Photograph by Chris Sims
A Stone’s Throw
Pebbles have drifted into the corners of the steps
beside the neglected bowling green. I stop a while
to test the temperature of the March sunshine.
Across the park is the garden grandfather
made for his new red-brick house,
digging out bucket-loads of pebbles to fill
trenches for the paths and doorsteps.
My grandparents died in that house in their own beds,
so I never knew there was a short-cut
across the park to the hospital.
Nor could my mother, aged eighteen, striding
confidently down the front path – her titian hair
blown back, her coat unbuttoned, leaving home,
have believed her days would end
just a stone’s throw from that red house on the hill.
One day the sea will roll in again from the east
sucking out the old pebbles
and swirling them against the new.
I pick up a smooth one,
put it in my pocket.
Ann Preston
Ten Ways of Looking at a False Acacia
Why do we call this tree false
when it stands straight and true
as any native tree?
Wealthy collectors lusted after
the false acacia’s foreign beauty,
vying with one another to make it
the showpiece of their landscaped gardens.
A luscious false acacia stands
just outside my garden boundary,
but I still like to think of it as mine.
True acacias have vicious thorns,
but we still prefer to class the false ones with them
rather than with their own family,
the humble bean?
Black-frocked Jesuits believed
the dark pods of the false acacia
sustained a prophet in the wilderness.
But they were wrong.
he fed on carob pods
with all their heavenly chocolate flavour.
Out of falsehood comes forth sweetness;
bees that collect nectar from the false acacia
produce honey tasting of ambrosia.
While others rush to put out tender shoots,
the false acacia holds back.
But when, at last, it opens primrose yellow leaves,
they glow like fairy lights against the darker greens.
In June the false acacia
dresses in cascades of heavily scented flowers,
intoxicating as a champagne fountain.
Outlined against a winter sky,
the false acacia’s branches
are twisted as the limbs of skiers
swept away by an avalanche.
The false acacia has a feminine ending.
Ann Preston
John
He was watching his fingers
twist and turn in an ice cold stream
that began in reluctant snow many
miles above before it descended
to this lost boy.
Seeing his young fingers enlarged by
reflection or refraction or some magic of
water and sun. He could feel the stone
smooth and slippy beneath his bare feet
and feel a gentle current pulling at his
calves…
He turned then and the dark haired man on
the bank smiled and half waved though the
distance was not great. It seemed like forever…
“dad”
“dad ? ”
and the Lancashire lad put down his blue
rucksack and spoke his name…
“Andrew”
long and full the way only a parent could.
And at 62 the boy knew the end had arrived
and the welcome of water, of stone and family
no longer felt cold or strange but fire warm
and blanket comforting.
Andrew Scotson
A short performance
For Antonio José Martínez Palacios
Fingers on strings, painting a land
where towers soar, castles sing,
heat kisses the skin.
Was it dawn when Falangists
marched you roughly cuffed and worn
as autumn waved its baring arms?
Chords so sharp, so crystal clear
meander into a rhythmic strum
building beneath an agile thumb.
Did you stand or did you kneel
down on the Andalusian floor –
leaves like a reddened waterfall?
Broken notes are calling out
building to thicker deeper drifts
as closer and closer passion lifts.
Did you hear behind your back,
a metronome click strangely near
as safety catches triggered fear?
Coloured keys float overhead
as we hear a rainbow fly
and ponder what it signifies.
Did you hum a final tune
to mask the gun –
distract from its sharp percussion?
Do sweeter dreams lie
out of reach
eluding us until we sleep?
Nine hundred seconds left is all.
Was yours spent in a concert hall?
As firing stopped and bodies fell
did crowds succumb to your sweet spell ?
(A study has shown, at the time of death, parts of the brain remain active for nine hundred seconds).
Marion Horton
The Witch
Crisp crackling curses
rattle the windows
The witch is in her element
of Winter storms
The black cat
slithers through the henbane
She frightens winter birds
A starling flies within her grasp
She pounces,then she purrs
I tell you to beware the witch
Beware her crimson smile
Her pointed shoes
Her sharpened teeth
I would run a mile
So when it comes to Halloween
Pull your curtains tight
Lock your doors and guard the fire
Until the morning light
Lindsey Calvert
Hanging Baskets
For Mum
Petunias spill colour
over the edges
of my baskets;
exuberant stems
and happy faces.
Summers ago
my babies spilt over
in your arms;
a joy that could not
be held.
I keep the baskets planted
so all season long
I have you
to come home to.
Susan Jane Sims
One voice
A long journey.
Just one voice in the car,
Hers, from the front,
Clear, confident, persistent.
He listens carefully,
Fully focused,
Does her bidding.
I sit, mute ,redundant,
Role reduced to passing
a snack, a tissue, a drink.
Time was when I traced
the map on my lap,
Time was when he’d ask me to sing.
No map now. Singing days, done.
Age has lost the key to my voice.
I cannot sing.
He does not disagree!
I take a break, I doze.
Then we hit a roadblock,
No warning; she stops speaking.
A truck has spilled its cargo.
A long wait-he switches her off,
Turns to talk. I feign sleep!
Leela Gautam
The beautific vision
This is what my aunt who was
a devout Catholic referred to;
meeting Christ with even agnostics
caught in his slip-stream.
I argued and said suppose
the vision was in black and
white and lacked the lurid
colours of a Hollywood movie.
She thought I was being facetious,
caressed a silver cross and stared
hard at me, harder than the nails
driven into feet and hands,
What if her description was
not fit for human consumption,
of merchantable quality like business
law; could I demand a refund ?
John Christopher Johnson
Slow Movement (B Minor)
I have an oboe under the bed
almost, un-played since university
though I still do hum to work
those ‘champagne moments’
from the Hindemith or Saint Saens
sonatas. And since a recent post-pub
demonstration I’m back to counting
rests, and too many family cues
plus the name of an overhauler
– local
– used to work for Howarth
– no pressure then
memories of my own repairs
of leaking pads, the way I used
to oil the rods, over and over
or how I scratched the silver-plate
of the keys with slips of precision
screwdriver, the cork and blu-tack
mess that remains the thumb-rest
or the general lack of lustre. No.
I still have an oboe under the bed.
Alan Bush
Not Cool, No, Not Cool
seeing you every day, you’re doing fine,
of course,
in that way your scars give,
cotton and flesh under my fingers.
But I ask you, I ask,
in the silence
of my not-quite-home, in the cold light
of the fridge
that yields to my history, I ask you,
aren’t you
more like this half cucumber, half
hidden in the half light
of a salad drawer, shrink-
wrapped,
and shining your name
for the freshness
of each day, whereas
inside
you’re just the shaped looseness
of a forgotten dream
Alan Bush
