News from Somewhere

 

We are not responsible for the situation

We inherited, in fact,

I would go so far as to say,

It is always someone else’s fault;

That is my rule of thumb, except that

We are all in this together,

Having assembled here to reach an agreement

As to how to deal with the hordes

Massing on our borders.

 

Be careful not to make anyone else

Obliged to you or dependent upon you;

Even the lightest touch could become

The burden of generations;

Then again, aren’t we free, in the best of

All possible retail outlets? Although remember

Not to choose from more than six tempting

Items at a time or confusion may result.

 

The pursuit of our own goals and

The happiness we are all owed

Means never having to say we’re sorry

And aren’t we all now connoisseurs, our own

Experts, for which we need only Wikipedia,

Valid ID, a suitable credit rating and superfast broadband?

So let empires rise and fall and let

The wonders of nature, the Grand Canyon,

Your feature wall, continue to awe us

As we tread humbly and simply upon our way.

Technology

For Emily Payne

 

I am learning to live

Long-distance;

 

Instead of your face

And the warm

Creaturely smell of my

Grandchildren, through circumstance

I must become the

Late adopter of

 

The heart to heart of Facebook,

The loving touch of Amazon,

 

The Twitter of

Thoughts too deep for tears.

 

Among Strangers

 

Whatever Mum and Dad did to me

(Years spent coming to no conclusion)

I ended up in the foreground

With them in the middle distance.

 

Now, after divorce, deaths, illnesses,

I find I’m looking at you through

The same lens, and wishing, painfully,

That you were more over here than over there.

My Lost Family

 

I live in the cold place

Where my family once lived,

And I panic when

Their melamine cupboards,

Their Coronation biscuit tins

Seem to be collapsing into

The demolition man’s dust.

 

If I look for them

There’s a coldness like lino

And a silence. Since

I didn’t appreciate them

Enough in life

Now I miss them terribly

Because they’re gone.

 

How can I rattle around

This downstairs of my mind

All alone, from the very

Beginning all alone,

And stay alone because

I don’t write, because

They don’t telephone?

 

My only comfort is this:

I’ve never been one to

Value kin just as kin

But always made my

Connections via empathy,

Elective affinity, hence,

 

This open coalhouse door

This empty scullery.

The Right Kit For The Road

For AVT

 

No Bible, no Koran,

No Boys’ Book of Jungle Skills,

No smartphone, no iPad,

 

No deeds of property, no statements of account,

No foundations, no rooftops,

No snappy little runabouts,

 

No cash, no plastic,

No builders’ tea, no bacon rolls,

No Oyster cards, no tickets outta here,

 

No beer, no fags,

No other substances of which we shall not speak,

No  brow bars, no Grecian 2000,

 

No Jesus saves, no loyalty cards,

No Nectar points, no watch nights,

No Elvis, no Dylan, no Yoko and me,

 

Only the smell of Spring on the wind

And ragged memories like holiday snaps,

 

Only his word on your lips

And on your shoe, this speck of dust.

 

 

Question

What can I say to

the child with no home

who wakes screaming in the night?

Who will calm his paroxysms,

douse his worlds on fire?

Late Style

 

I find I’m writing

Plain and spare

Not looping the loop

In an old man’s freehand.

 

For while they raced

Against time with fierce urgency

I’m refining it all down

To a hard-won simplicity.