What I don't like

Poems about violent creatures with snapping jaws
That show how ‘nature is cruel’. Wow.
Poems designed to make the writer –
A slab-jawed man in a flat cap –
Who lives, incidentally, in Primrose Hill
Look craggy and interesting

Driveling lines about wild landscapes
And other ‘beautiful’ places
To me, suburbs are beautiful
The city is humanising
The countryside is inhabited
By the malicious and ignorant

Innocence is beautiful, certainly
And the pike and the fox are innocent
They are not, in any sense, ‘cruel’
So why does the slab-jawed man in the flat cap
Witter on about them
With his jabbing finger and his shining eyes
Like a man prodding a snake with a stick?
Go on, prod it again!

Old man

Man in a cap. Cold day
Man who moves slowly
Man who fixes things
Man who does not speak
Man who is dun-coloured
Man who is good with his hands

He has no vanity
He is rarely angry
Except for the odd explosion
He does his duty
He has low expectations
He does not complain

He is an old-fashioned chap
Well-educated but not showing it
If he feels superior
He does not express it
He does not impose himself
He is barely there

In his day, feelings were buttoned up
Don’t show off, don’t make a fuss
He was not used to being praised
As a father, he was uncomfortable with emotions
His responsibilities ended at the door
He was much happier with things

An old man sitting in his chair
His mind is gone – a blank screen
He probes for memories
Where am I? Who are you?
I wasn’t all bad was I, as a father?
I can’t have been all bad, can I?

Silence. I do not answer
It is not a punishment. I am thinking
What kind of dad was he?
A little gloomy, certainly
But there were many worse
He was a man of his time

Feelings had not been invented then