maps

will we be skin to skin again

will blood be hot

will bones awake

and subtle muscular ripples strum

and judder breaths

as we strip the fret

from stressful days

in naked exploration

will we find my finger

running the curve

of your cheek again,

tracing the arc

of your back

the valley of your belly

strolling the soft velvet

of your inner thigh

and the domains

that here adjacent lie

like snuggled rabbits

our bodies fitted once

leg coiled round leg

hand round breast

buttock seamed to thigh

have we forgotten

the maps

we drew of each other's desire

the songlines we sang

and danced

and dawdled down

can we redraw

before it is too late

the paths of pleasure we once knew

Physic

Should black bile sophisticate my blood 

and shock my joints into a rictus lock
then with your sharpest knife open my veins
and drain the viscous liquor into a jar

carefully label with the subject's name
spend flower petals in the velvet red
stir sweet spices through the carmine brew
and agitate until they marry true

leave this dark claret in a sun-filled spot
or by a winter fire if season must
and for the turning of a half a day
let nature take its course

the tired spirit, blessed and nurtured thus
will grow and ferment, gather strength anew
now duly pumped afresh within my veins
watch colour revive the pallor of my cheeks
and gorgeous life return into my soul.

lovesong

Night has come

like a bus stalled

outside the window

spewing mud grey clouds

I think of you

I think only of you

I only ever think of you

owls are keening

on Upper Albert Road

in treetops

slick-leaved with rain

and somewhere

some fool is playing

the cello

out there

in the rainy street

bleeding his heart into the grey rainy street

like some sort of fool

blood in the gutters

blood and tears of rain in the gutters

he doesn't even know you

          but me

I think of you

I only ever think of you

I think only of you

ever

I have reached for your arms

many times

          I have

but you live

in the book of another world

in the crook of another arm

and will not hear the

thump, thump, thump

of this stupid heart

this stupid raging heart

and so all I can do

is think of you

while the night bus

chugs choking clouds outside the window

with the owls

and the fool

and the cello

blood and tears of rain

and the thump, thump, thump

          yes

I'm thinking of you again

I only ever think of you

I think only of you

ever

A Disappearing Act

Dr Gwendoline Trowell had the capacity to disappear.

Whenever she found herself in the company of more than four or five people she discovered it to be desirable to reduce her presence to such an extent that she might slip away and not be missed by the gathering until they, by mutual consent, decided to part from each other.  At this point there would be a general questioning as to where Dr Trowell might be - did anyone see her leave? One thought perhaps she might be in need of a lift home as the weather had certainly ‘come in’ this evening... And eyebrows would be raised and shoulders lightly shrugged as each member would quietly mumble of their ignorance of her whereabouts.

Dr Gwendoline Trowell never felt comfortable amid such gatherings, be they friends, so called, colleagues or even family. She was one who preferred her own company and found it difficult to accommodate the needs of others - the questions they asked, the responses they required. Small talk was anathema to her. She would lower her voice to a barely audible level, shorten her answers to a phrase or a word and finally an ‘I don’t know, to be sure...’ by which means she would leave her interlocutor adrift in a sea of unknowing, dissatisfied hesitancy. They would start to find their clothes itching and their attention drifting to the lie of the nose hair within their nostrils; their eyes seeking someone else’s, anyone else’s, across the gathering in the hope of more stimulating, rewarding conversation.

Dr Trowell, an intelligent, quietly articulate and informed woman, found she did not require herself to present her acquired knowledge for public scrutiny. Some acquaintances might describe her as introverted, some might say withdrawn, nay, aloof. However, she felt no necessity or desire to defend herself against such judgements. Despite her intelligence she was deliberately, resolutely free from opinion on most matters and consequently lacked any social ambition to present a case or argue a point.

Despite her best efforts however, it was with alarming frequency the Dr Gwendoline Trowell found herself in such circumstances. Being the sole physician within this small community she was regarded with the same degree of respect and honour in which her predecessor Dr Nightingale had been held. She was judged by many of the towns more prominent movers and shakers as an integral member of ‘polite society’. She would be invited to any and every meeting called in the name of some local issue - the inadequacy of street lighting; the lack of receptacles for the depositing of dog excrement; later, after a satisfactory outcome, the continued determination of local dog owners to scatter, willy-nilly, the droppings of their canine companions.

Dr Gwendoline Trowell, also an Elder in the local United Reformed Congregation, was the first name mentioned when local dignitaries were required to populate committees. She was seconded onto the Jumble Sale Committee, the Charitable Donations Committee, was appointed a member of the Harvest Festival Committee, voted prime candidate to chair the Celebrate The Animals Day Committee and many more.  She would dutifully attend and purely by that attendance she felt she contributed, and was indeed thanked by those who had appointed, invited or seconded, for her valuable contribution and the personal sacrifice of her precious time. Inevitably however, the coffee would start to flow after the business was done. Fairy cakes, or if the season required them mince pies, would appear and Dr Gwendoline would find herself closing down, folding herself up, shrinking in form, becoming more and more translucent, until that blessed moment of complete invisibility when she could be confident that her presence was not only no longer required but, moreover, not even experienced by her fellow committee members.

She would step back slowly, allow the space between others to become a void, a vacuum that naturally required filling. She would observe the subtle movement of feet, the shifting angles of toes and elbows, the wordless language of shoulders. She would systematically gather her belongings around her, then build them into the structures required for departure - coat folded and draped upon her forearm; handbag looped over wrist then carried to the crook of her elbow; gloves held in the correct alignment in the palm of one hand. And then after the required period of silent contemplation of the group and with the slightest of voiceless clearing of her throat she would reverse and then turn towards the door, unnoticed, unseen, unmissed.

Back at her front door, as the key turned in the lock she would mentally allow the emotional tumblers within her mind to fall away. She would release the collected tensions of the day with a series of short ‘Ah!’s.
Kettle on. ‘Ah!’
Cat stroke. ‘Ah!’
Jim Reeves, slippers, sofa. ‘Ah, ah, ah!’
A cup of tea and a schooner of sweet, rich cream Sandemans - she would sit and read into the small hours, murder mystery being her favourite fare, preferably with graphic descriptions of forensic autopsy.


So when the local drama group - performing as the Minster Minstrels - asked her to become a patron, she felt, as ever, obliged to accede. She attended meetings quarterly to ensure that the group’s charitable status was held up to scrutiny and that all monies raised and expended were correctly accounted for.

After a twelve months, she was asked if she could assist in a more practical way in the mounting of the Christmas pageant - a retelling with music of the legend of Sleeping Beauty. She agreed to act as assistant to the wardrobe ‘mistress’, Mr Carmichael.

The following year - Cinderella - Mr Carmichael regarded her assistance as understood, and Dr Gwen found herself also undertaking other light Stage Management duties including a brief foray onto the stage itself as part of a sleight of theatrical deceit. Cinderella was to be transformed at midnight back to the raggedy girl of Act One before the very eyes of the audience. There would be an extravagant lighting effect, a cloud of purple smoke (in keeping with the Fairy Godmother’s richly coloured cape and bonnet) and it would fall to Dr Gwen to enact the heroine’s fleeting escape, dressed as the be-cindered urchin, while Annabelle D’Urquhart, playing the titular role, performed a rapid change in the wings.

Dr Gwen played her part competently enough. Annabelle, in her princessly regalia, exited the stage under the cover of purple haze, and Dr Gwendoline scurried out in her rags, an arm shielding her face as if in shame, but really simply to preserve the illusion that the transformation had been magical and instantaneous. But Dr Gwen noticed the shortness of her breath, the racing of her pulse. She recognised the dryness in her mouth and the taste of adrenaline at the back of her throat and afterwards, only afterwards, recognised the pleasure of the moment and the slight fall of disappointment when the performances were all done and the production but a memory.

It was however the following year when Dr Gwendoline Trowell found her voice and as Snow White’s wicked Stepmother, Effluvia, she commanded the stage at every entrance and sent several small children home with dampened undergarments and nighttime terrors.

And afterwards, as she sat in the evenings and cast her mind back to the boos and hisses she had received, and the thrill that such responses had evoked in her, she found herself revelling in the memory of those moments. She found that Sandeman’s Sherry now seemed rather too sweet and that Vodka had a somewhat pleasing fire. She found herself purchasing a packet of cigarillos, despite the professional diatribes she had listened to as a junior doctor and had frequently relayed to her patients.

She decided, as she considered her various duties and responsibilities, that Mr Turbot, whom she had always found to be rather opinionated as Chairman of the Rotary Club would probably do well to keep some of those opinions to himself in future, otherwise, perhaps, she might find she had to ‘say something’. In fact was it not time for one or two changes in the accepted state of affairs in the Rotary Club and in one or two of the other organisations of which she was, was she not, an integral member?


prompt: A poor disguise.

24.09.2019

Sidings and Dead Ends

‘You must remember how Jet tried to herd the ducks, Dad. You remember that don’t you? When we first got him...Dad?’

He turned to look at me although it seemed he was still looking out of the window.
‘Eh, Dad? D’you remember Jet? When he was young?’
‘Jet,’ he said.
‘Yes, Jet. The collie. You loved him, didn’t you.’
‘He’s a clever thing, Jet. He’ll need his tablet. I haven’t given him his tablet today.’
‘Oh you don’t need to worry about that, Dad.’
‘The vet said it’d help.’
‘Yes, but he doesn’t need it any more, does he. Not any more.’
Suddenly, he brightened.
‘He was a clever dog, Jet. He really was.’
He looked out the window again but seemed to be catching an image in his mind. ‘Uncle Peter gave him to me. I went over on Sunday and picked him up. Tiny thing he was then. But I knew right away he was a clever ‘un.’
Dad smiled to himself but I could see how the thought faded, the connections in his mind dissolving again. His smile sagged, lost its animation. His mouth held the shadow of it over his teeth, but the life had gone again.
‘Do you want some more tea, Dad? Shall I get you a fresh cup?’
His eyes flickered towards me.
‘Pass me your cup, Dad. I’ll pour you some more.’
I reached for the cup that sat on the table to the side of his chair. He watched my hand move and then with surprising speed he reached out and snatched the cup indignantly - as if it were his final possession.
‘I was just going to pour you some more tea, Dad. Would you like some?’
He lifted the cup to his lips and tipped the tiny drop of cold liquid into his mouth.
‘They haven’t asked me to do anything yet,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. You’d think they would have all that sorted out, wouldn’t you...’
‘I think they just want you to relax, Dad.’
‘What?’
I don’t think they expect you to do anything... except rest.’
‘You’d think they’d sort all that out before they got us all here, wouldn’t you...’
‘I suppose so, Dad.’
‘We won’t have much time if they don’t get it all sorted out soon, will we? It’d be a rush. A rush job. Can’t be doing a rush job.’
‘No, Dad.’
He looked out across the grounds again. The groundsman was cutting the grass with a large petrol-powered lawn mower. We watched as he guided the machine in gentle parallel sweeps around the edges of the borders. The engine chuntered across the afternoon lawns like a bumble bee in a glass jar.
‘It’s too wet to cut the grass today.’
‘I don’t think it is, Dad.’
‘After all that rain. It’ll be too wet. He shouldn’t do it today.
‘But it hasn’t rained for days, Dad. Not since...’
‘He’ll ruin the lawn with that great thing on the wet ground. On the wet grass. He’ll chew it all up.’
‘I think he knows what he’s doing, Dad.’
‘Where’s my stick? Go and tell him. Tell him to stop’
‘Dad, I really...’
‘Where’s my stick? Go on! He’ll ruin the lawn.’
He bent from his chair scraping towards the floor in search of his stick.
‘Ok, ok...’
‘Go tell him.’
‘Ok, I’ll go tell him.’
I stood up and walked behind his chair, confident that this moment would pass as rapidly as his animation had been aroused. I walked over to the trolley and filled a fresh cup with tea, dropped a splash of milk into it, one sugar cube, and stirred as I returned to my father.
‘Here you go, Dad, I’ll put it here.’
He looked at me, startled, as if I were a stranger. Here we go, I thought.
‘Where’s Sid?’
‘Sid?’ I felt a pang twist in my chest.
‘Who are you? Where’s Sid? Sid should be here.’
‘It’s his afternoon off, Dad.
‘Sid knows how I like it.’
‘Your tea? I know, too.’
‘Sid knows. Where is he?’
‘Listen, Dad. Sid’s off this afternoon. It’s me, Michael, Dad. I’ve just popped in to say hello. To see how you are.’
He craned back in his chair and looked at me.
‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’
‘You’re looking well.’
‘I’m fine.’
I’d met Sid before. Seen him dealing with my father. He was good. Treated him with respect. I liked that. His was an unsentimental gift to which my father responded well. The infrequency with which I could visit left me always on the cusp of stranger-hood. Sid was here everyday. My father could rely on him. But I felt a subtle acidic flow in my stomach.
‘Where’s Sid?’
My father continued to mutter the question, more to himself than out loud. But I doubted that he asked for me when I was not around.
Again the connections dissolved in his mind. Like points on a railway track splitting his train of thought along different lines. Sidings and dead ends. No thought lasted for much more than a minute. His mind could not navigate a pause in the momentum of an exchange. Synapses would fire and trigger each other but there was no mental network to keep them clustered together.
‘Do you remember your train set, Dad? Do you remember?’ He could usually pick up on this thread. ‘Do you remember how it folded down from the wall? On that platform you built?’
He looked at me and smiled. I could see him remembering. It was a magnificent construction. OO-gauge. Yards and yards of track looping around itself, between modelled mountain scapes. Slopes prickled with wire brush pine trees. Velveteen meadows.  Miniature stations, signals, the paraphernalia of the railway in minuscule detail. And a hole in the centre of this little world where Dad would stand as the Great Controller. He’d lower the whole thing down on Sunday afternoons and pop up through the hole, don his guard’s cap and, with a wink at me, flick a series of switches to start each little electric locomotive off on its journey, announcing each as he did so.
‘All aboard. Mind the gap between the train and the platform.’ Then he’d blow a sharp retort on his Thunderer whistle, saved from his days as a football coach.
‘Have you still got your whistle, Dad?’
Again his eyes lit up. He reached out to his table and pulled open the drawer. Pushed his hand in and stirred at the contents. But a look of panic spread across his face. He looked at me. Then back at the drawer. Started pulling things out and throwing them aside. Letters, a comb, a pot of Vaporub, a palm cross from some ancient Ash Wednesday. His agitation increased.
‘Can I help you, Dad? Shall I have a look?’
I stood and walked around the back of his chair to the table. Gently I placed a hand upon his shoulder and then softly stroked down his arm to his searching hand. He eyed me again, wondering who the stranger was.
‘Let me have a look, Dad’
I gently eased his hand back out of the drawer and placed it on the arm of his chair.  He didn't resist.  I sensed his tension relax as the thought processes behind the search evaporated in his mind again. His mind could no more sustain agitation than focus. I opened the drawer wider and spotted the whistle nestling at the back.
‘Here it is, Dad.’ I took it out and held it towards him. But he looked at it with empty eyes.
‘Here’s your whistle,’ I said again. He reached out and took it from me simply because he could tell I wanted him to but not from any point of recognition.
He studied it, then looking at me he raised it to his lips. The sensation of the metal on his lips must have triggered a muscle memory and he blew a soft stream of breath into it. The pea inside fluttered under the weak current of air. Then this soft sound seemed to trigger a further reaction. He took a deeper breath and suddenly blew a mighty blast on the whistle. It pierced the quiet of the room. A resident on the far side jolted awake.
‘Shut up! Shut up!’
Dad blew again, hard and shrill.’
‘Stop that! Stop it now, you idiot.’
The commotion brought a blue uniformed orderly through the door to investigate. She stood trying to analyse the scene but the whistle had already dropped from his mouth and Dad had drifted away into his familiar mist.




prompt: Part of his memory he did not visit

blackberries, 2019

     we have come out early

this year and

before the heat of the day

have stretched legs up the hill

to Carr Wood

     the blackberries

in thick clusters

hang from vines, still cradled away

in bush tops

hoist in bindweed canopies

behind barbed brambles

and stealthy nettles

smirking beneath a green palace 

an angry salad of leaves

     for we are the first

this year

to assault this harvest

to marvel at the crop

the dropping wealth

of sunblessed flesh that

slips between fingers

and into our mouths

a flood of perfumed berry blood

as our tongues

press to mash

these precious clots

     and we pick

in silence

mostly

the girl and I

cast in memories and thoughts

of other years

and when we speak

we talk again

of hedgewitch

of rosehip, sloe and haw

of lost recipes

folklore

and ancestors

and on the brambles' thorns

we swear a tacit blood pact

that should we never again

do this together

we will always have done it

today

     but you

have stayed behind

despite our invitation

because it was not in your plan

for the morning

or you found some other hesitation

that held you home

     we are disappointed

and relieved

for this harvesting

has become our thing

we forage for links that bind us

and we find them

in the gathering

of this rich fruit

something in that room

disregard the dirt

the windows, clouded

draped with cobwebbed curtains

I have lived here

and hear the echoes of your laughter

silver cords

bind my heart's bones

to each object

resonant in the afternoon sun

playing the melody of memories

as from each something

in that room

a note vibrates

I had hair then

and skin-soft hands

and we were afloat

in the womb of the moment

and still are here

a fading harmonic

despite the cobwebs

clouded windows

and the dust

7^th May, 2019