Many movie directors
share my terror of
children’s playgrounds.
The swings are empty
but move with
spectral occupants
a bizarre twister
catches a handful of rusty leaves
and hurls them sky-high
spooky disembodied voices
a sudden chilling screech
and thud
and absolutely no children
because they would never ever play
in this fearful place.
It took a helicopter
to winch their caravan
into place on the spit
so the family could go
whitebaiting. It was a
spectacle to watch
the ancient camper
pirouette in the sky
and get lowered
onto the shingles.
I see their campfire now
in the booming evening swell
and lament that I can’t
share their fellowship
their unbreakable bond
with this ancestral strip
of beach stones surf
and fabulous fishing.
It will be mortifying
when rheumatism
locks up my hands
when my words
stall splutter
and altogether expire
when there is no glimmer
of creativity
when my mind is bedridden
and nobody gives a fig
that the lines have dried up
because there are other poets
with more proficient hands
to summon the heady magic
I once loved.
The Romans would have
never permitted
a clump of grass
to rise between
their paving stones.
Their network of roads
maintained by
well-fed slaves
could boast
near perfection
in an age
of attention
to detail. They
would have found
our race flabby
overfond of narcissism
without the genius
necessary to harness
an empire, or equal
their thousand year rule.
Ambition is futile
when all we amount to
is a sprinkle of dirt.
Only philosophy matters
in the short rotation of time
between our making
and our undoing.
So let me dwell
on the fabulous stars
because for them
a wink is
light years wide
the blaze of their birth
their exploding dying
a billion durations of time.
To drill a hole
into the centre
of your horse chestnut
find a thread
and string it through
was the quintessence
of boyhood. If your
conker was huge
it could obliterate
all the competition
and you’d be victor.
You’d polish your nut
to a deep brown shine
oil it just like a cricket ball
until one surprising match
you’d be thunderstruck
collecting the creamy
innards of your champion
hiding your distress
the glory snatched under you.
My work colleague
was involved
in a driveway accident.
He was a dreamy bloke
impractical otherworldly
he never imagined
his infant daughter would be
skipping behind the wheels
when he reversed
his sedan over her.
She is broken forever
like her father
who cannot live one moment
without imagining the terror
the guilt the pain
how he has
maimed his beautiful girl
his precious sunflower.
