Pure Invention

After the last flood, you promised

No more Arks;

Exploring lost countries

And finding out why;

Defying the past

In planes that fly backwards.

No more basking with sharks

On a submarine sundeck;

Or plumbing new depths

With trips to Atlantis.

If you can’t change the world,

Don’t try.

Do a crossword instead.

People who lead

Dull lives

Still make it to the grave.

Reinventing fire might sound bright,

But it could make things worse.

Most dreams,

Like postcards from strangers you ought to know,

Remain on the mantelpiece.

Untold Story

For Stuart

A friend reminded me

Of a woman long ago

In Brighton days

We called the ‘saucepan lady’.

Unkempt in Kemp Town,

We’d watch her hurry by,

Pan tied on her head

With coloured scarf,

Defying our student theories.

If someone asked,

We’d smile and say her name,

As if we knew her.

When they found her dead,

Some said the pan was stuffed with cash,

Though personally, I wonder.

What we can’t take with us,

We leave behind

For others to ponder.

Brotherly Love

Gestingthorpe 2011

I won’t call you eccentric,

Though we are related.

Your house is full of shards

Gathered from feudal fields

Whose names you know:

Cracked pots and cauldrons; rusting scythes

That would have done a revolution proud.

You sit by the window,

Discussing love, divorce,

Beethoven’s debt to Haydn,

And the fusing of plain and mannered style

In Shakespeare’s verse,

As acres turn dark.

I ask what you mean

By filling your garden with rocks,

Glacial erratics:

Remnants of conflicts

That progress ignores.

Feng Shui, you say,

Hand sweeping the night,

As though that were obvious.

Outside, in the moonlight,

A shriek owl responds;

And the long walk home

Appears less travelled

Than before.