Premonitions

Black Saturday

Black Saturday

Doubt and Despair

1

This is the day we go into ourselves
to work out who we really are.

It is the teeter-totter day
when the world balances on a knife-edge:
Yesterday, the dark deed was done.
Today the body is in the morgue,
far from the crime scene
where black and yellow ticker-tapes,
keep sight-seers seeking thrills at bay.

Today, there is no centre to hold.
Things gyre and gimble in the wake
of troubling scenes misinterpreted,
called fake, and deliberately misunderstood.

The unfortunate lie chained so they can’t
escape. Take these chains from our hearts,
the watchers say. Take these irons from
our wrists, your knees from our necks.
Forsake your vicious choke holds.
Go away and leave us alone.

2

A birch tree lies on my power lines,
and I am powerless.

No phone, no radio, no tv,
and all because of a snow-laden tree.
Why did this happen to me?

“It’s a day, man, a day.
It’s nothing but a day.”
“Imagine,” says my wife, “being
without power all your life.”

I clench my fist and pump the air.
Nobody sees me. No one seems to care.

A ghost’s voice echoes in my head:
“Stop moaning, bro,
at least you ain’t dead.”

Sun, wind, melting snow.
The lame tree rising, slow.
Then, at last, the lines are free.
Power is back again.
I breathe more easily.

3

For forty days
I have wandered in this wilderness,
walking from room to room,
climbing stairs,
descending to the basement,
sitting at the computer,
sitting at the table,
writing in my journal.

I have watched the minutes
as they turn into hours,
the hours turning into days,
days into weeks, then months.

How long, I ask, oh lord, how long
before peace and love, friendship and joy,
return to this world
where they used to belong?

4

A turkey-vulture flew
over the house this afternoon,
hungering for who knows what,
as I too hunger for things
I have forgotten
and no longer know.

Freedom to walk
in now forbidden places,
freedom to shop for groceries,
to stop at the liquor store,
to buy wine and beer,
other things that I adore.

For forty days
I have sailed in this Noah’s
Ark of a house.
Like John the Baptist
I have lingered here for forty days.

Strange and wonderful are thy ways,
oh lord, in heaven, where souls and angels
admire your beauty and sing your praise.

Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality
or
The Coconut Shy

Aunt Sallies, all of them, sitting there,
in front of the camera, virtual statues,
three whole rows of coconuts gazing
vacantly out of the screen or sitting,
mute like swans, with sound and vision
turned off so nobody will know that
they are there in name only, or perhaps
it’s a pseudonym, a nickname, hiding
the true identity of the sly persona
shying obscurely away from the camera.

Shy, yes, but only at first. The ice breaks.
Conversation flows. A jabberwocky of noise
breaks over headphones, crackles in ears,
meaningless, at times, as the air waves wander,
break up, people switch on or off, or,
having said their say, go mute and fade away.

I think of monkeys, climbing to the top
of the temple steps, sitting there in rows,
plucking at the fur of the friend below them,
then cracking between thumb and index finger
the fleas and other creatures they have found.

And that’s what they will do with the work
that other people present to them – nit pick,
quarrel, pick minor squabbles, disagree with
a noun here, an adjective there, a dangling
participle over there, see, quick, give it
a flick, a twist of the wrist, that’s what
the showman said. There. See? Gone now.
And doesn’t that feel so much better?

Now I sit among them, my own effigy
staring back at me like a death mask in life’s
Madame Tussaud’s virtual wax works,
Jolly Roger, another skull-and-crossbones
faking it for the camera that tells no lies,
even though I despise the shown falsehood –
of ‘stand together or we fall alone’ and yes,
I feel myself falling, toppling off the saw dust
piled into the metal cup, to lie on the ground,
battered and broken, but the show must go on,
though, for me, that’s the final curtain.

Good Friday

Good Friday

Crucifixion and Death

1

Now is the hour of his parting,
such sweet sorrow, they say,
but not on this day.
Yet we’ll meet again, sang Vera Lynn,
don’t know where, don’t know when.

There he lies, helpless, on the street.
Why is that man in blue
kneeling on his neck?
“I can’t breathe.”
Can’t anyone hear his cries?
Is there anybody out there listening?

Watchers stand round and watch.
Someone makes a video on a cell phone.

Who gifted him this gift,
this parting gift he never chose.
Everyone who follows him
and tries to walk in his shoes
knows he had no choice.
They know he didn’t choose.

2

Do you feel the baton stab into the guts?
The plastic shield’s edge slash into the face?
The knee come up, no ifs, no buts?

Eyes water from tear gas and pepper spray.
Thunder flashes crack and roll, deafening
ears, taking years from marchers’ lives.

Did you follow him through Jerusalem?
Did you walk in his footsteps, step by step?
There is a green hill far away, or so they say.

The cameras rolled as they cuffed him
to his pavement cross, men in blue smiled,
winked at each other, watched him fade.

His loss was not their family’s loss.
Just another loser tossed beneath the bus.
The watchers watched and nobody made a fuss.

They stood and stared and nobody cared
until cell phone videos hit the tv screens.
 Now it’s fake news, whatever that means.

The believers will believe what they’re told.
You can’t put a price on what he was losing,
on the many things that others have already lost.

3

Leg-irons and chains:
that’s what remains from his journey here.

Iron, cold iron, splintered, burning wood.
A death bed on the sidewalk
his last will and testament.

A flaming cross lifted him to the skies,
that cross burning before his eyes.

Before he goes, we must double-check:
whose is that knee upon his neck?

“Let me breathe, let me breathe.
Take away your knee.
Justice, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Commissioner, forgive them.
They didn’t know what they did,
when all around the dying man
men closed their eyes and ears,
buried their heads, and hid.

4

Good Friday in Island View:
a foot of snow fills the streets,
empties the churches.
The Easter Weekend lurches
towards its predestined end.

But how do you end
two thousand years of hurt,
four hundred years of persecution,
of cruelty and neglect?

How do you end
eight minutes and forty-six seconds,
with that black man lying there,
choking, a white man’s knee on his neck.

He died in the shade
of orders that were given and obeyed,
orders that should never have been made.

Sound of Silence

Sound of Silence
Cara Anam, p. xv

Where do the deer go
when they leave their tracks
behind them and pass out of our sight?

We lose them when, like school children,
they scale the snow bank,
stop at the roadside, and look left,
right, and left again, then walk sedately,
one by one, across the road, and blend
into the dark woods opposite our house.

Too many friends have walked a similar way,
crossed the great divide, and lost themselves
in the unknown that lies there, out of sight.

All too soon, we will be faced by that same
decision, whether or not to cross.
Our paths already tell us where we’ll go,
but the hands of our body clocks don’t yet
point to how, or when.

Click here to listen to Roger’s reading.

White Wolf

White Wolf

The white wolf of winter
exits her den-warmth and
shakes snow from her coat. Flakes
fly, whitening the world.

She points her nose skywards,
clears her throat, howls until
cold winds blow their chorus
of crystals, crunchy crisp.

We cower behind wooden walls,
peer out through frosted glass.
The white wolf draws near and she huffs
and she puffs until door frames rattle.

The snow drifts climb higher,
blotting out the light. Night
falls, an all-embracing
Arctic night of endless
snow snakes slithering on
ice-bound, frost-glass highways,
side roads and city streets.

Outside, in the street lights’
flicker, snow flies gather.
Thicker than summer moths,
they drop to the ground, form
ever-deepening drifts.

Our dreams become nightmares:
endless, sleepless nights, filled
with the white wolf’s winter
call for snow and even more snow.

Click here to hear Roger’s reading.

Questions

Questions
Four Elements, p. 137

After my mother died,
I lit a candle in every church,
a real bees’ wax candle,
not those tiny electric lights
that glow for a little while,
when you insert money
in the insatiable slot.

Like the minuterie
on each landing of a Parisian
staircase, it gives enough light for
a quick prayer, or a very short
moment or two of silence.

Where does the light go
when the electricity switches off?
Where does the flame go
when the candle is snuffed?
Where did my mother go
when her light went out?

One day, but not too soon, I hope,
I will have to follow her and find
the answers to all of my questions.

Click here for Roger’s reading.

Time and Tide

Time and Tide

Sitting, waiting patiently for
whatever may come along,
that is all I have left,
save for impatience, anger,
and frustration.

These canes that help me walk
will sometimes slide on the ice,
or catch in a crack and tumble me
forwards, into a stumble or fall.

I can only sit for so long
before a screen or an empty page.
Anguish gets the better of me
and I rise to my feet and lumber
round the house, avoiding
the loose ends of carpets
and the skittering cat.

A dropped plate that I can’t pick up,
the table shaken so that liquids spill,
such events are more frequent now.

I sometimes think I am sitting,
enthroned on time’s sea-side sand,
trying to hold back the rising tide,
that cares not, nor listens, nor obeys.

Waiting for Godots

Waiting for Godots

What do authors do when they send manuscripts to agents or presses? They have several choices. For example, they can listen to the sound of silence. Listen carefully to the paining above. What does it say to you? Absolutely nothing. Quite. It doesn’t communicate. It’s the sound of silence.

Another choice, they can read and re-read Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Alas, in this case there are many Godots out there and all of them are super-busy gazing at their navels – and I don’t mean oranges. Some indulge in the wonderful world of “Mirror, mirror, on the wall…” and we all know what the answer is to that question. And we know what happened to Narcissus when he saw himself in the river water. Or have we forgotten? Our failure to share cultures is also a sound of silence – two solitudes, gazing at each other, neither one having anything in common with the other one, except maybe the weather. And we can’t always agree on that.

A third choice, they can climb into their dustbins, Queen’s English for garbage cans, and stand there waiting for someone to put the lid on so they can go back to sleep. Allusion / elusion – you don’t know what I am talking about? Well, maybe we are living in two separate solitudes. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

A fourth choice, they can take up painting, and scribbling, and drawing, and doing all sorts of things. But, if the phone rings and you don’t recognize the number – don’t pick up the phone. It’s probably a fraudulent scam call. And if you don’t know the e-mail address, put it in Spam and then block it. It’s probably some bot from another country trying to trap you into giving them your bank account details and signing your savings away. Whoever it is or they are , I doubt if it’s an agent or an editor!

Tell us about yourself

Tell us about yourself

That is one of the questions I most hate to be asked. What on earth is there to tell? One direction is the Muhamad Ali route – “I am the greatest!” Some people take that route and walk you down the highway of their lives, everything from winning the egg and spoon race (age seven), to coming second in the three-legged race (age 9), to finishing third in the slow bicycle race (age 11). And that’s just the start. A similar route is the 007 route – license to kill – shoot from the lip – a blast from the past – history, herstory, my-story – by me!

No way. My history is a mystery and long may it remain so. There are many magic moments (thank you Perry Como – my mother’s favorite singer) and many tragic moments. Some might be worth mentioning, most I’d rather keep quiet about. I think sometimes of the famous examination question – write down everything you know – except I can’t remember who was examining who, nor why they were being examined. Sounds a bit like the Civil Service to me, before they ask you to swear the Official Secrets Act.

On the other hand, if a person asks me a direct question, I will try to answer it to the best of my limited ability. Who is Lisi? I don’t know. Her identity has baffled the literary critics for close to 400 years and I certainly haven’t been able to solve it. Why did Cervantes write the Quixote? Try asking him yourself – but I guess if he’s been silent since 1616, he will remain silent for a lot longer. Not everyone is – or wants to be – the Memory Man – “We know Easter is a Moveable Feast, when did Easter Sunday last fall on Boxing Day?”

Trick question – Easter Sunday is a race horse, not a holy holiday. Boxing Day, in Britain, used to be the day for point to points and obstacle races for horses. But the Memory Man knew that. He also knew the name of every jockey, every horse, their weights, their odds, the order in which they finished, and the name of the fence which caused Easter Sunday to fall on Boxing Day.

So, tell us about yourself. No. I won’t. I am not the memory man and I will reveal as little as I can. Remember the old song – “Yesterday is history, today is still a mystery, but what a day it’s going to be tomorrow.” Right – now I am ready to tell you about myself. I am not yesterday’s man, I am today’s man, and today is still a mystery. Sorry, I can’t do better than that!

Challenge

Challenge

What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

The months change but the challenge never does. How does one stay alive? How does one survive? How does one pass the time from one minute to the next, one hour to the next, one day to the next, one week to the the next, and one month to the next?

I faced a challenge this morning. I got to the shop and could not climb over the piled up ice to reach the slippery step that led to the salted sidewalk that led to the shop’s entrance. Fortunately a kind young man took my arm, and helped me upwards, onto the sidewalk. He waited while I shopped and brought me back down to the car, arm in arm, and carrying my shopping. I gave him a poetry book, Septets for the End of Time, as a reward.

What will be the next big challenge? I honestly don’t know. Starting the snow blower at -20C, perhaps? Blowing the snow and avoiding a slip, a fall, a sit down on a snow bank from which I cannot get up? Who knows? I don’t. I need more medicine – will my biggest challenge be finding that the pharmacy has again run low on my medication and I have to wait for my renewals? I have just had a blood test – three months late – and I don’t know what the results will be? Will that be my biggest challenge – coming face to face with a negative result that demands more action? I just don’t know. Driving out the other day, I met a speeding car on my side of the road, in my lane, coming straight towards me. The driver was staring at his cell phone, one hand on the wheel, eyes down, concentrating on something that certainly wasn’t the road. I swerved aside, towards the snow bank, honked the horn, and he looked up, eyes wide with shock, and swerved away. Brown trouser time, I guess, for that unfortunate individual.

It would be so nice to have a smart answer. My biggest challenge will be to find a solution to the chess problem that has puzzled me for years – how to defend Queen side openings when Black. My biggest challenge will be to draw the cards for a perfect hand of cribbage. My biggest challenge will be to pay the grocery bills as the prices rise. My biggest challenge will be to pay the dentist’s bills when I have no dental coverage and the savings dwindle every month. My biggest challenge will be how to avoid the pain in my teeth now that I can no longer afford the dentist. My biggest challenge will be to crawl to the telephone and get help if I manage to fall in the kitchen and cannot get up.

So, what is my greatest challenge over the next six months? Living from day to day, without falling downstairs and killing myself – how about that for an answer?