SURVIVORS

I started writing in my teens, grew up and scrapped the lot. Restarted in my mid-twenties then lost much of my output in a fire during the early days of the IRA terror campaign in Ulster, often referred to euphemistically as 'The Troubles'. 

Neither loss was particularly upsetting because much of my early poetry or prose was, in my view, embarrassingly bad. Only a few scribblings from those former days managed to survive and were rewritten to a greater or lesser degree. One of these 'survivors' appears below.

AT GRANDFATHER’S

Along the entry 

he would come caterwauling, 

striking bin-lids with his stick, 

through the backyard 

knocking over milk-bottles.

Up the wooden stair, rolling 

like a tar, 

to lifeboat-bed and disapproval: 

his salty, mermaid wife 

growling like an ocean.

On Sunday mornings there, 

we children crouched, like mice, 

digesting toast and catechisms, 

as grandma stepped, 

stiff-backed, around him.

He would be still as stone, his bowl 

of porridge cooling.

LATE STARTER

The inspiration for this piece of humorous verse was Philip Larkin's poem with the same title which Latin scholars will instantly recognise as meaning a remarkable or auspicious year. Larkin's poem was an attempt to pinpoint the precise moment that the sexual revolution began.  

ANNUS MIRABILIS

Sexual intercourse began

In nineteen sixty-three …

                   Philip Larkin

Yes, sex began in 63

for Philip Larkin and for me.

Before that so-auspicious year

hand-holding was the most boys got:

the rules for love were strict and clear,

what might be done and what might not.

In cinema back-rows we’d miss

the hero’s comeback from the brink

for little more than a chaste kiss

while spilling our Kiora drink

then, unconvincingly, we’d brag,

to other spotty celibates

about our prowess, scrounge a fag,

become a hero to our mates.

In hormone-bedrooms, going blind,

we’d fantasise on girls who would,

because there surely were that kind

of girl, or so we understood.  

At seventeen, those hormones howled:

it was a bitch to be a male.

Though we dashed out, all downy-jowled,

each night, undoubtedly, we’d fail.

We’d traipse home late, repressed, depressed

because some girl had no-ed not yes-ed. 

SPIRITS HAVING FLOWN

This formal poem, with an abcabcc rhyme scheme, was a pleasure to write because it evokes happy memories of the glorious, icy winters encountered in the northern parts of the British Isles, so very different from the mild, but somehow less dramatic, ones here in the Channel Islands.

WILD GEESE

When we awoke the lake had turned to glass.

We ventured out into the crystal glare,

in rubber boots, through luminescent snow,

and were amazed, for nothing could surpass

the magic stillness of December air.

On glinting ice, young lovers skated slow,

their eyes, beneath their tousled hair, aglow.

Our exhaled breaths were visible; we laughed

to see those skaters gliding on the lake

as in warm summer evenings wild geese do,  

austere, white-breasted, splendid sailing craft.

and, as we watched, I felt a sudden ache

as I remembered, long ago we too,

were young and fleet, before the wild geese flew.

ISLAND OF DREAMS

I'm fast approaching my 700th blog post since I began publishing poems and short stories back in 2014. 

My thanks to  those loyal readers who have stayed with me through these last seven years. 

'A word is never the destination, merely a signpost in its general direction; and whatever body that destination finally acquires owes quite as much to the reader as to the writer.'  
John Fowles  

GOOD FRIDAY IN ST PETER PORT

Higher and lighter, the heart of hope bereft

so many yesterdays gone and few tomorrows left.

Sun warms the rooftops of the old sea-town,

spills over leaning houses like sweet honey

and swiftly, as its richness trickles down,

amasses interest as does bankers’ money.

It shines on Guernsey’s islands spread like stones

to form a granite necklace in the sea.

It energises blood and warms the bones

of fishermen who labour by the quay. 

Sun shines, somehow, more brightly on Herm’s beach,

a stretch of gold-white sand, a painter’s dream.

The islands lie so close that you could reach

and touch them, Lilliputian so they seem. 

Gulls stand like weathervanes to face the bay

from rooftops crowned with crooked chimney-stacks

as, round the church-spire, glinting, swallows play

from dawn till noonday, when, with rounded backs 

and leaden steps, their ashen faces grave,

town workers come, evolving, one by one, 

from faceless automaton, stressed wage-slave, 

to dour wife, weary father, wayward son.

They hardly ever pause to mark the view

of painted fishing-boats lit by the sun 

and sparkling water, never-ending blue,

that breaks on rocks where outlaw currents run.

The noon-day gun does nothing to alarm

the pigeons by the Terminus today:

they seem immune from any kind of harm,

beneath God’s watchful eye, they peck away.                         

The Castle gun, as usual, marks the hour

as I ascend the hill this Eastertide.

Emotion and a fierce heat overpower   

as prayerful words rise up in me like tide …

St Peter Port, undaunted, prideful town, 

sustain me now, this fine Good Friday noon:

sweet town of dreams, dreams soft as eiderdown,

that hold the sleeper rapt but end too soon,

protect the flotsam-souls who, from the sea,

come seeking shelter in your strong embrace

as you extended succour once to me,

a refuge and a sanctuary space.

My footsteps lead me onwards, upwards, through

the winding streets with houses left and right,

their windows, heavy-curtained to subdue

the scorch of sun and harsh, invading light.

Cats curl in doorways, sheltered from the heat:

strange histories reside behind each door.

On pilgrim’s feet I climb a narrow street,

in quietude, above the traffic’s roar.

In Guernsey, nowadays, the car is God

whose worshippers grow sluggish and obese.

They drive the roads where their ancestors trod

and bow before the motor-dealer priests.

This year the hill seems steeper than the last

but what choice is there but to fly or fall

and although more than sixty years have passed,

the memory of youth, I still recall.

Higher and lighter, lilting swallows scrawl

the shape of words, invisible, arcane.

My stationary shadow stretches tall,

a giant silhouette. I climb again.

UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT

 Le Déhus Dolmen is a remarkable Neolithic passage-grave, approximately ten metres in length, located less than a mile from Bordeaux Harbour. On the underside of one of its capstones is a carving of a male figure with what appears to be a strung bow, along with a series of symbolic designs. The carving is known locally as Le Gardien du Tombeau. The tomb is covered by a grassy mound and edged with a circle of standing stones.

Early in the 19th Century two skeletons were found inside the dolmen lying in such a way as to suggest that they had been buried in a kneeling position.

LE DEHUS DOLMEN

A figure, outlined, with a bow,

is the tomb’s guardian, it’s said.

The light is poor. I crouch below

and, with my torch, explore the head. 

His is a strange, impassive face,

though crudely drawn, not without grace.

Two skeletons, they unearthed here

long, long ago: two ancient men    

entombed, the cause of death unclear.

I think of them and turn again

to the low entrance and the light 

that welcomes me, subdues my fright.

How good it is, the warm, sweet sun.

Was this how Lazarus arose

from his dead sheets, life re-begun?

Through cords of veins my rich blood flows,

I breathe in, step away, retreat.

The sweet grass spreads beneath my feet.