before he entered
The gladiatorial pit

III

Worn he told the staff room once
To let the blighters know he was coming

Assembly quick you boys
Bring the goalposts in from the rain
You’ll need them to wear for home
Jenkins please put Peters down
You boy don’t run
Quietly now in step
Go to assembly
In now run run

Inside the school hall
On the assembly stage
Mr Read stood tall and erect
To silence the boys’ morning song

He cleared his throat
And began to deliver
His last fable from the past

Thirty six years man and boy
Had stood there
In the early morning light
Shining through high arches
And now here they were
Eager faces dressed in new uniforms

He opened a book of poems and read
Slowly from one of Housman’s best

‘Little is the luck I’ve had
And oh ‘tis comfort small
To think that many another lad
Has had no luck at all’

A long pause

Even the caretaker was here today

His deep voice spoke in kindly tones
Looking at the silent beguiled faces
Some he had seen a generation before
Boys hung on his every word

I taught your fathers
And your fathers’ fathers
Some I taught ‘tis true
Did have no luck
‘Tis true no luck at all
But many did
And so I hope do you

Something perhaps you learned from me
Swayed the falling of the dice

IV

He sat down
A few nervous coughs rippled across the hall

A boy with shiny satchel
Holding a brown paper parcel
Agitated climbed the steps

We wish you luck sir
He said and put the parcel
In his headmaster’s hands

Mr read opened it
The Origin of the Species
By Charles Darwin

Well well
How did you know
I wanted this
Thank you all
Thank you all
So much

The sound of boys clapping filled the hall
The gowned staff stood and applause rang
Down the corridors beyond the playground

And into the cobbled streets

Just like the children
Just like the King Street boys

V

And then he was back with me
Back from his hall of time

Old Jack saw the little boy again
He’ll be grown up now
Running a bank no doubt

He laughed and emptied
The contents of his tar-stained pipe
Into the pot of dead geraniums

And looked at the birds beyond the glass

His hands
Pock marked with the ravages of age
Looked down in his lap
And turned the pages of a book
Charles Darwin The Origin

Did I ever tell you about my first dog
It was a real water dog that dog

He said

*King Street was the boys' entrance to his school, the girls entered through the adjacent Queen's Street

On the Walls of Aragon

Wedding bugles beckon bride and groom

Here where the old town lives and loves
Here where a meditative peace resides

By deep seas still as time

Above ebony fishermen feeding bread 
To the flashing silver harvest of the sea

White laced she stands on Catalan walls
Gazing beyond the cormorant priested shore

Here where my heart is full and free

Here where my anguished soul breathes anew
Under her quilted sky and iridescent sun
Where church bells chime their ancient anthems

Here where an old world meets a new    

Here upon ramparts a sentinel nightjar sings
At sun-fall a thousand lanterns light   
Upon church and walls in limbo
Their lustre burning bright
Shining
As we promenade the setting sun

Here where people seduce the moon to sleep
With Mirto*

Here where sea and chattering voices meet
In the shadow of a sleeping giant across the bay
And starfall shimmers on the midnight tide

Here our elusive friend Tranquillity
Enchants and entreats us back
Beyond the walls

Collateral Damage

Death came in a whisper
To the rag dolled girl
In the field of rocks

Contorted
One arm outstretched
The hand twisted
She appeals
To the last drop of humanity
In a deaf world

My blood is your blood
See it here splashed
On rock on field
She cries

Her staring eyes accuse
Remember me
I have forgotten I was ever born

Remember
Remember

My wasted life
It lived it laughed
Like yours

I had known only love till now

In Beslan – a History Lesson

They came with posies and balloons
The little children

Others came with bullets
And bombs

Now dead they lie

In the charred remains of the history classroom
No echoes stir of lessons learned or understood

What did they teach there of Chechnya
What did the grieving mothers tell

When the school bell tolled
What could be heard
Once the wailing grief had died

Only the silence

And the deafening hatred in leaders’ souls

Before the Dead Could Ask

This poem is inspired by an article written by British journalist, Robert Fisk, of The Independent about an incident in the Lebanon-Israeli War in the summer of 2006

I

At first I thought they were flowers
Mourning for lost innocence
But there across the see-through shroud
In felt tip ink I read
Those sad seraphic epitaphs for lost souls

A villager’s hand had solemnly etched their names
On thin plastic bags
That swathed their crushed remains
Some were disabled unable to flee
All perished here

My eyes lingered for a moment on the first named
Abbass al Shalhoub aged one – Qana it said

And then moved on along the line of the dead
Children here lay as far as my eyes could see
Corpses
Head to head

Najla aged three – Qana
Zeinah aged six – Qana
Mehdi Hashem aged seven – Qana
 
The war games the children imitated were now for real

II

On their last night upon this Earth
Gods argued over who would fire
The last shell into the stone built house

No ceasefire could the Gods aspire
Before the dead could ask
What in the name of the Lord had they done

Dust silenced their mouths crucified
They perished because they dared to live
In their own Promised Land

III

The villager searched the debris

No apology could be found
Among the fragments of carpets
Toys and stones none was sent
Only one message lay buried in the sand

Here in Qana
Where Christ once stood and turned water into wine
And blessed the marriage from which their descendants sprang

Here the children lay still
Damned by a world that had forsaken them

Now in Qana
Where once wine from water flowed
Only bombs fall and blood flows

No more miracles here

No flowers bud and bloom
Just death and tears

People wailing
Shells whispering
Genocidal echoes beyond the ruins
 
Before the last missile hit
The emissary of terror on Calvary stood
And crossed her cold heart
With all commandments broken

IV

Then
Digging with bare hands
The villager found peering through the sands
Printed on the brutal shell in hard metallic letters
A message
From the vengeful Gods spreading democracy
And false freedom across the world
 
Its first words were distinct
‘For use on MK-84’

The villager brushed more sand away

Guided Bomb BSU
It said in chiselled hand
‘For use on children’

The villager mused
Collateral damage or state terror

V

He stood and stared at me
Ashamed my protests were not enough
I looked away

More shells shall fall
Even more on tomorrow
Yet still the ceasefire will not come

And more wine will turn to blood
For now
No water can be found in Qana’s ruined ground

Shot at Dawn

Was it false alarms you heard
Above the last cry of the dying
In No Mans’ Land

Had you fallen asleep at your post
Was it cowardice  
Had you cast away your arms

Had you been disobedient
Was it shock at seeing your friends killed
Had you deserted from the line

What made you flee from the barbed wire
What drove you from those hellish shells

All reasonable questions
That can be conveniently asked
From the safety of the next century

Your corpse is pardoned now
Back in nineteen sixteen
No one at your court martial then heard you

Manacled tied to a stake
You met the firing squad at dawn

In the mud of this desolate land
Where no birds sang
You refused a blindfold

Twelve rifles fired at the envelope on your heart

Each trigger finger shaking
Thinking they could be next in line

Twelve bullets ushered your soul
Into the great unknown above the Front

Three hundred and five souls like you
Were shot at dawn
Sons of our shires
Recruits and veterans a few had
Lied about their age their fears
Ignored by those who judged them

Used to slaughter
The regimental chaplain
Kneeled in the mud

Braver souls I have never met
He thought
Then a trembled prayer
But no Gods were left to hear

In the distance
all along the Front
The guns rumbled and the war
Ground on and on and on

The Day the Sardinians Celebrated
the Fall of Fascism

On Monday everyone
Had the day off
From miles around
People flocked
To see the town
To take the air
To promenade in generations
To and fro
Eating ice cream
Talking always talking
And gossiping the hours away

Shouting and gesticulating
To each other
And the sky
Putting the world
To rights
Who was sleeping
With whoever’s wife
Did Berlusconi lie

And the price of fish

Old squat men
In flat caps
Sat in rows
On the wall
Facing the sea

Stout women walked

Choirs of barking dogs
Young women held tight
Their chaperon’s arm
And in front babies
Slept in prams
Or chased new toys
Oblivious to the sound
Of humans and the tide

Families together
Families in packs
Strangers who had
Never met before
Talked of anything
But fascism and war
Mahogany skin glowed
Under the Sardinian sun

On the highest wall
Above the sea
Old Sardo
Who still makes lobster pots
The eighteenth century way
With twine string and strong knots

Sardo a grizzly bear fisherman
Perched precariously
Cast his ancient line and bait
Into the white horses beneath

He beckoned me to him

He spoke no English except Kaput
His little transistor radio
Broke our meeting with news from Rome
His only concession to the modern world

My limping gait had caught his eye
He smiled and beckoned
His huge hands wrapped
Round a small bottle
Of magical olive oil
And with this mysterious elixir

He began to massage my feet

The walls were crowded now
But the town passed us by
From the hills beyond the walls
They had travelled to celebrate
Sixty years without fascism

A silver band played
An anthem
As they marched
Silver trombones glistening
In the sun

A feisty tune
Bombastic proud
The sound soon faded
As the band disappeared
Into the distant crowd

Sardo smiled

His eighty score years
Had seen it all
No need to celebrate the fall
His hands had helped deliver

Love Linda

It was a showery day in June
Twenty years ago

Larks sang as I cycled in
To my nine till five
With academics
Wearing flares and kipper ties

And then I saw you from afar
By the office door trim flaxen haired

You stopped and stared beyond my gaze
But I could only gaze helplessly at you

Before this blinding light
Before this sight

My life had been pure monochrome

You brought colour to fill
My black and white empty world

Of hopes long since lost for a love so true
As I found that morn in you

You rid my life of doubts and fears
Your smile seduced me
Deep into my soul

True and steadfast like your laughter lines
Each made me abandon my careworn ways

You came with children four not mine
And a husband who brought you tears
And pain

But we survived

But what of those other poets
What of them

Of Byron Larkin Hughes and the rest
Those hedonistic scribes
Bad mad and dangerous to know

Their true metier the one night stand
Indiscreet dalliance and sexual duality
Stanzas filled with strangers and women in the sack

What would they produce had they saw your eyes
They never encountered a muse like you

Now
After all these long long years

When I still survey your wondrous face
More beautiful with every passing year

I confess
I love you ever more
Than I ever did in those lusty weeks

Of that first thunderous summer
When our eyes first met
And our lives were never the same again

Variations on Race

I

What is this land they call Black Other
This strange and alien tick-box place
From which they say he sprung

If I am from black other what other black is he

II

How mixed up is that
Half breed
Half caste
Half other
Neither black nor white

Seen in abstract parts
Like fractions

People label pieces of me
Not the whole

III

Why make you ghettoes of his mind

There where the joy of being heard
Is silenced on the wind

He fought in wars like you
His blood like mine he spilled

IV

Is half of what you think I am
Better than being called
A black bastard
Like my mum or
A nigger lover
Like my dad

What will you call my kids
Mixed what

V

Let no colours imprison our souls
No others are we

We are who we are
From the same humanity

VI

Best to be surrounded by a mix
In the white room I still do not belong
And in the black they see a different me

VII

My kids will teach you what to think
You can’t be that dumb

Dementia Blues

At break of day she awoke to find
More of her life she had left behind

Was it seven by day or seven by night
Who was that in the mirror
What a fright
Will the carer
Come by today
Or was that her
In the half light
Of yesterday

Now her mind drifted towards a void
That distant land where confusion and fear reigned
A place apart far, far away
From the normal every day
Of memory
Of cherished thoughts
Of friends forgotten

And children who once had names

To the place from where strange people came
Before they were robbed of sense and shame

Disoriented she sat upon the bed
Staring at her sepia wedding on the wall
Who was that handsome man
Was that Fred

Muddled memories keep meandering back
Old schooldays
Homes in Cheshunt
Brothers and sisters long gone
What were their names
Childhood dreams
An old song
Lines forgotten

From the mantelpiece
More strangers stare down
Upon her worried frown

Was the kettle on
How did I forget to cook and knit
Where’s my stick

And who is he
Why can’t I
Remember who I am

The Sunday Visit

In school playgrounds down the hill
Children’s voices could still be heard

Let’s see where the mad will be
I know, I know

Up the hill in Mapperley*

I

On wet Sunday afternoons
Long after the War that killed him
A gaunt figure dressed in soiled
Ill-fitting clothes urine stained
Stands silent and alone
Outside the lobotomy ward

Bent double shuffling in carpet slippers
He moves slowly down the long dark corridor
Towards the distant square of light
There his twin children and their mother
Are waiting to meet him

Rocking gently forward and back
Lips hanging onto the cigarette
Recently rolled with trembling hands
Between Rizla papers number three
He stops outside the asylum shop

Locked
It was a Sunday after all
And staring at the rows of forbidden Woodbines
Lined on yonder wall
His trembling fingers remove a match
From a tattered England Glory box

Twice he strikes the match
On the third strike it lights
The flame arches upwards towards the cigarette tip
His lungs devour all
Inhaling deeper no smoke exhales

The day before or was it the day before
Stanley was unsure he ran out of baccy
And so like all the rest he scavenged
The ashtrays of the wards
For tiny fag ends extinguished by souls
Lost in the pit

Between nicotine burnt fingers
His cigarette glows red in the dark
In a few puffs
The dregs of the condemned were gone
And Stanley’s slippers did the rest

His haunted brow frowned
Troubled now by murmurs from beyond the war
He stumbles onwards towards the light
Thinking of the Ghurkha who gave him tea
Trying to repress the war that brought him here

II

He reached the junction where
The endless corridors cross
His eyes turn toward the purple wall
Painted dark like all the rest
They gaze upon a commemorative plaque

Long ago four score years in fact
Before those high brick walls
Spiked with wrought iron rails
To deter escape were built
The foundation stone was laid

There standing next to Mayor and Sherriff
Mr Gerard Hine consultant architect
Be-suited and flushed with pride
Shakes the hands of his peers

Our city fathers know what is best

This gothic pile Hine's sixth asylum
Has farm bakery and butchery
Along with church and recreation hall
For after all the mad have to eat pray and play
Especially in Queen Victoria’s day

III

Look now you can see the inmates there
Walking in circles speaking but to no one
Frantically rubbing their hands twitching
Some stare catatonically into the abyss
Others like statues stand

You can hear their whispers
Suddenly a terrifying scream
Pierces the babble but no one jumps
Is it the fairground’s laughing policeman
How did he get in here

You can smell the acrid air
Windows all are locked tight
Stale tobacco clings to carpet and chair
The morning’s disinfectant does not reach
The lingering faint stench of excrement

IV

You can’t help but stare
You can’t
A frail woman older than her years
Cleans imaginary windows
Hands gently removing the last spot
Of invisible dust from the imagined pane

All are now behind Stanley
He can see the children in the light
Holding their mother’s hand
White coats watch from foyer desk
As they meet in warm embrace

Stanley tenderly kisses their cheeks
The girl flinches as his stumbled chin
Meets her soft pink skin
Mother lips meet his
The boy freezes still

V

Mother hands Stanley a package
Would its contents last the week
Walking together they reach the open lounge
Sit quietly then Stanley asks
Thanks for the cigarettes
Did Notts County** win

No they lost four-nil

And then nothing
Two hours until the final bell
No other visitors come to see the others

Time ticks so slowly

It seems to last an eternity
Thinks the little boy then Stanley asks
‘Did I tell you about the Ghurkha
In the jungle he brought me hot tea
From a corned beef tin he saved my life’

VI

Every Sunday they heard the same question
Then before he could ask again
The final bell did ring
And rising mother boy and girl
Gave Stanley a last and warm embrace
They wave goodbye

Stanley shouts

Till next Sunday dear

The boy turns round
To see his father’s nicotine fingers close the curtain
Stanley turns his back
The window cleaner smiles

Did I tell you about the Ghurkha
Stanley stares into the cleaner’s eyes
Lost like he is
Haunted by war and death

In school playgrounds down the hill
Children’s voices could still be heard

Let’s see where the mad will be
I know, I know
Up the hill in Mapperley

*Mapperley is a suburb on a high hill to north of the city of Nottingham. It was one of the largest asylums in Britain before it closed in the1980s.

**Notts County are a football team in England

The Retreat

Just beyond the boundary edge
And the fielders dressed in white
where fine leg would take you
Beyond the sightscreens out of sight

You can just see the patient graveyard
Behind deep cover to the right

While waiting for my turn to bat
I walked along long rows of headstones
Reading tributes to the sad and mad

Benjamin Rhodes
Vagrant
Aged 22
Died 1862

In memory of Emma Smith
Illegitimate
Aged 82
Died 1962

Both buried as paupers
A century apart
Friendless to the grave

In whites I strolled past their humble crosses
Reading more inscriptions for the lost
Each row regimented

Twenty two souls
Mad before their time

The Retreat had opened in 1861
To house the insane of York

Greeted by the motto of the wrought iron gates
‘Come to the Retreat away from suffering’

Safely locked behind high red brick walls
They lingered and slowly died

How many of Emma’s years were spent
Amongst those tortured gothic halls
Their towering eaves were Benjamin’s last
Did he play cricket too

At close of play beguiling
Shadows of an eerie dusk
Descend upon the swathe of green

Once the last dew drop falls
Amid the Victorian arboreal splendour
There is talk of ghosts
Of mother’s sons and daughters
And rag dolls rising from their posts
Slaughtered by careless laughter

Look through the fogs of autumn
See them drift across the square

Distant echoes of the War
You can hear them
Stir in the shell shocked victims’ dreams

The casualties of war and peace
Now lay down side by side

Those long forgotten legions
Of rag doll sleep disturbed
Only by the occasional six

And unknown cricketer’s hands
Searching for lost balls amid the crosses

Requiem for an Old Man

I

Before the last snows came
Before his last rosy fingered dawn
The old man’s eyes blinked open

How long had he lived
How long
Ninety years was it
A thousand months

And the happiness
And the pain
And the boredom
How long had they been

He gazed upon the strange faces by the bed
Some were familiar

Where was Charlie
Was that him by the clock

Or had he died young

Was that Rebel he could see
On the moor there above the fire

II

Finding strength where there had been none before
He stretched his frail arms towards the light

His finger tips reached high above the fresh pressed sheets
Searching for one final embrace

His eyes gleamed like a new born child’s
Now at last the mystery of his life was clear to him

While around the bed the watchers
Patiently watched on in awe

III

In his mind’s eye a vision came
A bright shining light took him up aloft
Up to the green and serene
Shimmering fields of Eden

He spoke in measured beat

I can see the garden
I can see the garden
It is so beautiful
Can you see

Come with me
Come and see
What I can see

His arms slowly descended to the bed

IV

I gave a teaspoonful of crushed ice
To soothe his parched lips

Was this his death
Was this his time
Had his Maker come

The ticking of a clock

Time passed
An hour or was it two

Suddenly lifting up his head
The vision shining still
He whispered softly

I can see the garden
I can see the garden
It is so beautiful
It is all a-shining

The watchers wept and prayed
And looking up towards his face
Saw it was calm
The tumult had ended

V

In the east a pink dawn rose
A cold February sun shallow as the morn
Blinded their eyes

No more soft goodbyes
No epitaphs
No fond farewells

VI

Beyond the curtains the first snowflakes
Fell like angels’ tears

And he was gone

Futility

In my cottage garden
Autumn leaves have smothered
The hope of spring

Winter’s first frost
Freezes the last flowering

Cats begin to mistrust clocks going back in time
Frogs hide at the bottom of the pond

The birds have fled this forsaken land
Only a last Robin sings
Now a new and sadder day begins

No-one seems to have learnt a thing
From what the last of springs had taught
Nor from all the springs before it