in the arms of a saxophone
i have passed through
in the arms of a saxophone
through the conscious
into a dream world
of fairgrounds oiled and
electricated in a light spin
through time’s barred gate
down back back down
upon an exhale
upon a dimming
of a diminuendo
upon reading an anthology
what mind of past is sitting here with me
staring steadfast there with waiting eyes
for my mind to catch my breath and choke
upon what is written in posterity laid down
the thoughts of many a poor minded soul
spun upon a past day’s turning fine around
a realisation that every time will in its time
sway the composure of the haunted souls
fell certain their penned pinnacle had been
reached by well-spring’s much divined time
lessons painly received at their steadfast hour
when the clock chimes stop long turned to
me and invite a nodded tear and a beloved
smile that all is well between us now as well
Shani’ s poems
the pebbles are so smooth
they don’t seem at all cold
your poems
hanging like a drop
in a drop of sadness
page after turning page
to the end
jerking back
from an enveloping sleepiness
the recognitions
in the reflections that are gone
but
as soon as you look back at them
re-read them
they look back with a harder stare
so gorgeous in their goneness
https://hybriddreich.co.uk/a-crows-diet-shani-cadwallender/
armistice day
he didn’t hear
or he did hear but ignored
as usual
he did not grasp what was a said
the annoy tannoy in the supermarket
he didn’t comprehend
why they were all standing
unmoving everywhere
while he fingered the apples on
the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour
of the eleventh day of the eleventh month
on the eleventh aisle
on the eleventh shelf
for the eleventh item on his list
but
he did notice the shelf stacker
who gave him a look that could kill
what an armistice
minute over
and the clamour laughed
as the shop ‘till you drop laid a wreath
on the aisle of the unknown shopper
eleven was the price for one
pay at the final checkout
triple points today
nothing is such a big word
it was a small case
not a valise
that’s a posh word
no!
it was a small brown case
shaped like a suitcase
with a handle that moved like a playground jerker
no it was not leather it was
ar tif ic ial
like every part of this bloody farce
the inventory
or should that be outventory
laugh - i nearly cried
the list as short as a full stop
"patient’s property"
impatient to be signed off
sent in a different direction
nothing personal
no!
what i mean is
there was nothing personal in there
just facecloth sort of things
i was carrying away nothing
he was now nothing
he was on a cold slab with his false teeth
soon to be cremated
returned to sender
i threw them in the bin
the nothings
dusting out the case i started to fill it
with memories
used my tears to shine it like real leather
i found that is was always half-full
stuffing it with everything everywhere
it was always half-full
::nothing::
is such a big word
remembrance
how strong the imagination is
in the asking of remembrance
could it have been different
when it wasn’t
does the ubiquity of pain
in these days bar those days
to come again
is it too late to imagine the future
and to start to say no to yes
yes or no
it is a simply hard question
private
do i want private medical cover
the advert asks
as if it could stop covid
or save the die
but more it illuminates
the cost dichotomy
of the risks to health
of you and me and what
money
cannot buy
so why not share it
why oh why
do we die of penury
me and you
an you and me
i look up and see
a collared dove preening in the tree
such simple things
end at death and yet
you ask me to buy the queue
so that i can sit ahead of you
and i ask again
my stupid friend
sorry if i offend
but can you buy off death for me
if i harvest the money tree and
why would i want medical cover
to live by the death of my brother
oh brother oh brother
when this is over
there will must has to be
a reconsider
a revolution in society
or the game will be up
for you and me
and then global warming
now there’s another thing
that private this or private that
or a nod and wink
or a quiet chat
will never solve this century
and if it does not it will be
the end of you and the end of me
seriously
seriously
seriously!
sort of
all those panic moments of childhood
those anagrams of resilience
made us who we are now -
the slipped knots of short term memory
tide tight around childhood’s hand
so here we stand - sort of
looking
this grey tide of lockdown
this sea rolling over your head
silver the growth a hair’s breath
from an age to come that now
arrives in a wondrous smile
early birds
here they are the morning dunnocks
there they are
here they are
darting pecking
here the robin
gone the robin
whoa ~ whoa ~ here comes blackbird
man he knows
with mrs blackbird
waltzing the morning
in the rain
when tumbles the wren
down the corkscrew hazel
with long tailed acrobatic tits
are very able
when blob the wood pigeon
lands the day
pecks a bit and flies away
rat a tat tat the magpie lands
with plenty of time on his hands
boxing his gloves he spins around
from all the other birds not a sound
and the cat inside the window
would make of each an early widow
but but but but
they know these morning birds of day
and with an impudent wink they fly away
(i’m off)
here
(throws them up in the air)
take the bloody lot
suit yourself
eat in plenty from the menu
or leave aside
here
(kicks them across the floor)
suit yourself
pick up the flower buds
or step on the bugs
here
(shouting and turning)
you lot i’m talking to the lot of you
you all have personal tastes
here is a trough for you
here
(dollops it in)
swill this around your mouth
swallow the sweet
puke up the poisoned words
more than enough to go around
here
i’m off
(snapping the pencils)
write your bloody own
i’ve dumped my dump
between these mountebank pages
caveat emptor
every jail a palace
every palace a jail
right
the lines you could write i have written
wrote by wrought what you have thought
taught by rote the rhymes of time
taught on a rope to trope the sky
into the orbit of your eye
aye i have written what you have thought
that you could have written but it’s not
come to naught this thought
that i have written just in time is
ours in hours this thought of mine
now it is yours and might
stir you to write
lines that i might have written
if you had naught
is just a thought
january’s window
and every shed is steaming
in the sublimation of the sward
and every tree is leaning above the
sun snow across the yard
and
the cat is watching a pigeon
staring hard hard so hard
and the pigeon it is pecking pecking
pecking out there across the yard
chipped
my favourite cup is chipped
where the cat knocked it off the table
sharp just below the pattern
no longer am i able
to use it says bugger it
why not i say why not
more to myself than to another
it’s the best cup that i got
miscellany - that is a good word - if good is the correct word in a miscellany of words - what do you say when you mean miscellany is a mystery - now that word is OK - but not as good as - miscellany - what do you say
Captivated
In my childhood I was bemused by the metronome of girls skipping:
Salt
Pepper
Vinegar and
Mustard
or was it
Salt
Mustard
Vinegar and
Pepper
and
What did the repeated incantation mean?
Was I safe from it?
Now I am captivated.
look - lest you ever forget
winter
it snows
we take photographs
blizzards of them
remembering
crumbs of comfort
budding clichés
spring will be
and soon enough
we’ll take the photographs
remembering
the opening of the soil
the snooooooze of summer
languid the lens
dazzling the days
in so many many ways
fades the photographic colour
sepia smiles autumn
falling over the mulch
of clichéd photographs
snowing of leaves
like the snow we photographed
blizzards of them
a photograph of a year book
placed inside the year book
for a photograph
look - lest you ever forget
the lens is the wheel
on the cycle of life
wobbling now and then
sometimes going arse over tit
into the shit
now that really is a photograph
My zinc bath
I bathed in a zinc bath in front of the fire
My Airsporter rifle could punch holes in a zinc bath
I grew spuds in a zinc bath
I kept frogs in a zinc bath
Seen them rusted through - eventually
Like a childhood enthral
Drummed on them with sticks
Small ones and large ones
Long ones and oval ones
Ones with a soap suds layer
Ones with a grit bottom
Ones with a scrubbing board and carbolic
Two handles to spill a dream
One handle to hang to dry
One day on another day
I will look back on the bath
And laugh
on that peak again
i’m reading keats and i am back again
at a desk hand polished and
scoured by compasses
indeed
signed deep with ink and slammed
shut on fingers to be tucked under
knees benched hard in concentration
on the words read loud and chalked
off sir’s gown pacing and parsing the words
back and forth we recite
in the feeling
that it is our turn on that peak in darien
and i am at that very desk again
and we are reading keats again
and again and again
that kind of a day
a morning that refuses to move
grey
wet
windy
a morning’s inability to ignore
staring
hackles
deciding
the rising rising of the tide’s
calling
minding
swimming
in thoughts that refuse to move
mine
long
held
thought’s inability to ignore the
drip
drip
drip
drip
drip
dripping
a poet takes a snooze
give me a promenade
with a bandstand and deckchairs
shrieking icecream running in the
warm grass all the way down to the sea
moan wind door widow jammed
in days that in laying in wait
for the grey to decide and speak
where once the boredom lay
on this a winter’s day that may never end
although they always do
well they always have up to now
but this one (mmm says this one)
may run into floods
may wade into tomorrow’s grit
take all the poets’ words
they do not own them
chew them claw and fling them
touch them into the places
where the ligaments give way
and clamped jaws may smile
the hook that extends the child’s being
deep into the dark catching of the fish
that proves that all imagined depths
can be and sometimes are real
give me some stones
mortar of an idea
i’ll build a tower
a sneeze that blows a pollen thought
down along the summer breeze in the
time of a child’s dark secret thoughts
that should ne’er have been thought
but thought they were
branched
calligraphied there in the snow
cliché black and twisted bent where
the wind has leant for far too long
upon the gaunt thought of waiting
upon the drifting
upon the blurring
of eyes closed in the twirling
one to the other’s turning
silk like
trance like
beneath any understanding of the why
the branching sought the touching of fingertips
budding in the touching
in the turning one to another
touching as urgent as the wind presses the moment into being
into the consummation
the way the tree relaxes when the snow drops
as we turn prone to the tracing of the footsteps
that merged under the snow’s dawning
and now
asleep in the time that has had its time
knowing
not what that was
other than that it was now
that the black branches remembered the spring
the tight buds pulsed almost imperceptibly
in everything everywhere there was a pregnancy
in the untwirling of spliced time
