If reality is a frozen story, mine goes like this: I was born on a council estate in Wolverhampton. My dad was a tool room machinist and my mum was a cleaner. There were no books so we watched Benny Hill. I did low-paid jobs or signed on the dole for most of my life and now work as a carer for just above the minimum wage. Some other things happened but they belong in poems. If I could have my life again I would get a job as a geologist or similar and get married and have children.
Eulogy to a Cream Skimmer
A careful pass of the farm-hand's palm
over the milky water
and the golden fat tanked lazily
up the shallow saucer.
Fleeter, Scummer, Skimmer, Ladle:
by the village turner.
The churning of decades has shifted its axis
yielding its once perfect form to the years
a sensuous rim is now all of its compass
when once it collected laughter and tears.
With geological slowness, casein accrued,
a pale and lustrous patina pooled
mirroring countless faces, ageing,
fixed like leaves in amber.
Its heritage value noted
it works no more as a ladle,
but lives its life an awkward bowl
on some Chelsea table
where palm oil is a no no
but agribusiness rules
the ‘bowl’ is kept in aspicÂ
and its clueless heir is plastic.
Those who were brought up in soft clothes and by womenfolk have little in common with we who were raised among the pines. -Â Paracelsus.
Firebreaks were thought superfluous
To thwart the burning faery king
When lovely Herodis closed her eyes
Beneath the orchard’s canopy
The centripetal forceÂ
Of her cloistered heart
Would bring the dream full circle,
Dark magic enough to foil abduction
And soft light tumbled
Through generous boughs
Dancing and dappling her naked feet
Under the Ancient Malus.
Malus Malleus Maleficarum:
Apple of Serpent.
Palely she drifts now
White as snow
Sinking in tar
Lilting above her
The silhouette net
Lacing, unlacing her throat
Malus Malleus Maleficarum:
Apple of Adam.
She wakes on a pillow of needles
Dank shade silts her bones
And a sullen sun contrives with trees
To cast long bars at man and beast
Malus Malleus Maleficarum:
Apple of Fenrir.
Galloping blindly through bramble and briar
He finds each shaft which glances low
From root and boulder,
Benighted thicket of dim desire.
Malus Malleus Maleficarum:
Apple of Siegfried
Apple of fire
An ivy coils around the tree
Which holds her in its crown
And skulls are hung among the leaves
To weigh her body down
The ribcage of a sparrow
Is slipped upon her thumb
Her pillow is of braided flax
Yellow as the sun
Leaves of water hemlock
Are draped across her thighs
And a whorl of thundercloud
Is placed between her eyes
Her navel bears an opal
Her wrists are tied with twine
Her forehead drips with cinnabar
From the holy vine
A silver handled flywhisk
Is placed in either hand
To sweep away her footprints
From the broken land
Comments