Sunday 29 April 2012

Santorini




















Where long-haired fishermen play air guitar
In the place where old rock songs go to die
We unhooked our brains with beer, in a bar
Under clouds of grey stone, the black sky.
Like dervishes shingle guided our feet.
Floating in a yellow glow, you pictured me
Carried on an albatross's slow wing beat
Being reborn, in the warm cave of the sea.
Cats prowled their white and blue homes
With talk and paint we filled the long hours –
Scarlet geraniums, the sapphire domes
Of churches and constellations of flowers
Crowded colourfully into our world
And filled the silences between our words.

This was the first sonnet I wrote, in June 1997. It seems inappropriate for this grey English Sunday! I seem to recall that Albatross by Fleetwood Mac was playing as I lay in the warm sea, a light rain falling



Thursday 26 April 2012

The gypsy king


Once they watched him, not like now
He searches for their gaze, recalling when
Sweeter notes soared from his sweeping bow
In those days, he was a king of men
At festivals, his band were hot and loud
In his bolero jacket pencil thin
He could nail them, kill any crowd
He could astonish with his violin
Before the gigs dried up, the nights grew cold
The girls would scream and whoop with surprise
Then there was lustre in his gypsy gold
He played them with his fiddle and his eyes
On this weekday night in this sad place
His dark eyes flash in his pale face


Snakeskin

The new hero of literature
Clad in leather cups a shadowed chin
He is dressed almost like a rock star
It was inevitable he would win
The award. His novels are iconic
Like his snakeskin boots and film star looks
His wife, the writer .... insert name here
Is also the wielder of a fine pen
She was tipped for the Orange prize last year
Her sculpted cheekbones make jelly of men
He pisses perfume, he's hung like a horse
He captained the school cricket team, of course

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Rapture

A whiff of weed, a spidery tattoo
You veered all over with your band
No, you  were never safe or bland
Most of us stay in the middle, not you
Some people who with the Devil sup
Retain no sense of badness or wrong
Through each false step and slurred song
Fascinated, we pulled you up
We observed your imperilled innocence
Fire is dangerous, you touched a lot
But your image did not fade or cough
You were a Goddess of kohl and incense
We did not know that your lungs were shot
You teetered to the edge and fell off

Mr Stone

Ballads of sailors on the Spanish Main
With these, and others, he would punish us
Tales of grieving for dead fishermen
As outmoded as ruffle or blunderbuss
Poor Mr Stone – his tortured life
Staring dolefully from the piano
Telling us stories about his his wife
He must have been depressed. I know that now
With a dull ache of melancholy
I remember him, poor Mr Stone
His long face and wounded gentility
The sound of his plangent baritone
Friday music lessons at my school
The sea shanty and Negro spiritual

Note: at my school, weirdly, being forced to sing sea shanties was used as a punishment. This has had a strange effect on me. This was the fishermen song, in an updated version by Joan Baez, who was popular when I was a child

Building a canoe

















You were a master of wood and glue
I would watch you carefully as a kid
I think of you now, building my canoe
Show me please, dad. You never did
Your square tipped hands were made to till
To plane and smooth to a fine shine
I was baffled by your patient skill –
Each perfect right-angle and straight line
For years I watched. You never understood
People, for they lacked symmetry
They could not be measured and cut, like wood
I was subdued by your quiet mastery
I am seeding my boat's imperfection
I know that it would fail your inspection

NB a previous poem, returned to as a sonnet. I am trying to write 154 of them, same as the Bard. My dad was a slow, patient man. He told me that he had never in his entire life cut himself shaving. He also told me that he had never suffered from depression. Yeh right!

Thursday 19 April 2012

My Tower of Babel















It’s a shame you can’t come with me
On my journey; that you are not able
To ride on the number sixty-three
The bus stop is my Tower of Babel
With your keen eyes and curiosity
You taught me to sit at the top
When I was young. You showed me how to see
The world unfolding, from stop to stop
Pale green leaves unfurling on a tree
Like umbrellas, a fine head of hair
Two women arguing over a buggy
Yes, there would be so much to share
I view the world as if you were there
With similes I climb into the air

Used to ride on Bournemouth's yellow trolley buses with my mum. On the top deck. The kid's favourite. She was endlessly curious about people and the world and she would have loved to see what I see, every day, on the way to work on the bus. I miss her.

Wednesday 18 April 2012

Sicilia















To my grandfather, Luigi Puglisi, 1892 - 1927

He traced his life through fields of chipped stone
as he trod the shoulders of the volcano.
Sometimes, he glanced up at its white crown
concerned that his brow would be furrowed.
His people laboured in the fierce sun 
among the fields of lemon and pistachio.
The sacred dark was a balm for their sin
the pitiless heat and the cracked soil.
My grandfather. If I could I would go
back to his life scooped out from toil.
I would find refuge in scent and shadow.
I would tend olives and press them for oil.
I would tread the harsh fields of fire and snow
If I could, I would go back there now.

Picture show Mount Etna seen from Bronte

Wednesday 11 April 2012

Perfect days

To AJ

Through a cold grey murk that is almost dark
I will watch your scooter pass through the gate
Fighting with melancholy. In the park
I'll observe the hopeful swings oscillate.
We will walk there, we will not take the car
Feeling your fingers' touch, your skipping heart
Slowly, I will become happy. You are.
To acquire happiness is an art.
Afterwards, sitting outside the cafe
Although we are clutched by an oozing mist
Our lives will seem like a holiday
I'll learn from you to be an optimist
There will be no rain on our parade
Of such small moments perfect days are made.