With satisfaction
I see what I make today
Is better than yesterday.
And can hang glide on the wave of time
Rush, skid, swerve the bend
My pal is time
Full speed ahead.
But.
Another day
I come to realise
I didn’t know yesterday
What I discover today.
And there’s no running back
To make amends.
Like a train building speed,
The world’s moved on.
Feeling left on the platform
Watching windows full of faces flick and pass
Stare at my feet, a universe apart.
Actions spent.
Resources dry.
Oh to drive the vehicle back!
But there’s no way to pass
Through this tough terrain of time.
I’m left
Full with regret.

The journey of memory mealtime lane.
First stop, let’s get it over.
The painful place of supper time tension.
Watching the clock, start the race
To produce the evening prize.
Another plate – protein, vege,
A third of carbs is wise.

Table laid, stage is set,
But there’s a stomach-churning silence,
I’m staring at the wooden spoon.
His sallow face swallows and the
Fork shuffles, napkin placed on the pile.
His footsteps leave, we try to ignore
The deserted plate - talk and smile

Come on now, memory mealtime store
Fill me a tasty smell –
Grandmas’s larder – whole room devoted!
Crinkled brown paper nesting
Squares of brownies, gingerbread.
Eyes behold, like moons of light
Boubon biscuits, french sponge fingers.
Other worldliness, such a sight!


Now take me back to nice school dinners,
Waiting down the hall, up the playground steps.
Will treacle cake all have gone,
Just leaving rice and prunes?
Dreadful cold white mash potato scoops
Neatly spread apart.
My favourite - dark chocolate sponge
And jam pink marshmallow ****.

Join me to sitting round
My family kitchen table,
‘Best bit is the skin,’ Dad and me agree.
He approves as I eat
My little sister’s potato jacket.
I’m good and there’s plenty
And we’re all feeling full.
Every plate eaten clean, completely empty.

I remember secretly sneaking
Opening tins and picking out pieces
Of chocolate from choc chip cookies.  
By the window, our Kenwood soda stream,
It’s bottles like shop bought fizzy pop!
And Dad’s homemade wholemeal loaf
Unlike any bread from the shop.
My Sixth form packed lunch –
Two Ryvita sandwiches with a kipling cake,
A calorie counting diet
Eaten by morning break

Whilst writing the stove is forgotten
And now the smell of overcooked stew -
Burnt pan supper – a frequent memory.
I think I can save it, definitely cooked through.
Arriving at the end of mealtime lane,
A message to hang in the kitchen high above
Something I’ve learnt to remember,
That the food in our lives must be all about love.

Head feels like a liquorice allsort,
One bit from one half gets inside the other -
Cosy in a roll.
It’s feeding on stuff from my brain
Doing somersaults getting fat.
Not going outside
My brain.  Knowing all about the inside instead of
Knowing you.

My brain is getting less scared
No need to find its voice.
Before, it looked like it had grown
Because it had to keep on changing.
But now it can sit,
Hear itself
Talk.
And takes a new direction
Inwards,
Not outwards accommodating fear.

Sometimes I feel strange in the middle.
Thinking I might break.
Not used to being here.
But it's ok,
My shell is as hard as a walnut and I cradle warm and snug.
Look to the future,
Roll to my tune.
Outside - no need to change.
Inside see me instead of you.

Mary Seacole
Black nurse sculpture
Your determination points
To injustice. Your struggle
To serve, be accepted.
Why were you shamed and denied?
This is the broken land where we live.
Your courage, your stride
Takes me to our weakness

To the ache in my chest like a
broken blood vessel.
And trace the lines in my hand
To a bad rotting root.
How many wounds did your hand with compassion soothe?

Behind your certitude
I imagine pain.
Did your hurting
Search out injury and loss?

And as you nursed those violent lacerations,
Patiently waiting whilst the pathway beat its course,
Did you see as if through a veil,
Your own fractured self,
Fusing with your patient’s,
Both your Injuries restore back together
All the way towards their good health?

And Eyes
drawn again
to the bird
On the clock
Ticking there
On the wall.
And it knows
it can fly
From its perch    
Out of here
From the lockdown.

It links
The outside.  
And points
From its perch
Take a trip
To outside
Out of lockdown.

And eyes
Drawn again
To the bird
On the clock.
To the bird
On the clock
We can fly!

Bird
From the clock
Fly!