Stripping wire, opening wine,
freeing small stones from a hoof.
Scaling fish, filing their nails,
picking their teeth clean at night.
Carrying, measuring,
sawing through wood.
(They carry not one but two knives);
There isn’t much
they can’t turn their hands to,
these versatile Swiss Army wives.
Are they for folding things, or saving things from being folded? Follow the green or the pink line. Folders don’t make sense in either direction.
Skewer
Spear
Immunise.
A tiny chrome harpoon
stuck into your flabby thighs
will make sure you’re immune.
A shot,
a fix,
a liquid dose.
A needle in your arm.
It’s what the doctor diagnosed
to keep you safe from harm.
Jab,
stab,
a quick injection,
just a little prick.
To help you fight infection:
vaccination does the trick.
Look over the wall.
What do you see?
A child fleeing war
or a threat to our country?
Women invading,
setting down roots,
or daughters escaping
rape and abuse?
Men whose attire
would suit the dark ages
or sons whose desire
is fair work for fair wages?
Terrorists, murderers,
muggers and migrants?
‘Difference’,
immigrants,
forces of evil?
Or refugees, emigres,
friends without homes?
One of us,
humans,
penniless people?
The larks no longer fear the lawn
soundly sleeps the shrew.
Sparrows splash in sunlit pools,
while wrens feed in full view.
The catnip grows unhindered now;
the grit lies undisturbed.
The mice no longer fear his paws –
he’s killed his final bird,
for rustled grass, the rush of feet,
signals not a feast,
and weeks have passed since last he snared
the scent of bird or beast.
Though master, once, of every creature,
quartered in his fief,
he ends his days the servant
of an unrelenting chief.
To thirst, the silent predator,
he’s ceaselessly on call,
hunkered by a dripping tap
that holds him now in thrall.
He watches as the droplets form,
snares them for his master,
then taps the faucet with a paw,
urges it, drip faster.
The master’s satisfaction wanes;
it soon enough will fade
just as he grew weary
of the mice with which he played.
And when the morsels fail to
sate the master’s appetite,
he’ll come to me and silently
beseech I end the fight.
The is The Bourse (La Bourse), a bar in Nimes, close to the bullring, not far from the flat where I do some of my writing. I decided to take a break from the story planning and head out with my pen, paper and pens to look at it from the outside, rather than inside, for a change.
The new me is an old me.
The old me once was young.
Young me has no future though
the future’s just begun.
The present me is a fallacy,
a link upon a chain
from fertilised to fertile ground —
again, again, again.
Some mornings when I wake up
I remember to forget.
They’re the ones I start the day
without a sense of dread.
I lie in blissful ignorance
for three or four whole seconds
unaware that in the air
a muted menace beckons.
Then the wireless wakes itself,
gloom pervades the room
as Humphreys, Webb and Robinson
prophesy our doom.
The Today programme is a long-running news and current affairs programme broadcast nationally on BBC Radio 4. It is renowned for its ability to attract key spokespeople and senior politicians.
Unrelated to the above, it is such a fixture of British culture that it is said the last test for the commanders of the country’s nuclear submarines is to try and tune in to the programme on Radio 4’s long wave frequencies if they have been unable to contact the government in any other manner. If it’s not being broadcast they are told to assume the country has been obliterated in an attack and open the safe that contains the Prime Minister’s final instructions for what they should do with their missiles (traditionally ‘nothing’, ‘retaliate’, ‘use your own judgement’ or ‘surrender to a friendly nation’).
The valves used to transmit the long wave service are, sadly, dying, and are unable to be replaced since there are fewer than ten left in the world, of which the BBC owns the entire stock. When the last one blows, the long wave service will be taken permanently off the air. What the submarine commanders are supposed to do then, we don’t know.
Gondolas on the Grand Canal, Venice
We’re all in eternity’s anteroom,
waiting to step through the door.
None of us knows when our name will be called
or what we’re waiting there for.
There’s no system; no tickets or marshall;
first there aren’t always first seen,
and when it’s our turn, it’s too often in public
where even the meek make a scene.
The wretched might think that by jumping from heights
they’ll jump to the front of the queue
but they always lose out to the murderer’s muse
who unwillingly barges straight through.
While to those who are tired of waiting,
old age seems to cling like disease.
They long for their slot on the rota to come
and bring them a measure of ease.
None of us knows when our name will be called
or how long we’ll be in that queue.
So live like you’re close to the top of the list
and if life isn’t perfect, make do.