Playground nonsense skip with me

Breakfast, lunch, tea and supper

porridge and bacon and eggs and toast

a poverty plague makes me glummer.

Lunch, tea, supper and breakfast

poached eggs with hollandaise sauce

being jobless has me fussed.

Tea, supper, breakfast and lunch

cucumber sandwiches sprinkled with salt

jobless centre pulls no punch.

Supper, breakfast, lunch and tea

fillet of beef with roasted veg

my wagon train ain’t got no gravy.

Next to go in one two three.

Internment

October 1965

With the stillness of an unfed pond the girl stood

amongst sharp grass, brown tumbled earth and

empty rose bushes weighed heavy in graveyard silence.

Outside her world, tombstoned semi-detached

houses horizoned the quiet street.

Cardiganed she took her sister’s hand

walked through colonnaded loganberries

plucked ripeness caught in a starched handkerchief.

Digestive biscuits dunked in her Gran’s tea,

two birds perched on a lace doilyed sofa

faced the empty grate, beaks sealed, eyes seeled.

A doorbell rings; dark suited Mum and Dad

appeared. Voices burbled through the event horizon

of sunshine that broke the grey of her day.

Bells ring

Bells ring, inside her head all else is silent.

Booted feet moved sightlessly at eye line,

dripped soundless words she could not comprehend.

Reflect, water kettle heated has steam to vent

vapour seeks to escape with fuelled vigour given time.

Bells ring, inside her head all else is silent.

Like anger builds until a weakness is rent

kettled children swoop and dive, hope redefined

dripped soundless words they cannot comprehend.

Rage rises like sap in a tree, prickled bodies endure torment

stampede forward, blind, unable to see signs.

Bells ring, inside her head all else is silent.

Hammered blows from blue-bottled androids, sent

to suppress babies along with those in mines,

dripped soundless words she cannot comprehend.

Hammered, fallen, trampled, this is not what was meant

a walk to parliament to protest in winter’s sunshine.

Bells ring, inside her head all else is silent,

dripped soundless words she cannot comprehend.

Imagine sheep

White tight curled sheep grazing on the Downs

slowly climbing or coming down, they nibble

down the ever shortened grass, their tails

four foot six long, supported on a wooden

cart, prevented from trailing on the ground,

allows their poo to fall on the grassed Downs.

Hope

A caterpillar eats and shits and grows.

That’s all it does; eats, shits and grows.

Every now and again it sheds its skin

before it returns to eat and shit and grow.

If it survives the Chaffinches, if it survives the Tits

when it has eaten as much as it can

it will pupate, wrap itself in silk and sleep.

If it survives pupation, a butterfly or moth will emerge

to fly between flowers sipping nectar for fuel

a search for a potential mate. A sight that would not be seen

if a caterpillar had not eaten and shat and grown.