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poem
Happy Hallowe'en everyone.
When the banshees wail
And the werewolves howl
And the dead in the churchyard sigh
When the witches scream
And their daemons hiss
When you hear the song of the Lorelei
When the goblins shout
And the boggarts yell
And the shades call out
From the depths of Hell!
When the phantom drummer
Drums his drum
And the midnight wraith
Whispers 'Come... oh, come...'
Then who will go?
...Not I.
This is a poem we used to recite when trick-or-treating - with yells and screams which left us quite hoarse, but rich in the way of sweets and filthy lucre. I don't know who wrote it, but if anyone does, I'd be grateful to know.
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Motorway poems II
Time for a poem. This one is the second in my 'Motorway Poems' sequence:
II: DISTANCE DRIVER
stars
fast cars
a lass too far
at the coming of night
and the dawn of day
a roofless flight
along the motorway
amber strobe light
and white street lines
to the vanishing point
in parallel times
the flat horizon
can’t check our speed
or slow our haste
an oil slicked greed
a lust for waste
a taste of grace
and chromed-up steel
do you feel alarmed?
charmed
by fast cars
and stars
Days of a Life
1: CAMBRIDGE ON A FRIDAY
Beating feet in fantasy,
I turn; he slips away
My body and my bike both conspire against me:
What shall I do today?
The sleet fell loud in Market Square
Insidious, the Fenland air.
I lay in my bed at three
And glanced at my watch seven times
In as many seconds.
2: BRADFORD ON A THURSDAY
‘Fluid prose,’ he told me once
But I forgot
Whether that was a good thing
Or not.
A lime-sugar sweet taste
Feet on the stair
I lean back to the mirror
Admire my hair
The soap opera theme tune
Swarms up from below
In the floor-boarded front room
He laughs, and I go
Back to the window
(Dry fingers on the sill)
And gaze down the valley
Which had never seemed so still.
3: CARDIFF ON A MONDAY
The yawning milkman separates
The morning from the night;
Across the rain-stirred reservoir
A flock of geese take flight.
And I have been watching
From my window, from first light.
I shall leave now, quietly
Through the back door
Through the veils of rain
Into the solace of my solitude again.
Lovesong
Approach, my love, and walk with me
On the shadowy beach by the starry sea;
The soapy sea, which carelessly
Throws flatfish to the sky.
Wander where I wander, dear
The cherry-cake land so sweet and near,
By the sea so clear, with its waves that rear
And drench the soupy sky.
We’ll listen to the fishes’ song
The rainy cadenza, deep and long
Loud and strong, not a sound set wrong
That falls from the sepia sky.
And the lobsters that dwell upon the sand
Where the dunes become a sea-soaked strand
Shall agree, solemnly, hand in hand
That love is in the sky!
(c) Poetry Now 1992
Touch the Dead Fox
Glassily gazing out to the reservoir
On the windowsill in the wood beam brass décor bar
There is a stuffed fox
Poised in a pink plastic snarl of faded canines
Its feet painted green with the polystyrene base.
A couple sat down next to us, smiling at each other.
She placed a half of lager on the beer mat,
He ruffled the fox’s back as had hands
A hundred times before.
‘Touch the stuffed fox, Sandra,’ he said;
‘Go on, stroke it.’
She reached out behind me, leaning
On the leather seat,
Overcoming a flush of fear,
And stopped just short of its mothy tail.
‘I can’t,’ she said, high-pitched. ‘It’s horrible.’
With a manicured finger she touched his nose instead.
He laughed with condescension
Which was the more derisive for being kindly:
She was his woman and she must be protected
From such things as dead foxes.