England versus Slovenia, 23 June, 2010

A preternatural stillness

hangs eerily in the air

like a question that goes unsaid.

On burning summer pavements

and in chilled supermarket aisles

England is unified, in one shout.

We are united in our desire –

beer gutted and taut of belly

dowager and lager lout.

Flags stream from scorched balconies,

smoke climbs from barbecues

into the clear, listless sky.

Blistered by summer heat

the honking vans announce

that which they normally hide –

the national colours, our hope

bright emerald, white and red

the small weaving figures, our pride.

(NB. The disappointing game ended in an unconvincing, one nil victory for England. The winning goal, the only bright point, was scored by Jermain Defoe – a header from a cross by James Milner.)

Life is love

What value does life have?
The discourse of men in suits
The sound of footsteps as they pass
The chirping of sparrows
The busker in the underpass

All have a transient lease
Of what relevance are they?
A few moments of beauty and strife
The echoing footsteps fall
Is life merely life?

We are microbes on a ball
Or, to put it another way
We are united as one
Our path is universal
We are light, love, the sun

The beach at Deia

It is a house inhabited by ghosts
Your totems, your carefully folded shirts
Shaped terraces of lavender and thyme
Tall carobs and orange and lemon trees.

There must have been enough of England in Deia
In the grey cliffs that walled your domain
In the sycamores by the rushing brook
And the white hawthorns frothing by the road

There is a different poetry here
Where stepped mountains climb to the sky
Of tumbling orchards of olive and fig
Of jigsaw boulders and the super-charged stream

Slicing though tortured cliffs like an ogre's house
Today, there is a world you never knew
The parked hatchbacks are like silverfish
There is a barrier across the sacred grove


We walked down the road to your beach
To your crystal pool, somehow defiled
By a driftwood bar, the colours of Europe laid out
Flakes of plastic, like shells, on the grey stones.

Water does not change – the sigh of the spinning brook
The glowing of flesh opened to the sun
I sat on the beach with a black goddess
Your lemon in our wine. Thank you Mr Graves

The world does not have hospitals

With reference to William Wordsworth

The world does not have hospitals, or schools,
Or museums, except those built by us.
It is a place of ignorance and sloth.
Its beauties are over-rated, by fools.
The world, in fact, is esteemed far too much
For its ants, pipits, tigers and flowers,
Killing and eating each other for hours.
Nature's a hostile universe; it sucks.
Great God, I would rather be in London
With its escalators and shopping malls
Wrapped in the city’s vast, murmuring hum
Than looking at heaths or waterfalls.
London’s glories are far more startling ones
The smeared orange sky, the dome of St. Pauls

Overload - to my father

Removed, in a vague amniotic dream
I forgot who I was, who I could be

I could not stand it, the divine comedy
The beauty and pathos of life itself

A sagging settee was my continent
I dissolved into a gentle haze

The world is too much with us, far too much
I drank every day so as not to see

II

Years passed. The pain of living was dulled
The quotidian ache of light and dark

Into a vague blur, far beyond all strife
Where the daily terror could not reach me

I suspended myself, because I could
In a bubble. Who can tolerate life?

It is too beautiful and too strange
It is much better when seen drunkenly

Tigress

As if leaving you was not bad enough
There is the heartbeat of your key in the door
And the rage of my inexpressive love
When you go out, and do not return

You are far too young for this
You are barely more than a child yourself
But you are complete - a tigress with her cub
Lying with AJ, in your room

It is a scene of great tenderness
A serene resolution, beautiful
I leave feeling a strange continuity
Because in you I can see your mum

Journey through my father

It’s a strange time to fade away
Just as the yellow fists are pushing through

Memories, locked in the blood, are reviving
Just like you – your stubborness

You were never one for beauty
You chose a dull street in a red-brick town

The seasons there were merely endured
You trudged to the shops in your brown coat

You were the king of the masculine world
Of cold that locks the fingers. Stoical

Of cars that did not start, of rust, and shelves
Summer chases the winter ghosts

You will not see it. Your mind is gone
The dull houses, the dark canal, by the pub yard

I sit on a wall, with the sun on my back
Watching the daffodils break the soil