There it stands modelling a fine coat of dust
covering the rim chips that cheapen it.
This vase stood for more than I can understand.
In earthenware fashioned from English clay
by English hands, but unfashionable now
a small squat *** of Dalton blue and brown.
Two necklaces of tiny beads clasp its neck
like corsets holding open its cornet mouth.
But we no longer hear its tunes or read its runes.

When I hold it in my hands I see Great Grandma's room
with highland cattle in a Scottish mountain scene.
The long-case clock of fear and fascination
where mother was threatened with incarceration
but never ******. Its rustic case reached down
to Earth's grim brimstone and fiery domains.
'There,' Mother said, 'lie Grandma's tortured remains.'

There's a flap on - flying fluttering
olympian feeding before the frosts
competitive cooperation
repetitive consternation
tribal territories transgressed
survival of the fattest.

Darker days dominate.
The land browns bare.
Animals hibernate.

'It's not the same', the doctor said,
'Don't do it or you'll become obese.
Their diet would put you in bed.
You'd die before your time
of some terrible disease.
Follow my special diet.
And run if it's fun .'

'But don't be a convert to anorexia.
That's a perverse faith.
You'd never make it as a wraith.
Take a tablet for your headache.'

Some tell me Blackpool's cool,
so I sit in the cool,
watching a darkening sky,
wrapped against the onshore breeze,
stifling a day's end sigh.

Starlings do maths in the sky,
imaginary numbers,
imaginative paths,
sweeping, forming swarming,
hereditary helix,
genetic genuflection.

His wife and he, they tried to see
what differences they defended.
Where calmness was the casualty
and tranquillity upended.

They struck them down, each in their turn
to please the other's whim,
until no fault was there to find,
and boredom settled in.

We're on the culture bus to Woburn.
Our teacher's got a sculpture crush.
He talks art to us and trusts we'll learn
to treasure beauty in artistic form.
We'll see the Three Graces, god like faces.
Fabulously fashioned in white marble.
We're not to focus on their private parts,
but concentrate on carefully crafted,
sensuous, sweeping, silky surfaces,
shaping youth beauty, mirth and elegance.

Smithy says you can safely stare.
Our girls giggle at our faces,
then blush when we compare.
Seems it's unfair. What's a boy to do?

Market car parks all but empty.
Wind blown bags and wrappers plenty.
Windows mirror dark depression.
Wily ****-kids lack discretion.

Hoardings, dulling, staining, tearing.
People facing lack of caring.
People scraping, scrounging, screaming.
People coping, calming, hoping.

What, where, when, why, who, how,
Kipling's six critical friends,
rippling through my memory cells.
Welling up as willow wisp.

Waiting for a flame to flicker,
crinkling eyes and wrinkling brow,
testing temper, checking time,
scribbling words that do not rhyme.