NEW TRICKS

Social distancing is one of the many new phrases to have entered our lexicon since the advent of Covid-19 and we all know what the practice means even if the odd few don’t adhere to it. 

Whilst on our daily exercise outings in the lanes of Vale parish, Jane and I frequently encounter other walkers and our behaviour towards one another is reflected in this lighthearted poem.   

BRIEF ENCOUNTERS

On foot, on bicycles, they pass

too close. 

We shrink away 

but smile to hide embarrassment 

that we regard them 

as a threat to health

while they smile back, 

embarrassed too,

for having caused the grave offence

of straying too much in our path. 

Such strange politenesses become

the norm 

in these peculiar times

of virus and of virus-fear.

Whereas last autumn 

we’d have passed

a group of others unremarked,

this spring 

we mumble greetings, wave,

and even cyclists get a nod.

A kind of mutuality

has sprung up with the daffodils:

no longer lonely as a cloud,

we have acquired new social skills. 

WITH SHAME

International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January commemorates the tragedy of the deaths of six million Jews as a result of genocide by the Nazi regime during the Second World War.

The three women in this poem, Therese Steiner, Auguste Spitz and Marianne Grunfeld, were deported from Guernsey in 1942 during the Occupation.

THREE  

What are three lives beside six million?

Teardrops in torrential rain: but still three lives 

extinguished early,

snuffed out 

in misery and pain.

Therese, Auguste and Marianne,

dispatched from Guernsey by decree,

all died at Auschwitz, among many, 

three Jewish girls, 

the Guernsey Three.

At Holocaust commemorations

their names lie like a stain

on our collective conscience: we

remember them with shame.

FIELDS OF GOLD

On a miserable, rainy, mid-winter day in Guernsey I seek escape in memories of a glorious summer in the Lot Valley barely two years ago, when we took for granted the freedom to travel, unhindered by the inevitable restrictions that a global pandemic imposes on us. 

Will those golden days ever return?

INTOXICATION

Drunk

with love, 

we disregarded

the ever-growing weight of time

and, for an hour or more,

were happy there

beside the sunflower-yellow fields,

our hands, a slender bridge 

between two hearts.

Above us swallows 

wheeled and spun

as though they were unwinding thread

from an incredible blue gown.

UNBURDENING

A bronze life-size statue of a donkey and her foal stands in Guernsey's capital, St Peter Port.

The donkey is one of the national animals of Guernsey and was traditionally used as a beast of burden on the steep streets of St Peter Port.

DONKEY

He’s odd, the donkey, very odd:

thinks he’s a unicorn, the fool;

not biddable, the awkward squad

is this beast’s faction as a rule.

Odd looking too, with ragged ears

and darkly soulful, mournful eyes;

to his dishevelled coat adheres

a regiment of buzzing flies.

He stands on my side of the gate,

forelegs apart, rope tail a-sway,

suspicious of me as I wait

to see if we can meet halfway

for something in his awkward stance

reminds me of my schoolboy days:

I smile, he looks at me askance

and his grey countenance conveys

to me the loneliness and fear

that I, too, felt those years ago

when, met in playgrounds with a sneer,

or, worse, a sudden unearned blow,

I’d stand like him, unbroken, sore, 

determined to outlast them all

and, given time, equal the score.

I tell myself it is banal

to think this way. I am a man:

a donkey is a lowly beast

but man seeks solace where he can.

He stands, impassive as a priest,

and I, a penitent, in turn

speak quietly: I say my piece

remorsefully, in words that burn,

confess the worst and seek release.

THE HOUND OF HEAVEN

I've been tinkering with this poem, which I wrote two or three years ago, and believe this to be the final version but, as any writer knows, there's always the potential for a 'better' final version so I'm allowing myself the option to revise it yet again one day.

The post's title is taken from the famous poem by Francis Thompson.

REMEMBRANCE

        

I enter the stone church, breathe in

damp air, the smell of old hymnbooks,

a reek of unforgiven sin.

Nothing has changed. To me it looks

uncompromising and austere, 

this place that once filled me with fear.

The pulpit, high, ornate and dark, 

seems somehow less imposing now

than once it did. The pews are stark,

wherein we muttered prayer and vow,

with humble, penitent display,

while wishing drab Sundays away.

I feel no kinship with the men

who bowed their heads with reverence:

the awesome God they worshipped then

now seems an olden-times pretence

and, even as a brainwashed child,

I doubted Jesus, meek and mild.

The church is cold. Daylight, outside,

spills in, illuminates stained-glass.

Biblical tales, once learned with pride

in mandatory Scripture class,

are pictured there: the haloed head

of Christ with wine and broken bread,

the Cross, the Pentecostal flame.

No fire descends, although I stand

beneath the stained-glass window frame:

no gift of tongues, no stern command,

arcane, unfolding like a scroll,

uplifts me, captivates my soul. 

The wooden pew-seat pains my back

I close my eyes and see us then,

three children sitting, shoulders slack,

our mother, fragile as a wren,

and father, patriarchal, stern,

the preacher swearing we would burn.

The terror that assailed me then

is absent now. The silent space

is restful as I read again

familiar hymnal words of grace

that contradict the preacher’s lies,

then I return the book and rise.

Outside, old graves, in disrepair,

record, in stone, the parish dead.

At Rest, the graven words declare,

Here lies. I leave the names unread.

Ignoring epitaphs and dates

I step out through the churchyard gates.

An altered sky foreshadows rain.

Beyond the spire, impassive, grey,

flies, heavenward, a silver plane

as I leave, hurrying away,

a scarf wrapped tight around my throat,

a sinner in an overcoat.

AN ANCIENT MARINER

Bewildering Stories is an international webzine that publishes unusual, often bizarre, tales in the form of flash fiction, serials, short stories, reviews and much, much more. It's a fascinating site that's well worth a visit. It also publishes poems. 

I've been notified that my poem, Red Umbrella, which appeared in Issue 856, has received one of this year's Mariner Awards and so will feature in the Bewildering Stories 2020 Annual Review.

I've won a few poetry prizes in my life but rarely enter competitions nowadays because I feel that they should be an opportunity for newer, younger writers to shine. 

The Mariner Awards are made, not as the result of a formal competition, but, instead, and here I quote Don Webb, Managing Editor of Bewildering Stories: "The Annual Review contains ... the crème de la crème, the Editors' Choices of the most outstanding works of the year." 

For an old guy who's been writing for much of his adult life that accolade is very pleasing indeed.

The poem itself is an interesting one, from my point of view, in that it began as a straightforward love story and abruptly, almost of its own accord, plunged into something much darker whilst, ultimately, remaining a story of true love. 

RED UMBRELLA 

It rained. 

You held a red umbrella high,

leaned into me and whispered, 

Sod the rain.

I realised that something had begun

that was unstoppable. 

Time’s devoured 

a lifetime of embraces since that day.

Now pain spreads like a red umbrella

as you lean into me. 

The pillow, like an angel’s wing,

kisses my bloodless lips.