THE WATER STEALER
She often swipes away my glass,
My water glass,
Smeary with my DNA
And a forensic record of what I was eating.
She takes my fingerprints
And the misty smudges of my lips
Away, away
To be slooshed and sponged
To oblivion.
Where has her patience gone?
She takes my time,
My moments to think
And drink.
I sometimes regard my glass with interest.
I muse on the molecules
In H2O,
And I wonder where all the hydrogen in the world
Came from.
Without that multicoloured, colourless liquid
In my glass
Nothing called life
Could be.
Everything is in my water.
But then it is gone,
Whipped out from under my nose,
From beneath my aqueous eyes.
My thoughts are swept away
With my glass,
And this happens every day.
She does it without thinking.
DELILAH
Delilah – taller than ourselves,
A woman grown amongst the girls;
Her eyes of coal, her hair of jet
Not quite at ripest beauty yet;
Her perfect skin put ours to shame
And made us sense our spots inflame,
She broke the rules
Because she dared,
And when rebuked she scarcely cared.
Defiant jaw, defiant stride,
That through her shame acquired pride.
Had she done things we hardly knew?
The things we were too young to do?
Delilah that, Delilah this,
Delilah’s had a proper kiss;
Delilah lies, Delilah skives,
Delilah lived our dreamed of lives.
When she left it caused a stir,
Yet soon we lost the ghost of her:
The rumours gone, the myths dispelled,
She faded to a child – expelled.
CHILLY BILLY
Oh chilly Billy, have you clammy toes,
Have you cherry cheeks and a tomato nose?
Are your blue eyes icy and your fingers numb,
Are your lips the colour of a fresh-picked plum?
Oh chilly Billy, being cold’s no fun,
We must make you toasty warm like a new-baked bun;
We will wind you up in woollies like a little sheep,
You”ll be pink as peaches as you sniff to sleep.
And oh, chilly Billy, when the summer comes
You’ll have snaking toes and dancing thumbs;
Your hair will glitter golden in the blue green light,
And you’ll dream of lying softly in the sun all night.
TO MY CHILD
Child of my body and my soul,
Be kind and wise with me.
Feel trust, have patience with
My trembling resolution
And my fears.
Take up my love,
Which makes mistakes
And may not always seem like love atall.
Let me grow with you,
And share the things that you will learn.
If I have had for many years
Closed eyes,
Allow me just a glimpse
Of all the things that you will see.
Humour me,
But do not laugh resentful scorn
Full at my face;
For I will do my best
To be a mother,
And I’ll never mean to fail.
If I can ever make you proud of me,
We will be dancing.
SNORTLES AND SNIGGLES
Snortles and sniggles
Like wuggling their piggles,
They make lots of noise with their smice;
They suggle their foggles
And stick them up noggles,
Which we all know is not very nice.
They’ve got poggy boggies,
They splog down their toggies,
Their words are all smoodge but quite cheery.
They are active at night
And can give you a fright,
For their whool and thumpumple’s quite eery.
Sniggles are bigger,
For snortles are shorter,
But both have a gigaggle head;
You might think you’ve found one,
But if it’s a round one,
It might be a baby instead.
THE DENTIST
My dentist, she is really nice
Until she starts her drilling;
Until she wields some cruel device
For ramming home a filling.
I’m sure I’ve seen a fiery glint
Igniting in her gaze,
Her jaw-line setting hard as flint
As my lazy brushing pays.
Beware these smiley, friendly folk
Who seem so kind to teeth.
They’ll peer and prod, they’ll dig and poke,
They’re hard as plaque beneath.
And yet, if it is in your plan
To keep your teeth a while,
A demon dentist’s better than
A very empty smile.
DADDY
Daddy’s chin is rough as sand,
And I am safe when his hand
Wraps round my hand.
Daddy’s arm has soft hair,
And I am safe when he’s there
And I am with him there.
Daddy’s lap is a strong seat,
And I am safe when I sit there,
And we are all there
Complete.
MATTHEW
Matthew is my smallest friend,
But big are his eyes
And wide is his mind.
He will, of course, grow taller in the end,
And there’ll be no surprise
To find him
Rather bigger than me.
RUMOURS
I know something you don’t.
I have a secret
And I’ll keep it
I will never ever say.
It’s getting bigger every day.
I will nurse it,
I’ll rehearse it
In my head. And I can taste it –
I’ll be careful not to waste it.
I won’t slip it,
I won’t drip it;
I have sealed my lips with scheming.
But that doesn’t stop me dreaming.
I know something you don’t.
For me to know, for
You to draw
Out of me
With persuasion,
When it’s just the right occasion.
If I told you
Could I hold you
To a promise not to part with it,
So will you cross your heart
And hope to die?
We know something they don’t.
It’s a secret
And we’ll keep it,
We will never ever say.
It’s getting bigger every day.
MORE ARMS
I wish my Mum
Had lots more arms.
Some on her back
Would be a winner
For mending my toys
While she’s cooking the dinner.
Two on her kneecaps
To hold when out walking,
Or perhaps near her mouth
Which could stop her from talking.
I wish my Mum
Had lots more arms.
She could sew on more buttons
All fingers and thumbs,
And hands on her ankles
Could pick up my crumbs;
For she’s always complaining
She only has two;
There are so many things
That her arms can do!
I wish my Mum
Had lots more arms.
We’d never be long
In the dull supermarket;
She could dust all our shelves
As she hoovers the carpet,
In each hand hold an iron,
A phone at each ear.
No, that last one’s not clever,
We still want her to hear!
I wish my Mum
Had lots more arms.
She’d be safer when driving,
And I bet she could swim;
She’d get a lot fitter
Lifting weights down the gym.
Then…
If she was worried
She wouldn’t look neat,
With so many hands
And just two little feet,
We could send her to yoga,
We’d banish her qualms
By tidying her up
With a smart coat of arms.
HE SPAT
I sat
Where he spat;
My big brother,
None other,
A bit
Of his spit
On me.
It’s wet,
I bet,
On me.
Just there.
(Not fair),
He knew
What I’d do,
That I’d sit
In his spit.
I’m cursed.
My brother’s spit
Is the worst.
BABY BROTHER
My baby brother Jeremy,
They said would be a friend for me,
But all he does is poo and wee
And cry and fill with air.
My baby brother Jeremy,
Is not much fun that I can see;
They say that he will one day be
A proper boy, with hair.
But now I think he’s like a worm;
He cannot walk, can only squirm,
And though he often kicks and screams
He gets a lot of hugs, it seems.
When he’s asleep he’s just okay.
He smiled at me the other day.
My baby brother Jeremy
Might grow up being just like me,
Then when he falls and scrapes his knee
I’ll help him to recover.
My baby brother Jeremy,
Must get big quick. Though actually,
He’ll never be as big as me
‘Cause he’s my little brother.
TECHNO-PHOBIC PARENT
I’m a bit of a noob
On You-Tube;
Can’t face a look
At Facebook.
I don’t flitter
On Twitter;
I’d feel daft
Playing Minecraft.
But if you can’t LOL
Because of a troll,
Or if someone sends
A text that offends,
Broadcasts lies, makes a threat
You just can’t forget,
I could pause in the place
That takes up so much space;
I could peer in that bit
Of your world that’s a pit;
Though I know you will scoff
If I say,
“Just turn it off”.
When I can’t understand,
I can still hold a hand;
When I only know half,
I can still make you laugh,
And I’ll try to be wise,
Pointing out to your eyes,
There’s what you see
And there’s reality.
MRS GOLIGHTLY
Her life was as she left it when she died.
Her Parker Knoll still watched the world drift by;
Her kettle waited on the stove to boil.
Geraniums inside
Were sheltered from the frost. And wrapped in foil
There waited an uneaten piece of pie.
A picture hung askew which she had brushed,
Her fingerprints were doubtless on the doors,
And where she’d splashed some milk around the sink
That time when she had rushed
To try to catch the bus, was still distinct,
As were her footprints carpeting the floors.
The clock that told her time still hadn’t ceased,
But chimed as she had heard for countless years;
A second-hand romance lay by her bed,
Some corners firmly creased,
Revealing all the pages she had read –
The words that made her smile or swallow tears.
Here and there she’d left a little note –
Important numbers that she might forget,
And people’s birthdays. Bills she had to pay.
Every thought she wrote
Was something of herself she had to say.
Not gone and not forgotten. Not as yet.
SAINT EDMUND
The 20th of November is St. Edmund’s Day. It is no longer widely celebrated, despite the fact that St. Edmund (a Saxon who ruled the Christian kingdom of East Anglia during the mid-eighth century) was England’s original patron saint. Some still believe that St. Edmund should be reinstated in place of St. George. Edmund’s banner was a white dragon on a red background.
St. Edmund’s Day, St. Edmund’s Day;
We’ve near forgot the name.
St. Edmund in eight-fifty-five
East Anglian chief became.
It’s said that he was cyning* crowned
Upon a Christmas Day,
And perhaps in Eastern England helped
The dark years ebb away.
For nigh on fifteen fabled years
He ruled with gifted hands,
Until the Danish Vikings marched
To stamp upon his lands,
To Edmund brought a battle fierce
When Saxon bodies bled;
Danes shot the King with arrows*
And then severed off his head.
This happened in November’s taint,
The leaves were dying then;
It happened when the seething mist
Was swirling on the fen.
And faithful folk remembered him,
They marked the day he died,
They felt their king remained with them,
That Edmund stayed beside.
And Edmund was a Christian man
Until his final breath,
So he was made a saint for staying
Faithful facing death.
In Bury was King Edmund laid
Amongst the precious stones,
Until the ancient abbey lost
The lauded martyr’s bones.
The town still keeps his name alive
Within its very core;
Bury St. Edmund’s witnesses
Their hero of before.
In death he burgeoned greater still,
Was England’s patron saint,
Before St. George’s rising sun
Made Edmund’s aura faint.
So Edmund’s dragon emblem fell,
And George’s cross was set;
The flag that led the Englishmen
And sometimes leads them yet.
Each time will have its golden calves,
Construct what it respects;
One age lives by the heroes that
Another age rejects.
But Edmund, did you earn your fame,
Was sainthood in your plan?
Did friends and family know your worth,
Were you not an ordinary man?
We lift you from the leaf-mould mounds
On the twentieth of November;
From throngs of past penumbral lives,
Are you someone we should remember?
*Cyning is the Anglo-Saxon word for King.
* According to Abbo of Fleury (a French monk) in the tenth century (quoting St Dunstan as his source), Edmund was killed by the Vikings because he would not renounce Christianity. There is also a legend that Edmund’s head, which had been tossed away by his killers, was discovered by a speaking wolf, who alerted Edmund’s followers to its location.
GOLDEN BOY
My son is
As a pool
Of sun-bright molten gold
As likely to run away
Through the fissures of my fingers
As to mould
Into a treasure.
But what a thing it is
To have cradled such alchemy.
CARRIER
A woman in the park
Strolls in this first Spring sunlight,
This blessed golden light
That tempts the blossom.
I could not work it out.
Her front, hunchbacked.
And then I knew,
As the sun yawned and stretched
Beyond a smudgy cloud.
There must have been a baby,
Turned marsupial, beneath her buttoned coat.
Sleeping soft in its mother’s glow,
Protected yet
From this ragged remnant of winter,
Was an infant;
Out in the world,
But still cocooned, cossetted and mother-bound.
TRUTH
Truth I touch, smell, see myself,
It’s not the words of someone else;
So if I trust from being told,
That is not truth; that’s faith I hold.
Yet sometimes when I look I find
That what I see is my own mind;
So where is truth if my own eyes
Are not immune from my own lies?
Truth is hopes and truth is fears,
Not always as it first appears,
Not always as you might expect,
But always worthy of respect.
There’s honest joy and honest grief,
There’s knowledge and there’s blind belief.
And when we worship what is true
Is that just someone’s point of view?
It saves, it kills, it lives and sleeps,
Truth’s blossom grows, it sows and reaps,
And truth is noble, truth is just,
And yet can turn belief to dust.
And if the choice should come that I
Might lose all faith, or let truth lie,
Would grabbing truth and honesty
Be worth my loss of trust in me?
Truth is doubt; doubt’s grip is tight
Around the things you thought were right;
It clings like ivy, creeps like rot,
‘Til what your heart felt true is not.
Truth pours like a river, trickles like a stream,
It is a nightmare, it is a dream;
Truth stands alone, is not my will,
It shouts, it hides, it is not still.
Is truth a fact without dispute,
Or faith unproved but resolute?
So like a path in fresh-laid snow
Truth is truly hard to know.