Now Look

It used to be goals and girls:

Who scored in extra time.

You were always in for a laugh.

Brawls didn’t start

Till you turned up.

Together, we kicked ass,

Breaking laws even

The judge hadn’t heard of;

Not giving a fig leaf for taste,

Tradition, temperance,

What passes for truth;

Spitting in society’s face

And not missing

Once.

Now, look at us,

Chatting away in Sainsbury’s,

Like a couple of eejits.

Discussing world events

Like what’s cooking for lunch

Or which cat food is best;

Our trolleys bright

With ideas.

Not trading recipes, not yet

Just idle chat

About things we used to mock,

Aloof from the herd,

The dullness we feared,

Never dreaming the suburbs

Would one day come to us.

What a waste!

But then,

Have you seen the price

of tea bags lately?

Memoriam

The doomed man  

Hears fireworks he cannot see,

Smells Autumn’s corrosive breath,

As metal salts

Ignite the air.

In his mind’s eye,

A boy,

Lighting a match,

Holding it up for a dare.

A crowd appears

Chanting in fatal glee.

And here in the dark,

The past explodes,

A story unrehearsed:

An effigy on a bonfire.

Γέρωντος

for my Father

How must it have been for you,

Growing up all those years

When truth made sense,

Despite war, chaos, death,

The stuff you’d read at school;

The turning of the spheres,

Like some vast cinematic reel,

As time swept by;

And, later, love.

Gazing at the screen,

You saw the years implode

Into a storm of doubt,

Obscuring the past;

And soon the walls of certainty

Came tumbling down:

Truth, power, authority, respect.

You took your sword stick from its case

And marched the streets

Scowling at the young.

We scoffed at your vision then,

As you might gaze on ours:

Caught up in novelty, like tourists,

Clicking away at every world of choice,

As if photography

Will save us.



Endurance

They wheeled you down lanes
You knew as a girl;

Your voice rose with the sound

Of circling gulls

To cliffs climbed long ago.

You read the borders on the way

Like pages from an almanac:

Wild thyme, lady’s slipper, moon daisies,

Herb robert, old man’s beard,

Hedgerows stained red with valerian,

Fuschia stealing down limestone walls;

You smiled at it all,

Shaking a white convolvulos

In the August shade.

Back home, you labour up familiar steps,

A path you know;

But still, when days lie overgrown

Or clasped in memory,

This lasts:

A song repeated.