ALL CHANGE

The complacent progress of one's life can so easily be jolted out of kilter by a disturbing medical diagnosis, the sudden loss of a loved one or, sometimes, nothing more seemingly innocuous than an unexpected letter.

THE LETTER

The day seemed unremarkable:

another day like every day.

I fed the birds. 

The postman came.

I set aside the envelope,

a plain white thing, perhaps a bill,

no matter, it could surely wait.

The boy who brings the newspaper

delivered it as usual.

I read it carelessly. The news

is never worth more than a glance:

an earthquake there, somewhere a war,

more knife-crime in the capital.

I stroked the cat, drank one last cup

and then I picked the letter up. 

Some words can overturn one’s world,

destroy what plans one might have made.

The message read, I let it fall

then rose, stepped out 

into the rain.

The beech trees stood, 

immovable,

their branches, formerly so bare,

unfurling leaves of gentle green

like tiny sail-boats casting off

to voyage from the shores of spring

and all around me, restlessly,

the flowers were reawakening.         

Rain-drenched and cold, I stood and wept,

regretting promises not kept.   

EASTER

Do we ever lose the terrors of childhood? The older I become, the more I doubt it.

This short poem was written during a heatwave in France in the late summer of 2019 following a visit to a village church to escape the oppressive heat.

 

NO SANCTUARY

Avoiding forty-two degrees,

I slip inside and feel the chill

and smell the old familiar reek

of cassocks and of deep unease.

I sit, almost against my will.

Is this the sanctuary I seek,

here where my childhood fears reside:

eternal punishment for sin,

and fire far greater than the sun?

I rise and hurry back outside,

feel noonday sun scorch my pale skin,

then stride away, tempted to run.

Behind me, from a Cross, inside,

His face stares down, the thrice-denied.

A DODGY LODGER

This poem, a vignette of sorts, is loosely based on the latter years of exiled local writer, Gerald Edwards, the creator of that archetypal Guernsey character, Ebenezer, whose journal is the basis for the fictional Book of Ebenezer Le Page, one of the most highly acclaimed novels of the Twentieth Century.    

THE LODGER   

He could be short-tempered and cold.

He’d say, Too dear at seven quid,

and other times she would be told,

I’m leaving. But he never did.

At times he seemed to rule the house.

Lodger from Hell, she’d tell her spouse.

An old man, elderly, she’d say

a writer, something of that sort, 

Is it a novel or a play?

My bloody masterpiece! He’d snort.

The manuscript on ruled foolscap,

some days he’d call a load of crap.

He was an inconsistent man:

one moment charmer, next a boor:

companionless, without a clan,

with old-school manners, but piss-poor.

He’d leave his light on half the night,

brew pots of tea and write and write.

He looked the educated type, 

authoritarian and stern, 

tweed jacket and a filthy pipe 

he’d empty in the potted fern. 

Perhaps he’d been a teacher once 

and saw her as the classroom dunce.

But all of that was years ago.

He’s dead and scattered with his debts.

His book is in the shops, although

it doesn’t sell well, she regrets.

A book’s no substitute for life.

He’d have been better with a wife. 

WAR CRY

“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”

... Ernest Hemingway, 1946

“Two armies that fight each other is like one large army that commits suicide.”

... Henri Barbusse, 1916

YOUNG NICOLAI

Young Nicolai was made to fight.

He didn’t think that it was right

but sometimes men just have to do

what men are told and march on cue.

The Leader said, now, here’s a sword,

chop someone up if you get bored

but make sure it’s the enemy.

You’re going on a jolly spree

and there’s a shield to keep at bay

those you may meet with on the way:

unpleasant types that might resist

your presence, but you must insist

their land is yours, you have the right

to seize it. Should they dare to fight,

just do some chopping, kill a few

and lots of medals will accrue.

Young Nicolai was very scared

and as a soldier, unprepared,

to go off with a sword and shield

to battle in a neighbour’s field.

To his surprise, when he got there

it didn’t really seem quite fair:

the enemy had such small knives

and some of them were daughters, wives,

in fact, not quite the monsters he

was told the enemy would be:

they had no swords or shields at all.

A stout babushka in a shawl

waved her old fist and cried, go back

(a strange way to repel attack). 

The worst of it was that they seemed

so much like him. He never dreamed

that enemies, the sort we cuss,

are pretty much the same as us.

Brave Nicolai fought a good fight:

he chopped to left, he lopped to right,

but, by the time that he had stopped,

so many still remained un-chopped.

It seemed that they would not submit.

He tried to make some sense of it.

but, though he pondered, long and hard,

amidst the rubble, black and charred,

no answer came. That’s hardly strange,

for war is war. Things never change.