Magic

My parents handed me the book called ‘How To Disappear’. It seems they’d been practising for most of their lives and had it more or less right. My mother in particular could dematerialise for quite a long time while I sat self-admonishing and amazed. It was easier for my father, who could not be seen all day behind vans and lorries at the Co-op garage and left the bones but no flesh on his kipper at the tea table.

From them I learned to self-erase before gypsies, anyone posh, commissionaires, waiters and floor walkers. Where the police and insurance men were concerned, it was possible to seem to be there but in fact to be nowhere at all.

I used this ruse to my advantage for most of my life in that I could disappear at will when danger threatened. More’s the pity I eventually forgot how to come back.

My Dad was the first to complete the riskiest vanishing act of all. Then my Mum followed after a few years in which she gradually made herself invisible but would keep coming back as a Cheshire Cat grin.

Now they’re both undetectable by the naked eye. Good trick!

Me, I’m still working on the piece de resistance they so perfected. At the moment I’m absent for a good part of the day. I’ve worked on my insubstantiality with children, old friends, siblings, relatives and anyone who’s done me down.

There’s just you, curse you. You see me and even with smoke and mirrors there’s no escape. You take my hand and I’m there. Such scrutiny I cannot bear. The light’s too bright. The room too vivid.

A lifetime’s work under threat!! This poem is my plot to regain the advantage of not being here. For while you’re reading it, I’ll perform the spell I’ve memorised until you understand this poem had no author, no progenitor, no creator.

Only the wind rushing at the door, the wires strumming, the indifference of the rain.

Elegy for the Sixties

Dantalian only listens to old Bob Dylan albums and, as for the new stuff, asked his mate to get him the remastered ‘Tapestry’.

The God of Hell Fire grumbles about anything and everything, from the NHS to the way the deficit has stymied the life chances of his flower children.

In his Welsh retreat, Principal Edward leads a rural life, mostly alone with his books and Radio 4, although he’s winding up the affairs of his old Mum who finally chose to stop wandering in the Samsāra.

In a surprise move, Wavy Gravy was ambushed by the very music he loved because his blue meanie neighbours played it too loud at all hours. Now he seeks only silence.

Judy Blue Eyes became a committed Christian and sends out prayers to all sinners everywhere.

The last I heard, Blind Boy Grunt ended up a Headmaster but developed Crohn’s disease because the kids were further to the right than Thatcher and hated hippies.

Peace to you,
My old friends,
Peace to you all,
Shantih shantih shantih,
Peace and Love...

‘..sweet dreams and flying machines
In pieces on the ground..’

Icarus

He would not have fallen so far if he
Had not aimed so high.

He thought that flight was his idea
Too self-righteous to notice
His parents and grandparents whispering
Him on.

You could understand his unease
At every secret nod, every
Funny handshake, but he thought
The air would lift him up
And the rest would come anon.

How sad his deflation,
Splayed like a slapped rabbit
In his field of dreams
Crushing the daisies and his
Life’s foundations eating dirt
His own words and humble pie.

Looking For Jack

i.m. John Harvey 1923-2011

Did you see him?

Was it his boots that tapped a steady clip
Down to the forge in the early morning
And back home to his wife and daughters
In the forgiving dusk?

Did you hear him?

Was it his stories, jokes so droll
He lifted his head and let out the open-throated laugh
That was one man’s amazement
At life’s little absurdities?

Was that his sigh?

The satisfaction of having found
His true pal, raised his family,
Stayed at the same firm for forty years,
Built the best life his hands could make?

Then, having seen his daughters married,
He retired with full honours
And struck out bravely in his sixties
On package tours to see a bit of the world,
Opened up to life,
Danced once again to a proper big band
By an Italian lake in the moonlight.

Diminished, widowed, unseeing,
Only his final year was one of chastened
Hope, of a stuttering in his
Master plan, in the beautiful arc of his life.

Was it him after all?
Did he pass this way?

I only know this,
Putting the bratty DJ in the flat below
To shame, out of an open window
I heard, not hymns, but
Frank, Sammy, Ella, Dino, Duke,
Giving even his last days
A thumbs-up style,
A sure-footed grace,
A perfect swing.

Seeing God

for Athanase Vantchev de Thracy

In the death zone,
In the terminal café,
Every November morning,
Every late afternoon,
Every cough and twitch,
Is a source of wonder,
In teary mindfulness,
The world you’re about to leave
Begins to shine
Since, if you will, it is
And has always been,
Infused with God,

But those of us who are still
Abreast of the boom and bust
On every High Street, where the glory junkies,
The losers, enraged and self-righteous,
Mutter to themselves,
Must tear their raiment
Before they can clearly see
Through the nauseating lurch of
The world’s seasickness,
God in the lay-by,
God in the car park,
God in the service area,
God on the unadopted road.

Death On A Shoestring

Should you be favouring the economy version of Death in a time of recession,
Here is our experts’ list of handy hints and tips.
Of course, (and this for all Radio 4 listeners),
In many cultures, minimal is the given.
It’s not simply a question of inadequate water and sanitation
Or lack of laptops or iPods, but more that
You can’t take it with you and so you reduce life to
Its essentials: a friendly word, a spoonful of porridge,
A Coca Cola, a cellular blanket and a motherly nurse.
Don’t give in to the depressive mode,
Death takes all away, so ask your doctor for some
SSRI inhibitors, and don’t forget to give yourself small treats,
Some M&Ms, a new handbag, some Jimmy Choos.
Open the curtains, the night is over. It’s a new day
Full of productivity and wealth creation.
Those dreams were Nature’s car crash TV,
Don’t believe a word (or Google it).
And your loneliness, your numbness,
Your lift to the Lower Ground (the Bottom Line),
Your Senior Moments (there goes the past),
Your disappointment with the way it’s turned out
(There go the present and the future)?
Privatisation would stop all that; down with the
Nanny State and its vested interests;
Eat your soup, read your ‘Daily Mail’,
Your last moments on earth,
Your last day in the light of your Earth Mother’s eyes,
Will be aromatic as a download,
As cosily familiar as John Lewis,
As zero degree as a thousand shopping days,
For are we not, with our sharpened cheekbones
And our anorexic needs,
The sina qua non of shabby chic?

Houses

Who haunts the old house now,
Now Mum and Dad are gone?
Whose footsteps clang through the scullery,
Down the concrete steps, along the plastic
Matted passageway?

Even then, the doors were bursting with
Rats, cockroaches, neighbours, oiks;
We had to push all together to
Keep them out, to make sure things
Were kept the proper way.

Now my houses might as well be
Hot air balloons or parachutes,
For intruders forced their way in
And found me, so that, homeless,
I walk unshod roads, sleep on seas.

And who are they? Who cooks where
They used to cook, DIYs where they
Used to hammer and paint?
Who squats, which home invaders?
Ghosts, cold callers, fly posters, strolling bones.

Endings

We came here to escape endings,
But endings follow us even here;
If we had no mobiles, if we
Didn’t buy the papers and watch the evening
News, would we escape them?

Would they send sky writers, Banksy,
Sign painters or reinvent the telegram?
Somehow they’d find a way to force the words
Before our faltering eyes: Cancer,
Hospice, Palliative Care, The Big D.

Is it too much to ask for some respite?
OK, it’s all part of life but don’t we
Deserve at least to step outside in the morning and,
In the green moment, breathe the unexcited air,
And stare into the white wide wordless sky?

Conkers

We used to make toys from Nature’s bargain bins,
The smooth shiny autumn fruit that lay around in recs, on incidental pathways;

We’d carry them home like treasure trove,
Put them on window sills to admire, though
Some would bake them or soak them in
Vinegar to fight the next day’s battles
In the Darwinian democracy of the playground.

All around me chaos and change I see, appearances
And disappearances, deaths, departures,
Emergencies, while I would have Time
As smooth, round and firm, as easy
To hold, as conkers, as pebbles smoothed by the sea,
As anything that I can hold that will not fall apart on me.