poetry diary

I break the yellowed beeswax crust,
like muddied ice on moorland paths;
and fingers gather stubborn lumps,
which cling, like peat.

Roughened leather, weather-washed;
these boots have waited on the shelf –
two children, mortgages and jobs –
three decades since

first making fearless tracks through bogs.
I’ll start with rigid toes: scarred, scuffed,
consuming wax, and gritstone-hard
like Froggatt Edge.

Yellow runnels form, working back,
like sheep paths up on Kinder Scout,
but warm and fade to firming hands –
my fingers sting

from friction rather than raw cold;
and pleasures of secret valleys,
days’ ends and pack-less walks to pubs
awake again

as fingertips, now numb, relax
on yielding, loosened tongues; enjoy
eyelets and subtle seams, still etched
with nineties’ wax.

This scent is history and mud,
tired colours deepening like love –
massaged boots becoming landscapes;
laces, snow-waxed hills.

 *****************

Froggatt Edge and Kinder Scout (pronounced with a  short ‘i’, like in India) are hills in Derbyshire, UK, near where I grew up. I used to do a lot of hill walking in my late teens and early 20s.

Posted at dVerse.

In Homeric disputation
With civil servants, in chorus,
From Departments of uncertain
Provenance and purpose,

A strangely passioned obstacle
I sit, attempting to fulfil
Great Birmingham and Solihull’s
Most democratic will.

By whose selection (ill-advised?)
I bring my radical appeal –
To officers and time-served staff,
In meetings rarely real.

And daily stand for ‘common-sense’
(Or sometimes things only I know)
From conference room to conference room
In rain, sunshine or snow.

Though warm my welcome everywhere,
Governments come and go so fast,
I cannot say from day to day
If policy will last.

Unless I speak of energy,
A world of which I know a touch,
When people know so little now,
I don’t need to say much.

It does, however, bother me,
When a government announcement
Fresh in from the great capital
– I’m sure it is well meant –

Misspells this proud old region’s name,
Confuses their East with our West;
So simply thus reminding us
That apathy is best.

**********

* This poem is a deliberate ‘parody’ of a poem by W H Auden called ‘On the Circuit’ which I’ve written as an exercise suggested on a poetry course I’m reading. Auden himself suggested writing parodies as the best way to understand the poetry of others.

‘On the Circuit’ has 16 stanzas in an 8,8,8,6 rhythmical pattern with the second and fourth lines always rhyming. I’m afraid I collapsed in exhaustion after 8 stanzas, but I’ve also tried to include some of his style with the odd obscure word and a gently ironic tone (?).

I have a voluntary role in one of our local government institutions here, and this poem describes it.

Posted on d’Verse Open Link Night

Amongst the row of faces waiting death
is one I know; her mirrored eyes my own.
Like ancient sailors held in Siren song –
here sung by soft armchairs and patterned rugs –
they sit with cups of tea and biscuits, brought
by strangely purposed nurses, patiently.

Only their eyes resist that strengthening pull –
call back like whales to days long gone
of youthful lives on tennis courts,
school open days with charts and pens,
parental hopes and grandchildren;
of lovers trysts and last year’s post;
to yesterday and slowly fading vows,
and yesterday again, which seems much like tomorrow now.

Amongst the row of faces waiting death
is one I know. She’ll always be my mum.

*********************

This rest home specialises in dementia. We reached the point at which we could no longer cope with caring for my mother in the family home two weeks ago.

Posted on d’Verse Open Link night.