Air with sinuous folds
flows fluid around me
thick with spring ebullience

each footstep more like
arm stroke
swimming languid
in spring itself

the expected hiss-splash
replaced by irrepressible birdsong
and a thrum of insect wings

This simplest trick
this majesty of dropping a degree
or two
and changing water into happiness,
nostalgia,
frozen fingers, cheeks like beacons
mittens heavy with sodden, laughing weight,
your daily haunts

transformed

and yes, the brown sludge days
will come, as always,
but for now the National Lampoon
sledge run past Tumnus
and the boxed delights
can have our hearts and minds

I sat with another clip board, another list
welcoming those whose once small faces,
mad dashes, hot tears
and cold contempts
rattled these walls for five years

Some had beards, some hips, brio,
some adult eyes
that took two or three glances to recognise
the child still in

Almost all had smiles

Behind them, trooping colour to the tennis courts,
their summer school scions
began their own gangly rise
ad infinitum

A pin
asking just enough of the taught surface
to make it give

bang-burst a gust
of shameful, baleful disappointment
snuffing embarrassed cake candles

or gush a splat of misery
to spatter snot and tears
halting high squeals on a summer lawn
as eyes look for answers

We were woollen
as the coach pulled up
alongside the C of E school

our swimming provided free
and municipal
so the stung eyes and barked, sodden ideas
were mitigated

at least if we fell
into the rank brown swells nearby
our inevitable drowning
could be offset:

the boy could swim
and was a king at buying the 5p
Highland Toffee from the machine

I had to move the leaves to see it,
verdant, strong leaves no doubt,
but in the way, all the same

The subtle, spectacular beauty:
a gesture, a colouring, a quiet profound thought
nearly lost to louder voices

Some may see a seeming protection
but deep down will know:
showing, not telling, is queen

Put your ear against the day
lub-dub beat slows
throttle hand gives
deep breaths release
kinked shoulders
and the tears that come could be
for anything

The balm of sun and charcoal smoke
instantly evoke lost togetherness
from the very first time in the eighties
when beguiled by a well fired banger
and Russ Abbot opined a party

Hold fast to the Proustian rush
as soon enough the dim seasons will return
and the muted, sterile days withhold
all but a sense of cold and pause,
so revel in the glut and sing

I’ve never ‘got’ football,
always felt like a bruise
I wasn’t sure how I’d got
or a changing room joke that involved
small ***** or arcane bullying

Perhaps my tutelage was bad
but the pattern in my head
is gammon woven
with misogyny, bigotry
and misunderstood pride

But these boys,
with unhappiness and graft built in,
with ‘other’ credibility,
broad shoulders, tough chins,
make me think that with my time again
I’d have listened

So to them, I opine:
you’ve earned a win,
and have one

The impulse of summer waning
sends an annual, yet always forgotten shift,
the hedgerows and fields conspire
to rewrite the scent enough
so the mind wanders to open fires
and comfort food
even though the sun still beats
scant weeks away we’ll swaddle

Get that window open!
Go on, do it!

Feel the fat rotation of the planet
throwing a little spring our way
to poke our amygdala
and rattle our dormancy

and sure, we know at the back of minds
a bare faced bait and switch is in play
which means our twitching fingers
will seek to put the big coats in the loft
only with dismay to find the grey frost
return to bite our ***** mid-March

but we can dream and show some ankle
can’t we?

We hold out for this spring
harder than a man who’s lost nine digits
to frostbite
so we can point to where it hurts,
be heard,
aware that we’re linked,
a swarm of warmer hands
that need to hold, to cling, to brace
against this lingering, malingering pain

We’re ready to emerge,
but only together
and while inclement, duplicitous weather
still rages
we’re better, sadly,
caved

Hear those Friday beats drop
from hard to soft
as seconds elongate,
minim rests to pause
until all too belatedly
you are freed to remember

With mixed and barbed emotions
these thick and heavy days defy physics
individually grinding
yet weekly whipping by

But in this treacled maelstrom
Friday’s unique frisson
still brings a cheeky tickle

Mist chose to linger a while,
though mild air belied October.

Overwhelmed by birdsong,
loud against the abstract silence
of these adolescent sentinels,
stood like arboretum trees
filled with the gravitas
of no age, no age at all.

The year passed as always
with them growing taller,
bolder, a little more aware
of wisdom’s cost
and the one they lost.

I forget myself sometimes
in nettles and dead wood
as feet step on, envious of small things
that skip through barbed brambles
like ladder rungs to new space

I’ll content myself with lungs of open air
and try to care less about slings and arrows
and my Brobdingnagian clump

to be allowed here is enough

To Friday five I apologise,
to my profession and charges
I weaken and give mummers tales,
avoid holes of attention
that tired souls give in to

I love my responsibilities hotly
but there are ends to means,
so weekly turns have starts
which Mondays begin

A red kite passed between the sun and I
momentarily delighting with its shadow,
a shrill cry launched at an empty sky, happy

Hot creosote of neighbours fences
smelt of care and the eighties
while my own untreated panels bleached

By the stream, illegal fishermen dawdled
while the world chose not to care
and for now this snow globe held unshook

The traditional pattern
of a set to for Nomark is this:
against the backdrop of the giant grift
perpetrated by the grand smug *****
he firmly grasps the wrong end of the stick
which, to be fair, is waved at him enough

A poster child for impotent rage
he’ll berate the checkout staff
about a voucher that’s either expired
or, mired in labyrinthine small print,
doesn’t amount to a free diddly squat

Without the words, the means,
the agency to upbraid the bosses
he huffs home on an overcrowded bus
where not a single other ****** wears a mask

There aren’t many jobs
where Sunday night
cold grips your guts
and has you palpitate

while midwives are called
and antiques are roadshowed
every inch of will is bent up
in figuring the impossible

if we all know how leading horses to water ends
then can we not give the stable hands a break?

As I watch my own digits shake,
stable hands seems like a joke
no one lets me in on

1.

I started in the shadow of one of God’s many houses,
fat plums on common ground offered themselves,
taut, bruise-purple skin still pristine
for maybe two, three more weeks

Walking on, a burst fig signaled
something
fresh green torn
scandalously showing fleshy insides
that should be kept private
for lovers, gourmands, gluttons

All the while, intermittently,
the straight line train drones by,
keeping Presbyterian hold
on passing passengers
who through unopened windows
cannot smell, hear or taste the divine

All the while the crickets sang of being

2.

All the while the crickets scored my steps
until ahead, nettle and dog rose conversations
conspired to thwart this man’s,
any man’s,
attempts to walk straight and true

A detour took me from the soft lost chaos of grasses
to tight lawns, hard front doors,
dark-ish satanic mills making wheat biscuits
and the ever sad chorus of a million tyres

Nearing home, a young rabbit’s boldness held
until too close, melted away

in the managed parkland
dragonfly truths called, m’ ducks
dragonfly truths called

Wet grass caps toes,
a long missed inconvenience,
each pace lifting
weight long loved

The dappled, leaf stopped light
tries to placate,
but you won’t stay

Like time and tide
you wipe your face clean
and disappear through trees
with no trail

The bittersweet blast
of ending another
another one.

Weird, unnatural, irrational.

Mixing maudlin with
the electric buzz of new beginnings,
we will drink and sleep,
cheap grins on our faces
‘til we’re adrift in three week’s time.

These days and friends are mine.

Once around the block and done.

No extra-time or after parties,
just a head-spinning rattle
from itching frustration
to breathless incredulity
at the pace of it all

So please, by all means
saunter, dance, crawl, or wriggle
as the situation demands,
although sometimes you’ll still kvetch
at slow walking goons in the supermarket
and want to crack the back of their heads
and educate them about trolley etiquette
and getting the heck out of your
important way

Try to love pastoral pauses,
either in your mind’s green eye
or if lucky, in a glade
as real as bark and river pebbles
where cousins, lovers, friends,
pendulum on rope swings
to an abandoned splash

However hard,
hearts don’t beat well solo

I came down with an absent mind
not fully fixed on seeing you
knowing that the paused world
has changed much
and the art of letting go is survival,
to avoid the pockets of hurt

So with loose hope, I stepped clumsy
to where you’d always been
when with azure shock, there you were,
half-memory, caught
in the high speed shutter of my eye
a teal and orange thrill

Gone as soon as seen
I could lean into the loss,
but I knew you’d been here
to prove this dull distemper will quit
scars that remain will fade
and I’ll see you again

You’ll look close for all its feints,
its lies of needing you
being lost without
while the fingers on your windpipe tighten
and those tears come in place of shouting

loud, steady, drip-drip mention
of blissed futures,
dispatched, ***** pasts,
the present full
of passive aggression
where passivity is too nuanced

you’ll still be there with open arms
and a heart dark with hope,
but that tickle-whisper in your skull
is not just the concussion
not just

Jesus! The sweet burn of a heartbeat racing,
madly light-headed without a drop
passing lips that just
yearned
for want of a more sweaty term

inching to overdose with each reverie
while the colour drains from the now
a quick bump from a caught scent
or piqued memory

or a full on sofa session
pipe packed with young *****
(what dreams may come?)

the result’s the same:
unless you find today’s feast
you’ll atrophy on empty calories
of what was

#youhavepromptedme #flashedback #memory #nostalgia #youth

The fabric usually feels the same
a cloth that remains soft
similar to everyday
until, perhaps, a stain
a rip, a tear

I would love to wear the world
as was before all this
but perhaps my prior idiocy
is why we remember

A brilliant cold
pinching cheeks
like zealous relatives.

As long as you have warmth
to return to
it delivers similar bliss.

The twang of anxiety
and rattle of adrenaline
is hard to dispel
sat facing a laptop
at a kitchen table,
making all video calls
seem like I’m an addict
jonesing for my next fix.
I got the Teams twitch.

On the cusp,
heat on heat on heat
breaking to snot ridden storms
and hoarse, blasted throats

the following cold front
isn’t ideal
but in its heavy blue resolve
lowered pressure leads
to a duvet covered peace

Sitting at our distanced picnic,
a moveable feast in which the scotch eggs
probably have deep significance, I said to you
“We’re only ever inches from the cliff.
If left alone we tread steadily. It’s those
other buggers you have to watch out for.”
and the mist on the windows
stopped us seeing more.

Here’s my thinking:
Sir Kevan probably gave a decent plan
with solid foundations and associated cost
not loss
and all the Ricardians could see
was that it wasn’t all me, me, me
and so slashed away and thought:
those dumb enough to teach
can eat the **** sandwich
it’s not like they do anything that matters,
****** chattering classes,
now, how do we get them to do childcare
for the next six weeks
to stop the knived dead
and angry, apoplectic kids
and make sure their drone folks are on the lines
to feed our fat, fatcat selves?
I’m sure that Portia works for Ofsted...

Tell me you see ice cream,
cold British beaches, amber filtered
hanging bright buckets and spades
and pebbles and sand
tight lanes through time lost green fields
with only hedges passing judgement
tell me you see *****
(the good kind)
and flabby dad *** abs
that remember the potency of other times
tell me you see the sea
tell me you see me there

A sideline:
Nomark stands on a horizon
governed by others
and has no fingers of his own to point

Every misbegotten instinct
tells him to run
from these verbose prigs,
but instincts are felt
not read or heard

Nomark squints as there is sun rising,
in colours that chafe
like eighties underwear
that didn’t breathe

He tries breathing
on his own awhile

Night
a nugget of slide virtuosity
sings clear in the dark
that from the usual velvet hand
somehow has been forgotten

Your brass-burnished touch
has been nothing but felt

Sleep on, whole rest

Bubbling in summer’s bouillon
my vegetal notes abound
leaf and fruit under glass
swell quick but threaten

as a base for my tin *** stews
it’ll do in a pinch
but I already yearn
for the inching roots and tubers
colder autumn brings
when sweats are chosen
and frost rimes
glamourise my grin

This knee used to be fine,
no grinding feelings or immobility,
I crouched like a god

I also had back muscles
that laughed off twisting,
I wiped my *** with gay abandon

My eyes focused when I woke
and any blurriness was a sign
of rock ‘n’ roll

Now, as my supposed wisdom grows,
this flabby mechanism
seems want to say no

Little feet buckled up
in scuffed Clarks,
we ambled down hill

Below, the valley
coloured toasted wheat
smelled of forever

The school hall,
everyday familiar
for singing hosannah
became exotic, foreign

Different games played
and illicit sherbet
in cardboard tubes
to be chewed to a pulp
in carefree mouths

All the term rules fell,
and stayed away
til the apple trees called time

I can stay and die
or I can try to go where angry folk don’t want me

Death, or raging pink faces
is a choice of sorts,
but still no place, no home

So, beheading, or maybe hanging,
lynched by dragging,
or if lucky, shot alone,

versus locking up in a green walled facility,
****** as it may be,
until someone takes a moment to judge me safe,
is luxury

Or maybe I’ll be deported,
doomed,
I struggle to see your view against me

As a young brown man I know I’m done,
I might have a degree in medicine
or years of fixing cars or houses, horses,
understand trade or charity

It won’t matter
when my photofit
reminds you of another brown man
who blew himself up or lashed out with a knife,
for a misread life and afterlife

A few white lives will always tip the scale
where hundreds,
thousands,
millions of ours,
despite your fears
will not prevail

Can you see how much
we need each other?!

All this “I am a rock
I am an island”
solipsistic claptrap
exposed
cos we need Joan and John
at the supermarket
and the folks at A&E
and the techies
streaming lifelines
while we figure how to be

Now, behind our keyboards
we might not be warriors,
but worriers who realise
how close we are to crashing

and yeah, some **** cash in
but let’s not forget
so when the panic lifts
we figure novel penance
and say our goodbyes

So hugs are currently virtual,
but our care for once
is real

Maybe that’s the virus deal

Maybe we’re done with
u ok ***?
so when we re-emerge
we can see clearly
**** sapiens
are one species
and switch on to each other,
sisters and brothers alike

Being nice is for life

My word
nothing does love/hate
quite as poetically
as a teacher reaching holiday’s end

intrinsic guilt of ‘not having done’
bound up with seeing our colleagues
loved and hated
again

and those ******, beautiful, ugly
broken-bright
impossible-everyday kids

my words

Here is a carrot
we made it from sticks

eat it

eat the stick carrot
or by gosh
we’ll hit you with
this stick

which is not made of carrots

now
here’s a survey about how you feel
which we also made from sticks
although
it doesn’t matter if it’s glass or gold
we won’t look at it anyway

so
eat the stick carrot
and try not to look over there
where they’ll give you actual carrots
and sticks are frowned upon

oh
you’ve gone

I shot the breeze today
with crickets, beetles,
spiders and caterpillars,
we held a moot.

Each representative, a voice:
words in the clamour
to be heard

In these lands of
many common grasses,
breeze told anecdotes,
arachnid needs
and insect calls for attention
often get ignored

Stopping to sit,
look through clutches of eyes,
sing with rattled wings
and chew cud,
can help retune the din
to be cleanly heard

GCTA shouldn’t spell your name
but I’m pretty sure you’ve hacked my DNA
so that a well-meaning scientist
seeking to cure my horrendous malady
with cutting edge gene therapy
would scratch their head
in finding your name writ so deep

As local as shoe leather,
though laced a little differently
I still feel the pull of aul boody,
aul boy,
a voice of ancient things

this impossible centre of England
with the flow of Plantagenet
of Watling
of Nene and Welland
where nothing happens
but everything has

rich in silver willow
and tannery stink
still giving cause to think,
to feel Clare’s fears
as the inexorable tarmac is laid
and each day passed
as the hedged wren and dunnock
begin to explain
green and pleasant pains

Your ubiquity in my memory
has led me to miss
the fact you are now missed

in the day-glo green-yellow
gardens of eighties summers,
scattering mother’s pride,
you were overlooked in the search
for brighter birds
with better song

so I try to cherish the
rattle and chatter
of your extended family
alongside me now

no songs for me
to join your mourning
but your chip-chip banter
tells a cautionary tale

I’ll do my best to listen and learn
even as our own gardens dwindle

Friday night fleeing from the scrum
like the last thing on our minds
are other people’s kids:
the outrageous, hysterical bashing we take
hour by hour as
we
just
try
while each successive boss quickly forgets front lines
and asks for ‘evidence’
of piling into the meat grinder

Then something tiny reminds
why we’re even here:
a flood of tears perhaps as dogs have died
or that kid who says “I’m a microwave
bzzzzzzzzz”
and despite our glowering frowns
we smile so hard we cry

Blossom caressed
fat leafed
unabashed
exhibitionist spring
get out and let it couch you
to forget
and remember

We try to sink into the crepuscular
as behind, another working week
picks us out of its teeth

we throw a couple of weaves
into the route to the sofa
for a headful of peace, maybe

though home has deaf ears too,
we love them
and through years of gaining favour
we’ll keep bruised hearts open there

beyond, you’ll see each aortal latch fixed,
each ventricular bolt slid
and each arterial snib
locked

if sweat and tears are the currency
you’d better ****** earn it

I love you

from a tickle to a thrum

a bothered everything for now

for now is a time indeed

same as others gone

and others still to be