Fog

Fog today.

I could leave it at that.

Remembering G telling me how she liked fog.

The dampness on my coat, the tiny droplets that day.

From G's window another valley she often looked out at while I got my shoes and coat on at the end of the session. Even this time last year. Still then.

To be seen, understood, accepted and loved in one's rawness and vulnerability a rare and precious gift. To lose this a raw and aching loss. It goes on and I go on.

Nothing

When there is nothing to do that is what I will do
and try to do it properly, wholeheartedly,
not looking over one shoulder the whole time
as if to glimpse the shadow that may fall on me
darkly, and whisper sourly in my ear
about my failures, my omissions.

When there is nothing to do, count me in
and I will give myself completely to the project,
breathing quietly and bringing silence one by one
to the voices that kibitz from the sidelines,
bidding them surrender, relinquish all agendas,
be still, and let nothing prevail.

Ten Minutes Older

Finally

Fittingly this is the last of my previously published poems from the pamphlet submission. Written in 2007 but feels like it could have been written this year.

Over

In the end,

without explanation,

whatever the cause,

all the words will come crashing to a halt

on a Tuesday morning

or a Sunday afternoon,

in February or June,

as rain slides down a kitchen window

or sunlight casts deep shadows on a road.

We won’t have finished working out

the thing we really meant to say

when suddenly it will be over.

All the days we wore sweaters

and sighed; ate scrambled eggs;

searched for keys;

left the house, hearing birds

in the hopeful morning,

finally leading us to this.

Mirror

Me

The mirror

In 2007

 

 And circa 1987

Towards III

This one's from 2008 and first appeared in the also late lamented Smiths Knoll poetry magazine, as did Marking Time.

My Dad did love word play, and if it was funny once, well - it was funny a hundred times! His parents had a gardener called Willoughby and this had amused him since boyhood. 

Things can be hidden amongst the oats in the pan, amongst the coats on the bed...

Willoughby Porridge For Breakfast?

I put oats in the saucepan

and think of my father – the puns

whose repetition lit up his face.

I fumble through the mornings,

through all the afternoons and evenings

in search of something hidden there

as if beneath a pile of overcoats at a party,

thick, heavy, tricky to distinguish in the dimness.

How I long to open the window

and cast them out into the wind,

watch them fly like huge birds 

away and away darkly to the horizon.

Towards II

This is also from 2006, and was first published at the late lamented qarrtsiluni.

Hidden

My mother knows I’m here,

down behind the front seat in the dark space

where people in the back seat put their feet,

with gritty bits and half a rotting leaf

and a sweet paper sticking to my hand.

I just fit in here, hidden, squeezed in tight.

My father doesn’t know I’m here;

just off the London train smelling of the Times,

opening the car door tiredly climbing in -

he doesn’t know I’m here, and she pretends.

Crouching in my little place I wait,

my tummy quivering with a secret laugh.

I’ll wait until we’re driving up the hill

I’ll wait until I can’t wait any more

and then I’ll pop up just behind his head

and laugh out loud into his shiny ear

and listen to his marvellous surprise

Good heavens! I didn’t know you were there!