Along the Line

I walked today for walking’s sake
along the former railway line –
heading out cross-country
away from house-backs crowding in,
past schools and smallholdings – 
cut and banked, civils large:
a theatre of citizens ~  

Some seemed intent, but most friendly:
the steppers, joggers, dog walkers,
pairs of red-faced cyclists,
that little girl on her first bike
hurtling to her mummy –
and just this once a man
with on his arm a hoodless hawk:

 A gimlet glance from the absurd ~

Out facing the wind, then back, I
shook off a winter’s lethargy 
between the cross-ways and the wye

epitaph

light was in his eyes:
just a man, but always more;
modern-day martyr

Whimsy

I wore my shorts this one more time
in angsty hope, in optimism
that showing willing by my token
I might persuade the summer it should linger
one more day, even perhaps another hour
or two, before it flits away…

But it was over yesterday.

Minor notes

In passing, I thought it was a good day for:

1) The organisers. Res ipsa loquitur.

2) The pall bearers. Get it right and no-one notices; one slip and you’re forever notorious…

3) Justin Welby. Not a natural orator, he rose to the occasion.

And it was a bad day for:

1) Princess Pinocchio. Just for being there. How does she have the effrontery? Don’t answer that.

2) Liz Truss. For reading one of the best known and most moving passages in the English language as if it was a list of the runners and riders in the 3:15 at Catterick.

3) Network Rail. Wires down outside Paddington. It happens occasionally, no-one’s at fault. But when your luck’s out, it’s out.

However, the real winners were communal feeling, tradition and continuity. Not my natural territory. But sometimes dissent is best to be still.

Complacency (part 2)

The olde worlde manne buffed up his puff
and spoke, mellifluously, but in a strangled voice
that whistled in his breath, through classic English teeth
not-quite-concealed below his baccy ‘tache…

“I voted to turn back the clock.  Ourselves alone,
the insular, in poverty, you know…   And now
I’m in the writers’ group!  We’re such a cosy clique
which meets together, every other week, 
to stroke ourselves, to pat each other on the cheek;
to share some jokes (that no-one else can know!)
and tell our friends how really, jolly nice we are…

“I know that strangers do take part, sometimes;
but I’ve devised a cunning plan! Haha!
It will be barratry (albeit smartly dressed):
we’ll hike the sub, we’ll bundle things
they never need or use, to make it plain
outsiders are not welcome here.
Three hundred percent!   That should do the trick!!  Haha!

And look here, don’t you fret your pretty heads: 
I know we once were 50, and now we’re only ten;
but why should that matter?!   Even if the bulkheads fail
and we should drift our ship aground, a wreck
will bring us respite, from creation’s toil and bite…
My dears!  Whatever might be wrong with that? 
It is the English way, you know.   Haha haha!”

Complacency (part 1)

The olde worlde manne buffed up his puff
and spoke, mellifluously, but in a strangled voice
that whistled in his breath, through classic English teeth
not-quite-concealed below his baccy ‘tache…

“You know, I marinade my ego in my creative juice
(as someone may have said, in 1922);
I am a captain in the upper middle class –
haute bourgeoisie, by way of Tuscany –
my social life’s in rugby, the way it used to be,
and I’m the colonel of my family, haha!
although I can’t see past my elbow or, you know…
What’s that you say?  The seat of my pants?  Is on fire?!

“I used to be at Lloyd’s, haha, back in the day,
the good old days, when insiders had all the luck
and outside Names would leave their shirts behind;
that’s back before the Yankees came, of course,
and corporates (they’re much the same)
with rules and plans and oversight, with outsiders
who knew the score, and counted beans;
and so that game was up. Though not before…

“Ah. But. I mustn’t tell you that.  Haha!
So I took refuge in the Clubs, where yesterday was still in place 
and if you closed one eye, and squinted hard enough,
you’d see the shade of dear old Vic:
the Empress’ portrait on the wall, gazing on her world,
presiding, impotent, bereft, decked in her widow’s weeds;
as good old chaps like me showed moneyed foreigners
how things were done round here.   Haha…

Red Kite, 4pm

Circles.   Shared in underlying measure
with some swifts that flicker higher,
deft and dark, obsessive on another prey; 
its curving beak mewls plaintive calls
but also sates its blood’s desire;

it is a silent beatless soar of wings
outstretched to ride the wind
in heedless majesty, against the void; 
arching once or twice towards a stall –
an almost-stoop, a trigger not released –

before its tail again controls the flight
which carries those unblinking eyes,
quartering the ground;
although no quarter will be asked, or given,
in the hunters’ sky.

Little??

My life remains free
Yet I need your help to breathe;
I won’t let you down.

Morse code…

Communicate   “dash”
from radical to archived
evanescence   “dot”

Kastanie

I felt the scented smoke of chestnuts burning 
among the clinging reek of old damp leaves, 
hazy, catching at my breath, 
falling to the bottom of my lungs; 
while I ripped up the tracks of my life behind me
as I walked, a purpose in itself, 
half-lame, within approximate direction; 
cast out – or walked away – from our chosen home… 

Searching for the borders of community 
but lacking any risk of crossing into “theirs”… 

It’s complicated, as they say, 
containing layers on layers and mysteries – 
such as how the crank and dumb and ill-informed 
and leaders unfit for truth can conquer – 
while the future ebbs away across the water, 
decisions turning water into oil and oil into distress… 
and Demos flounders, self-absorbed and slavering
over brazen idols, especially devoted to their feet of clay ~ 

~ Forgetting those who’ve shared our pains,
against whom we found ourselves by misadventure. 

I am lying low, a little low, for now.