Bonded

It’s said that you can’t turn back time

I know that’s just not true

Get us all in the same room again

and the clock spins back to ’92.

Every one with our own journey

With different lives to lead

We don’t abide in each other’s pockets

There’s simply not the need

When we chance upon each other

When a friendly face walks through the door

A flame is reignited

that burns as bright as thirty years before

Some friendships last forever

Whilst others fall away

You gorgeous folk will stay with me,

I’m certain, ’til my dying day

Another year done…

I could hone in on this year’s shortcomings

How it wasn’t up to scratch

Like the year before and maybe next year too

But what would be the point of that?

I could rue events that were cancelled

All the things we had to miss

What would we gain from perusing

Such a long, depressing list?

Instead, I’ll shift the focus

and emphasise the good

Not obsess over what I couldn’t

but reflect on what I could

I awoke in a state of reasonable health

Every glorious morning

I got to view the moon arise each dusk

and the sun as day was dawning

At home we ate a wide array

of dishes and fine fare

Preparing meals of greater complexity

In the time that we had spare

I read great books and filled my brain

with knowledge and exciting stories

Encountering characters and personalities

None of whom were boring

I embarked upon a craft project

I knitted a patchwork blanket

This time, unlike previous years,

I actually managed to finish it

So, we didn’t visit different shores

or cross the surrounding seas

We took the time to explore the best

of this blessed country’s scenery

In summer, some festivals went ahead

The youth felt wild and free

Moshing in amongst this youthful crowd

Could be spotted aging me!

We held down jobs, brought in a wage,

Kept the roof above our heads

We nurtured and loved our children

made improvements to our homestead

Therefore, looking back on the year that’s passed

I grin and raise a toast

I see it exactly for what it was and know

I’m luckier than most.

First Kiss

The sizzle of popping candy,

A thousand electric eels

The bubbles in my cola,

Pebbles crunching under heels

The crackling of breakfast cereals

Popping cinders on the fire

Kernels dancing in the saucepan

Volts surging through the wire

The fizzing, swimming bath-bomb,

The wind stirring the trees

The satiating burst of bubble wrap

The rustle of autumn leaves

The pulsing of the rhythm,

A glorious sonic boom.

The rush of sweet MDMA,

The beat of a hardcore tune

The whooshing of the rocket

The standing still of time

That electrifying moment

You first touched your lips with mine.

The floor

inspired by Edip Cansever’s poem ‘The table’


A woman full of dreams and occasional insecurities comes home
She spills the contents of her bag upon the floor
Book in one hand, she removes her scarf with the other and places them both on the floor too
She adds the joy of the movie that she shared last night with her daughter and the healing smoothness of honey on a raw, dry throat.

Cuddles with her son.
The odd adventure and some day trips with her loved one, the plans for household renovations and balmy evenings on the patio in summer.


With them on the floor, she places her retirement years
The goal – three score and ten plus a few more
The dog and two kittens are put there as well
She adds End Credits and 100 Days, laying them on the once shiny surface.
Twenty one times thirty nine plus what feels like a gazillion
Whatever that makes she throws it on the pile.
Along with the fear of having to work far too long; retaining nothing in the bank (or the tank) to see adventure in old age.
Shortages and a bleak outlook for winter that she didn’t choose
Years of never organised date nights
All these, she places there.


The floor bows and creaks under the weight but still she keeps on piling.


Health goals unfortunately paired with procrastination
Bright hair clips and her favourite boots
Bananas enveloped in thick batter then fried until their coat holds crisp against the gooey, sweet centre.
The floor, it visibly sags
But manages to hold the weight of all these things.


And so she squeezes herself in amongst them and sits down
Savouring on all sides, the heaviness of them pressing against her skin.

The Hiatus

Where have I been for the past few months? Why no posts or poems? Had I abandoned this lovely new platform which I had been extremely proud of when I set it all up last summer? The answers: For the most part, like so many of us, I hadn’t really been anywhere. This sorry fact leads us to the answer to question two; I simply stopped writing. In truth, there just seemed to be so little worth writing about. I could have produced another whinging moan about how unlucky we were to be stuck in and have life remain at a standstill but we weren’t really that unlucky in the grand scheme of things so I didn’t wish to put myself across as an ungrateful wretch. Speaking from a personal standpoint, I was just bored and had few things going on that were worthy of commiting pen to paper.

Come mid-August that changed most abruptly. Festival season had kicked in and I found myself armed with tickets, a group of fellow family festie-goers and not an ounce of worry or jitters about heading back out into crowded society. We all took lateral flow tests before heading to the event and then pretty much forgot our cares and society’s woes for 4 special days in the fields. The music, dancing, drinking, eating from the varied range of cuisines on offer from the foodstalls injected that spark of life back into our veins. Add to that the throngs of happy people with their smiling faces, the random art and light installations, the bands and theatrical performers, fire jugglers and the pyrotechnical finale and we felt as if reawoken from a long and hazy slumber. My thirst for life had been revived.

Following festival one, I had one day at home before taking another prerequisite LFT and attending a much larger event. This time in a completely different capacity. I became a steward, volunteering my time for one of the UK’s largest charities. This was an altogether different experience, nevertheless I found it altogether uplifting.

The mixture of work, play, meeting an abundance of cheerful and amiable coworkers, dancing and partying (of course), overcoming the slight nerves of heading off to this event solo, in addition, the responsibility of caring and getting help for the many teenagers and young people who (in their inexperience and excitement) had gone at it too hard and got themselves into a state (some of which were precarious) all built upon the sense that I had come back to life. It was glorious – the good and the bad.

Having returned and unpacked, I went back to work. A different school from the one I had walked away from in July. It occupies the same buildings but it feels different to be there. The students can move around and are not constrained to one area; they are allowed to play at breaktimes. The teachers can move around the classrooms, looking at work to check the level of understanding as they go. I feel that I can get back to teaching properly.

These last two to three weeks have been crazily busy. I still haven’t written any poetry; that will come in due course. This post is the first baby-step to refinding my creativity. Now I must go and do some housework and walk the dog before I head out to Bristol with friends. We’re going raving in Eastville park. It’s going to be banging.

Lost

I am not me

I went out one day

And found that I had lost myself

But where? I failed to notice.

There was no sudden change

Or pin-pointed moment

of awareness of its misplacement

Did it fall out of my pocket?

Slip out with an exhalation of breath?

There was no abrupt instant of consciousness

Heralding its stinging and ungrateful departure

It just crept off,

Snuck away and left me for pastures new

Leaving only the slow-burning realisation of having been abandoned,

The weight of my own confused bereavement

And me:

A shiny red apple without its core

A hollowed out tree unable to bear the weight of the leaves upon its branches.

Anguishing at the fork in the road.

The decision:

To move forward, craft a new self

or turn back in search of the old?

Do cheats ever prosper?

They say cheats never prosper

We all want this to be true

The sad truth of it all is that

In the short term, they often do!

We’ve all encountered that guy

Who’s so desperate to get ahead

That he’ll happily spin all kinds of tales

About the life that he has led.

Or the girl who wants to make it big

Be leader of the pack

So she blags her way through everything

To disguise the qualities she lacks

And we all know of the athletes

who in their quest to win the race

Take performance enhancing substances

To secure themselves first place

There will always be those among us

Who aren’t brave enough to lose

and rebuild from the experience

In reality – they’re the fools

Winning at all cost

Well, that’s just a loser’s game

For those who can’t put in the work

Or simply have no shame

To come out at the top

You have to weather life’s defeats

And then find the pathway up

When you’re really feeling beat

To rise up and keep on going

When you want to throw in the towel

Means that you’ll cherish every moment

When you finally wear the crown.

Courage

A keen and swift deserter

Going AWOL just at the point

When we are most in want

of its credentials

A whimsical and capricious entity

In need of nurture and strict training

To make it stay and sit still

A tumbled wall of bricks

To be painstakingly re-assembled

One by one

But be sure to place them on solid foundations

Without which, the tiniest nudge

may bring this shaky fortress cascading back down

to meet the vicious, brutish ruffian

that hard, exposing ground.

Bad Company

I’m a mealy-mouthed squealer,

A low-down, dirty dog,

A liar and a cheater

A greedy, selfish hog.

An outrageous, twisted grifter,

A swindling, treacherous cad,

A loathsome deceiver,

I’m everything that’s bad.

An unruly, thoughtless scammer,

An iron-knuckled thug,

A malicious, mental ruffian

and surly, vulgar shark.

I’m a worm-toothed bandit,

A stingy, sullen lout,

Provocateur and antagonist.

Be on your guard when I’m about!