Sunday 31 December 2017

My loyal friend ...



Whilst Anne took my dad to hospital, I danced with my mum in the lounge of memory - 

I crooned with Nat King Cole nightingale sang in Berkeley Square -

We then watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks -

The flat screen TV was my loyal friend - 


15.00
Sunday 31 December 2017

Havant

Saturday 30 December 2017

Bomberg at The Pallant Gallery ...






The artist said he'd never seen sunlight before - 

You must remember, I was a poor boy from the East End - 

I gazed at his drawings and paintings in the beautiful gallery - 

He'd gone to the Yiddish Theatre, watched the jiu jutsi fighters in Moe's Gym -

Beneath the trenches, he'd seen men carving tunnels through the merciless earth - 

He'd been regarded as a disturbing influence at The Slade

The faces of the Jewish women he painted were those of goddesses, archaic and ravishing - 

Each self portrait I saw depicted a portion of his soul - 

The last showed him in a robe like a gorgeous shroud - 


12.00
Saturday 30 December 2017

Pallant House Gallery
Chichester  





Friday 29 December 2017

Morning at Malmsbury Lawn ...



The two of us took my mum and dad to Malmsbury Lawn

Anne helped my mum through the automatic doors - 

I'd offered my arm to my dad - 

Don't rub it in he said - 

Doreen sat next to my mum in the circle of chairs -
 
Service users in wheelchairs arrived by minibus - 

There was a bookcase of thrillers - 

I glanced for a second at a Daily Mail - 

Michelle offered my dad a mince pie - 

Oh, I don't think so he said - 


09.39
Friday 29 December 2017

Malmsbury Lawn Day Centre
Havant  

Thursday 28 December 2017

Welcome to the real world ...



We had a late breakfast special in Poppins

I wore my Peaky Blinders cap - 

The Kerala boys greeted each pensioner with a tender smile - 

The church clock struck noon -

My mum and dad were at the Day Centre - 

Havant was bathed in icy light - 
 
My brother, the consultant, was passionate - 

That's the NHS now he said - 

Welcome to the real world


12.00
Thursday 28 December 2017

Havant 

Wednesday 27 December 2017

Now we're back in the small house ...



This morning we were in Bowlalley Lane - 

Now we're back in the small house, where time is strange - 

*

Jane rang us on Christmas Day - 

Your dad has pneumonia - 

He's in QA - 

*

Here, lights are left on here all night - 

My mum puts teabags under her pillow - 

*

The nurses and the doctors lost patience with my dad -  

He plucked at the drip in his arm - 

I'm not ninety he said - 

Don't talk to me as if I'm a child - 

Don't put bars round my bed - 

I'm not a baby - 


22.07
Wednesday 27 December 2017

Havant 


Tuesday 26 December 2017

The sky reached down to the northern shore ...



Sad warehouses were now spare edgy galleries - 

I read enigmatic graffiti - 

The Spurn Lightship was moored in the marina - 

Jazz bars offered absinthe and cool vibes - 

Delicate birds folded out of paper hung from a white ceiling - 

We walked towards The Minerva

Strange machines raised metal paws to heaven - 

Ancient currents still shaped the estuary -

The sky reached down to the northern shore - 


14.30
Tuesday 25 December 2017

Hull 





Monday 25 December 2017

The Old Town ...



We walked through the early morning streets of the old town - 

The buildings we passed were solemn with memory - 

Invisible clerks still filled ledgers with fastidious copperplate - 

Gas jets hissed - 

Tall warehouses faced the river - 

Frock coated shades waited for Baltic cargoes - 

A murmuration of starlings filled the sky - 


13.00
Sunday 24 December 2017

Old Town
Hull


Saturday 23 December 2017

Bowlalley Lane ...



We're high above the ancient lane - 

An opulent mirror hangs from the wall - 

I've just lolled in bathtub fit for Pompey the Great - 

Scalding hot water gushed from the quivering taps - 

I saw mysterious windows from the rooftop terrace -  

A staircase led me upwards towards the Christmas sky - 


19.11
Friday 23 December 2017

Bowlalley Lane
Hull  


Friday 22 December 2017

The Peugeot will be our Argo ...



I've packed my blue rucksack - 

Tomorrow, we'll drive north - 

We'll drink motorway Americanos -  

We'll cross a wide river by an iconic bridge - 

The Peugeot will be our Argo - 

The wide fields will be our wine dark sea - 

19.42
Friday 22 December 2017

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset 

Thursday 21 December 2017

Holly on the mantlepiece ...



Late this afternoon I placed holly on the mantlepiece - 

I'll light the fire whilst we drink a dizzying hot toddy - 

I'll remember past Christmas Eves - 

Now my dad asks everyday what day it is - 

Christmas cards with tender messages will remain unread - 

My mum will doze upon the settee - 

Pages from The Portsmouth Evening News will lie scattered on the floor - 

There'll be a festive Midsomer Murders on ITV 3 - 


19.09
Thursday 21 December 2017

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset















Wednesday 20 December 2017

That's bourgeois democracy ...



Once more the hireling shot his pristine cuffs - 

The PowerPoint cast its numbing spell - 

The clinicians are with us the Chief Exec said - 

The councillors voted as the Chair directed - 

That's bourgeois democracy Lee said - 


13.30
Wednesday 20 December 2017

County Hall
Dortchester 

Tuesday 19 December 2017

I would walk like an innocent into a terrible history ...





A man wearing ink stained tweed turned the pages of a fragile volume - 

A low hanging chandelier illuminated reefs of obscure proceedings - 

I climbed a wrought iron spiral staircase to look down upon the murmuring antiquarians - 

I felt as though I were a character in a short story by M R James - 

I would spend darkening afternoons here - 

I would sit at the desk by the stilled grandfather clock - 

I might hear a hissing whisper high amongst the bookstacks - 

I would walk like an innocent into a terrible history - 


12.30
Tuesday 19 December 2017

Dorset County Museum Library 
Dortchester 







Monday 18 December 2017

The chair ...



That chair is his life
Jane said - 

We'd met Jane for a morning latte - 

Den had taken my parents to Malmsbury Lawn - 

The lounge of memory was empty - 

My dad's armchair faced the silenced TV - 

Tesco shoppers' cars reflected the Havant sunlight - 

He'll sleep all day in that chair Jane said -

Then wake up and watch Doc Martin I said - 


09.45
Monday 18 December 2017

M&S Cafe
Havant  

Sunday 17 December 2017

M & S Respite ...



For respite, we spent an hour or so in the Havant Retail Park M&S - 

We'd left my dad in his armchair - 

He'd forgotten he'd gone to hospital -

I'll ring old Melville tomorrow he said - 

My mum had fallen asleep again -

Is it Sunday? My dad asked - 

I get so forgetful


15.17
Sunday 17 2017

M&S
Havant Retail Park

Saturday 16 December 2017

Snaring words ...



I'm snaring words - 

They dart past me like wild eyed hares - 

They bring light to the darkening fields - 

Each one is a leaf on an ancient tree - 


14.45
Saturday 16 December 2017

Studland
Dorset

Friday 15 December 2017

Innocence like a golden crown ...





Winter sunlight fell upon the Minster - 

I remembered past summers when all the songs I heard were new - 

I wrapped my green scarf more tightly around my neck - 

Old houses were silent, bathed in memory - 

I looked up at the leafless trees - 

The sky was a pale icy blue - 

Soon children would sing inside the Minster -

Their voices would rise to the stars above their heads - 

All my Christmas mornings came back to me - 

There were the presents under my parents' Christmas Tree - 

I switched on the torch once more which had a beam a mile long

I went away to sea again with Slippery Sam

I wore my innocence as if it were a golden crown - 


11.33
Friday 15 December 2017

Wimborne Minster
Dorset 




Thursday 14 December 2017

A day unremembered is a soul unborn ...



I'm listening to the spooky beautiful voice of a counter tenor - 

He's singing She moved through the fair

Laurie Lee says a day unremembered is like a soul unborn

So - I'll remember this moment, when I hear this voice again - 

I'll see the clouds in the December sky - 

I'll feel the warmth of the ashes in the fireplace - 

My heart, once more, will be rapt in its nest of bone - 

There I am, listening - 

Last night she came to me, my dead love came in - 

So softly she came that her feet made no din - 


15.46
Thursday 14 December 2017

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset


Wednesday 13 December 2017

The Christmas Lunch ...



My mum was an ARP warden
Jean said - 

She climbed onto a roof to put out incendiary bombs - 

I released a squeaking sausage of a balloon to fly over our heads - 

It was our Christmas Lunch - 

We linked arms to pull crackers and wore paper crowns - 

I'd made the usual joke in an e-mail earlier that Semi Colons was not a literary group - 

Reg said that he'd been in the the Home Guard - 

He'd protected a town hall in Kingston upon Thames - 

They were armed with axe handles and six rifles - 

I learned that Jocelyn, Queen of The Rex, had been married to a racing car driver - 

There's a lot that's left unexplained about T E Lawrence Paul said mysteriously - 

I drank an afternoon bumper of Merlot - 

We all of us were linked, we Christmas diners - 

We all had been marked by shining instruments - 

We all had counted the number of our days - 


13.00
Wednesday 13 December 2017

Purbeck Golf Club
Studland 
Dorset

Tuesday 12 December 2017

PowerPoint followed PowerPoint ...



PowerPoint followed PowerPoint - 

It's all a trade off said the hireling in a dark suit - 

His cuff links shone - 

I thought of the old woman, someone's precious granny, lying for two hours in the cold street - 

There's the question of the bigger footprint he said - 

Gazing at the Councillors he smiled his thin apparatchik's smile - 

Then there's the capital funding - we mustn't lose that -


12.15
Tuesday 12 December 2017

Dorset County Hall
Dortchester 


Monday 11 December 2017

Secondhand books and gaudy nights ...



I picked up Hudson's Far Away and Long Ago

I remembered the second hand bookshop with its winding stair - 

I went there, one tipsy summer afternoon - 

Upstairs, I'd walked across creaking floorboards - 

I could see the Cathedral through the narrow window - 

Careless sunlight fell upon the bookshelves - 

The love of words flowed over me, as strong as my love of gaudy nights - 


15.47
Monday 11 December 2017

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset 

 

Sunday 10 December 2017

Visa to Greeneland ...




I'm reading The Confidential Agent

There's a visa to Greeneland sewn into the lining of my coat - 

There's no honour there, or justice - 

Bombs will soon be falling upon its cinemas and cheap hotels - 

Gunmen will walk through its choking fogs - 

Shameless men will ride in taxis - 

Innocents will die -

No action will be taken without careful forethought - 

The passport in my hand will be false - 

The photograph will be of my face before it changed - 


16.53
Sunday 10 December 2017

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset 




















Saturday 9 December 2017

Banjaxed ....



Anne's been banjaxed by a bug - 

All day we've kept to the snug, the radiators on full -

I've just lit the fire - 

We're watching ITV 3 like two washed up dowagers - 

Miss Marple brings comfort - 

A murderous nun is bought to justice - 


18.30
Saturday 9 December 2017

The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset 

Friday 8 December 2017

Revisiting the walled garden ...




Penelope and I revisited the walled garden - 

Pale sunlight fell on leafless trees -

Small birds followed us - 

We heard them singing in dark arbours - 

Winding paths led to a stilled fountain - 

We stood by a sundial under the December sky - 

A bearded god's face was etched in the metal of the dial - 

A chill wind blew - 

A white rose was still in bloom - 

Attic windows overlooked empty fields - 

Nearby, an elusive soul was held down by marble - 


11.47
Friday 8 December 2017

The Walled Garden
Moreton
Dorset