Yet more poems from an earlier incarnation
Greybeard’s Lament Sitting in the cafe of an up-market supermarket retired couples make intermittent small-talk, all light rain-jackets, pseudo-fleeces and ‘Bags for Life’. Blending into one, their faces an amalgam where none are different. Yet hey have charted unplanned journeys through ungovernable seas like medieval explorers, faces full to the wind, Captains astride the decks of their ships. But that is too romantic, too far-fetched for a damp Tuesday morning somewhere in the North of England. Dangerously relaxed with fruit scones, I avoid the mirror and slouch deeper into the settee’s corner to practice cultivation. I strive to be more Pirate than Captain, feint an illusion to spring, vigour unbridled, cutlass brandished, steel flashing, readiness unquestioned. Eyeing me suspiciously Doreen clears used plates and cups clatteringly as if to say "Who are you kidding?" Crumbs and detritus hold us back as do questions about the weather and Two-For-One special offers. Burt Lancaster appears at my side - or doesn’t really as he’s unseen by Doreen - and says "Who are you kidding?! I was the ‘Real Deal’, from here to eternity… Or as close as." The extent of my gymnastics is bounded by the ‘i’ crossword and minor triumphs over harder Sudoku. They’re victories of sorts when sipping tea and eating scones in a supermarket cafe on a damp Northern Tuesday.
Autumn the church bells were ringing their evensong peel yet how could you hear them an invisible wind stealing the sound away and sending it cascading across the open fields like a broken promise
No longer the smell of small miracles Supposed to be antiseptic white the ward had a shade about it, shadowed by the years of comings and goings as if each unimportant journey left something of the traveller behind. In spite of the off-ness of its colour - or the colour it possessed where there should have been none - it smelled just as it should: harsh white linens ointments discarded newspapers old coffee cups new flowers in new water old flowers in old bandages cleanliness. For most it was the smell of endeavour, of hope, of luck, of trust; it was the smell of small miracles. For Jess, staring at the unmade bed, it was the smell of death. Knowing her father had made his contribution to defeat the whiteness of the room, she picked up his shallow little bag and left.
These poems are included in Selected Poems 1976-2022.
