The Middle Whites
When crows settle in one field,
and gulls in the next,
their hosts become disgruntled,
Middle Whites eyeing
each other, knowing.
And when the crows harangue,
aggressive, brazen,
the Middle Whites trundle away
to the puddles by the dyke,
slump into the mud to observe.
As the screecher gulls
holler down from
the single electric wire,
the Middle Whites smirk
at the bluster and bravado.
They view these rituals -
the slick swagger,
the egotistical choruses -
the Middle Whites recall them all
as swank and deportment.
Boss hog has had enough;
he shambles out with authority,
to referee, gain control:
one thundering guttural curse
and the birds lift and interweave,
a chess board of confusion.
±+-+±
The Girl With the Umbrella Hair
Rain equals packed bus.
Top deck, I get the eyes
and plump for the nearest seat.
She tuts as I sit, half-sit.
Her mobile beeps with every tap.
Front seat frees up
but I opt to stay put.
Her head cannot
understand my reticence.
We stand as one,
I step aside, allow my hand
to gesture, ‘after you’.
She takes hold of it,
smiles, and kisses it.
It’s only then I notice her hair.
±+-+±
Johnny Notsolongback
Monster fingers shuffle the knife and fork
through his gammon, egg and chips.
He has menace tattooed across these fingers:
M – E – N – ♠, a range of tears across both cheeks.
Footsteps make their way to his door,
tap-tap, tap-tap, Ally McEtiquette.
He gestures them in; Ally, Boss and the Whalebelly.
‘It’s not every day ya get asked to remove a young ’un.’
Johnny feels his mouth twitch, eyes double-blink,
‘Now don’t say you’ve not the stomach for it.’
He can taste egg white, HP, and sunflower oil
swimming back up, nausea betraying him.
The Whale does his inane grin, Ally’s eyebrows rise,
Bossman takes two paces into Johnny’s space,
‘Her 7th birthday party, the Mayor’s daughter,
she ain’t gonna like my gift, your magic steel.’
±+-+±
The Stuff That Colours Lives
January;
It was always going to end up badly.
Your head on my shoulder,
asleep as I drive along the A414.
Snowmelt washing the screen dirty
and the lorries throwing up grit.
February;
Sat in the window-seat reading a short
with the radio puttering in the background.
The car’s washed by the neighbour’s kid.
He never bothers with the wheel trims.
That annoys me. I used to mention it.
March;
Late snow with Easter on the horizon.
Unsteady footsteps in the gardens at Osterley,
the slope by the car park is treacherous.
You pull me over with you, thanks love.
Hot chocolate more than makes up for it.
April;
We travel out to Augsburg, spring blooms tra-la-la.
My German is sufficient, the room is nice,
functional, but you wanted tea.
They don’t make tea quite the same,
I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before.
May;
You are late coming home from work,
not just once either.
You don’t explain it to me, don’t say much.
I’m treated with antagonistic rhetoric.
I cook but pour one glass, eat alone.
June;
The longest day is longer this year.
In the morning, Saturday morning,
you don’t surface so I go for a swim,
get the shopping in.
You tell me, turn the music down.
July;
Early holiday gets cancelled.
I decide to get away regardless.
Am packed and gone without telling you.
Two weeks of sitting around reading
and I swim, for hours on end.
August;
You’ve moved me out.
I send a new friend to collect everything,
tell them what to leave, what not to forget.
Now that you’ve forced me to rethink
I hardly need anything really.
September;
Except it can’t be.
How can I be me not being with you
for all those moments of the day
when my insecurities battle
anxiety amid confusion?
October;
Anniversary time.
My conversion to Catholicism,
and of our first kiss,
first hug, rekindled love.
Bewitched.
November;
It always ends in November.
The days then drag me damp and chilled
through materialism, excess, to the eve
of another empty year. ±+-+±
Cabbages of Lincolnshire
I remember the Lincolnshire cabbage fields,
no ditches, no hedges, not even verges,
the roads blending in with the rows,
the brown and the green,
and no tractors, ever,
just a pair of unboxing hares.
The A17, Sutton Bridge,
where the beet lorries stacked,
and that Little Chef came into view,
breaking some of the monotony,
up and over and back down,
to earth; earth and hundreds of cabbages.
Supply, demand, but, cabbages?
Who the hell eats all these fucking cabbages?
And what about the pigs for Lincolnshire sausages?
Where, in God’s name, do they plant those?
±+-+±
Bickering in a Caravan
8BC,
we hook up at the Ocean Rooms overlooking the North Sea,
disco evolves into house and garage.
7BC,
we start taking E and rave all night long,
trudging home through the church-goers.
5BC,
the wedding. It was nice, Ibiza without sunlight,
home to growing up, think about a family.
2BC,
we have to settle for calling a West Highland ‘Bones’,
and take it in turns to walk him, bag up his crap.
2AD,
the year we buy the ’van we try and find that vibe,
you stop wearing bras and I’m in swim shorts all day,
3AD,
we only travel an hour away, Thetford Forest,
to get used to towing, the gas stove, toilet duty.
4AD,
it’s Betws-y-Coed where the bickering begins,
I take Bones on longer walks as things destabilise.
5AD,
more barneys in Ballater, Scotland,
where I meet Terry and Rita, she’s a reader.
7AD,
one last sojourn back in the Highlands,
Rita becomes the heroine, me the scamp.
9AD,
you sell the caravan,
saying Bones isn’t happy, is nattering in his sleep.
±+-+±
There was, all at once,
the thrill of freezing air,
the softest engaging snow,
the scent of it melting
from fresh unbleached firs
laced with tiny avalanches.
She was wrapped up as a sheep
and stumbled as she laughed
and she threw this,
this new world at me,
over me,
into me.
Why did she tell me that?
Once spoken though,
no way back,
‘I’m a snowball thrower’
she told me,
and that was it.
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