A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Well, one city and one small island, to be precise, and two images to demonstrate the stark contrast between Christmas activities at opposite ends of the British Isles. 

The first photograph shows some of the thousand brave souls who turned out for the traditional Boxing Day swim at Cobo Bay in Guernsey, while the second, a Breughel-like snow scene, features tobogganers at Stormont on the outskirts of Belfast on the same day.  

My own Boxing Day was far less daring, as Jane and I, along with friends, sat down to eat, drink and be merry to celebrate the fact that, as 2020 draws to a close, Guernsey has only seven active cases of Covid-19 and islanders have therefore been able to enjoy this festive season with few restrictions. 

TOBOGGANING

 

The seat feels quite precarious 

but once I’m down, that feeling goes.

So odd to be this close to snow, 

chilling the fingertips, the nose: 

a child’s sensation, I suppose ...

most adults are incurious.

A snowy paradise, indeed,

this afternoon on Stormont hill 

where children’s voices, wild and shrill, 

applaud a crazy vaudeville

of adults launched, against their will, 

downhill, on icy blades, at speed. 

This granddad hugs his grandson tight 

then edges forward with his heels 

on modern blades of stainless steel. 

The child, as agile as an eel,

wriggles. I feel, amidst his squeals,

toboggan shift, the sleigh take flight.

A longing for a lifetime lost, 

assails me in the rushing wind. 

The grandson to my parka pinned, 

as once my daughter, angel-skinned, 

clung to me then, our bodies twinned, 

rocketing downward through the frost.

DOE RAY ME

It's a very great privilege to encounter wild creatures in their natural habitat, free from human interference. I've often watched deer in Ireland and more recently in Britain and France but, alas, we have no deer in Guernsey. 

DEER

Stillness makes invisible

young deer 

by the forest’s edge.

First, there is landscape only

till one slim head 

dips towards green.

 

Three shapes then,

golden, long limbed, lissome, 

impossibly fair.

In sunlight, they stand:

two adults, 

one fawn, fragile as a kitten. 

A doe grazes, 

the other stands, immobile,

soft eyes watchful. 

One movement,

a turned shoulder, raised hand,

would be enough

to send them leaping

for the forest’s

green sanctuary,

to vanish:

a dreamt poem

lost on wakening.

TRAVELLERS' TALES

With Christmas Day approaching, it’s time for a poem appropriate to the season of hope and good cheer.

BETHLEHEM

Shelter at last

and not an hour too soon

for birth is imminent.

A barnyard stench,

the reek of ordure,

straw for bed.

Beneath cross-beams,

shrill birth-screams:

a boy.

Small but perfect.

A manger his crib.

Lowing beasts look on.

One brilliant star 

illuminates the yard. 

From afar, riders come. 

IN DENIAL

With Christmas in jeopardy in numerous parts of the British Isles, could that mean a last-minute stay of execution for a few million unsuspecting turkeys?  

SONG OF THE CHRISTMAS TURKEY

We have grown fat, my friends and I,

and although some birdbrains say

these gifts of food Men bring us

must be treated with suspicion, 

this I doubt. 

I feed on corn aplenty and rejoice,

grow plumply satisfied and portly stout.

My fellows fast become inflated too:

such fine birds with no work at all to do.   

I call the doubters paranoid and mock

their pessimistic attitudes and gloom.

Another feast arrives, I gulp it down

then gobble thankful sounds 

and strut about.

We grow each day more pillowy and sleek.

Our future is assured, our species blessed.

This is the life, I think, no need to fear:

December is the season of Good Cheer.

 

DO NOT GO GENTLE ...

As an aspiring writer in my twenties, I dressed in tweeds and corduroy, smoked a pipe, drank to excess and was enthralled by the works, or, more accurately, by the unrestrained behaviour of Dylan Thomas, which I sought to imitate. I believed that such an outward appearance of Bohemianism would ensure my status as ‘a poet’ or, more importantly, endear me to members of the opposite sex. 

All that was a long time ago and my naive enthusiasm for Dylan Thomas is all but forgotten. Other literary heroes have replaced ‘the celestial blabbermouth’ in my pantheon of ‘Great Writers’. The foul pipe and tweeds have been consigned to history and I now drink alcohol sparingly. Writing, however, has endured to this day and I like to think that, occasionally, my verse achieves the grace of poetry.

TIDES OF TIME

When I was never sober, young and single,

at closing time, Auld Pat would keep repeating

Time’s up, please gentlemen ...

time’s up now please! 

his voice like tide retreating

over shingle,

but in my youthful, drunk elation,                                                         

half-legless, careless as a cat,

I gave no thought to time. 

Time’s up now, gents!

Grown old and sober, I concur with that

yet still cling on in desperation.

 

SIREN SONG

One aspect of a melancholy nature is the tendency to reflect, perhaps more than one should, on the ephemeral nature of life. 
Poetry should not shy away from such preoccupations, indeed, there can hardly be a better medium through which to engage with subjects like love and death. 

MEMENTO MORI

An ambulance howls like a hurt cat;

parts traffic as Moses did the waves.

Worms burrow in awaiting graves.

A police car buzzes like a gnat.

Stuck in a jam of steaming cars,

I contemplate how life transforms

in moments. How they wait, those worms,

so patiently, for us, for ours.

BOXED IN

I find Philip Larkin's poem Mr Bleaney a haunting one, particularly as I grow older and become increasingly aware of the isolation and consequent loneliness that so many fall prey to.

My own poem, The Landlady's Tale, taps into the anxiety that many elderly people feel as time leaks steadily away.  

THE LANDLADY’S TALE

These were the only things he had.

I put them in a cardboard box.

Just what he wore. I thought it sad.

Apart from extra pants and socks.

A good innings at eighty-one.

We never knew he had a son.

He always was a quiet chap:

no trouble, liked his mugs of tea.

He’d come down to my door and tap,

Fancy a cuppa, Mrs P?

Before you go, forgive my cheek,

he didn’t pay his rent last week.

GUILTY SECRETS

Bullying is a distinctive pattern of repeatedly and deliberately harming and humiliating others, specifically those who are smaller, weaker, younger or in any way more vulnerable than the bully.

Psychology Today

MACKEY’S SISTER  

You must be? She said my surname. Her voice, low and sweet. I answered, Yes, and thought … she looks just like him.
Jimmy Mackey was my brother, she told me. You know that he died? I know, I heard, I mumbled. So sorry for your loss.
He thought the world of you, she told me with a smile. This damn school brought him so much grief but you saved him from the worst of it. He really was in awe of you: his truest friend ... her words tailed off.
I pictured him: the crooked specs and wounded stare, the pallid, vulnerable skin, already marked for victimhood. Fourteen years old with four more years of hell stretching out before him. Wee Mackey. A kid with Hurt Me printed on his puny chest.
I bullied him. We all did that. I was less harsh than most and once even intervened to save him from the worst of it, but I was never friend to him: lads like that were soft as shite and no one ever chose them as a friend.
We stood together in the old Assembly Hall, his sister and I. Waiters flickered to and fro, like white bats, navigating among the crowd of Old Boys and their families by means of high, inaudible squeaks.
I bet you two had some great times? She said and looked at me expectantly. I almost answered, but held my tongue instead.

 

SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND?

 

ASSASSIN'S CREED

The 35th President of the United States, John F Kennedy, was assassinated on 22nd November 1963 in Dallas, Texas, by Lee Harvey Oswald.

Oswald, lying in wait in a high building, fired on the presidential motorcade as it was passing through Dealey Plaza.

Kennedy, fatally wounded, was rushed to nearby Parkland Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting.

The assassination has proved to be one of those pivotal moments in contemporary history, like the Twin Towers attack, that will remain fixed in the minds of those who were alive at the time. 

Shortly after his arrest, and whilst in custody, Oswald was himself assassinated, giving rise to a multitude of conspiracy theories.

NOVEMBER 1963

The motorcade moves steadily,

as time does, towards history.

Three limousines, sedate and slow,           

glide through the Dallas noonday glow.

A white Ford leads, while, at the back,

sleek as a shark, a Cadillac

and in between, smooth chrome and mirrors,  

a Lincoln Continental purrs.

Outriders, vigilant and keen,

tough cops, cool, muscular and lean,

on Harley-Davidsons, survey 

a festive, jubilant display.

The President, young, debonair,

beneath a boyish mop of hair,

shares with the world his winning smile,

his charismatic sense of style.

His modish wife, serene and proud,

waves to the rapt, adoring crowd

of smiling faces, black and white,

expressions optimistic, bright,

that sways excitedly to cheer 

as, steadfastly, the drivers steer

to Dealey Plaza up ahead,

a routine job, no cause for dread,

nothing to hint that, from today,

bright screens will constantly replay 

the coming moments, frame by frame,

as devotees call out his name,

JFK, Kennedy ... a hymn.

The noonday light appears to swim

as, past the captivated throng,                

three cars cruise steadily along,

one hard-top car, two open-top,

into the moment time will stop,

into to the space that fate dictates                              

where Oswald, the assassin, waits.

 

ALL WRITE ON THE NIGHT

FERMAIN TAVERN, St Peter Port.

Thursday 19th November 2020 at 8pm

REALITY CHECK

The parish church of St. Sampson is the oldest of Guernsey's parish churches, standing on the coast where St Sampson de Bretagne landed in the sixth century, intending to convert the islanders to Christianity. 

   

ST SAMPSON’S CHURCHYARD 

When young I’d prowl among headstones,

examine weathered dates and names,

admire old plinths with skulls and bones

or crosses or engraver’s claims.

Death had allure and, thrillingly, 

its strange, exotic pageantry,

was then unreal, remote to me.

Not now, when age afflicts these bones,

uneven ground portends a trip

and bending down to study stones

can make these damn bifocals slip.

It all seems far too real for me: 

death’s bloody grim finality,

its awful anonymity.