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CHOCOLATE SPITFIRES
SHARON JANE LANSBURY ———————————————
Belfast Lapwing
CHOCOLATE SPITFIRES
SHARON JANE LANSBURY
Belfast LAPWING
First Published by Lapwing Publications c/o 1, Ballysillan Drive Belfast BT14 8HQ lapwing.poetry@ntlworld.com www.lapwingpoetry.com Copyright Š Sharon Jane Lansbury 2012 Copyright Cover Image Š Richard Brooks 2012 All rights reserved The author has asserted her/his right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Since before 1632 The Greig sept of the MacGregor Clan Has been printing and binding books
All Lapwing Publications are Printed and Hand-bound in Belfast Set in Aldine 721 BT at the Winepress
ISBN 978-1-909252-09-7
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This, my second book of poetry, is dedicated to: Dino di Mascio Most Treasured Thank you for everything, especially for watching Most Haunted with me. Mark Whall M.Sc. Programmes Editor BBC Radio, his team and colleagues at BBC Radio Northampton (including Riley). Thank you so much for your support, for inviting me to join you on the programmes and for inspiring Chocolate Spitfires - what fun!!! (Remember: baked beans with Shepherd’s Pie!) Rita Edmonds (nee Francis) Thank you for teaching me that life is unlimited and that we don’t land on our feet, but get up onto them. Dennis Greig Publisher Lapwing Publications Belfast. Thank you for liking my poems this much.
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CONTENTS ..................................... 7 .............................. 8 EVERYTHING’S WRONG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 ARACHNOPHOBIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 SKIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 HARVEST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 COOK OFF! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 WHAT I DID ON THE DAY YOU DIED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 ELEPHANT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 WAITING ROOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 104 BROOKMEAD WAY:1964 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 STOPPING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 REFLECTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 WORKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 SWEET PEA, SUMMER 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 FROZEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 ARGUMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 FOR WALTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 POLITICAL CORRECTNESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 MID-LIFE CRISIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 HOME IN WINTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 THE BIG MATCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 POINSETTIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 CHANGED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 POOKA! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 FOR RICHARD AND JUNE CROSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 TEXT MESSAGING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 THE BIG FREEZE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 THE WEAKEST LINK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 MONDAY 18TH JANUARY 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 EARTHQUAKE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 GOING BANANAS WITH THE JELLY MAN AGAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 LEESON’S HILL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 DUNES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 THE CLASSICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 AIR SHOW
HERE WE GO AGAIN
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 UNDERTAKER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 RIGHT NOW… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 ADDICTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 THE GIRAFFE WHO CAME TO TEA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 WHO INVENTED THE BLOODY MIRROR? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 GRAVITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 BOILING MAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 JUST LOOKING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 VULNERABILITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 PEANUTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 TUG OF WAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 KEITH FLOYD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 PRECIOUS GEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 THE HAPPY TABLET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 BALLYKISSANGEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 DISENFRANCHISED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 FAST FOOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 DAZ DAYZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 BUMPING INTO THE JELLY MAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 TEDDY BEAR’S PICNIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 THE POWER OF LANGUAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 TEDDY TWO POUNDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 RECIPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 TERRORISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 THE TWINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 THE END OF FEBRUARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 IMPROBABILITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 FAMILY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 I WONDER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 THINKING BACK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 THE MOON AND ME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 HAPPY ENDINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 VISITOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 CONSCIOUSNESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 BLOODY HELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 MARCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 TOSSING COINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 THE COMING OF SPRING EULOGIUM
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 HOW IT ALL BEGAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 DEATH ROW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 HIGHLAND STATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 FUTILE AND POINTLESS ON A THURSDAY AFTERNOON . . . . . . . 76 SUNDAY LUNCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 WAITING FOR EDISON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 PHONE BOX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 STOPPING DEAD IN MY TRACKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 HOURS FROM NOW, TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 LAND ARMY GIRLS 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 I DIDN’T WIN THE LOTTERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 HUMMER SEAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 BARBECUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 FOR DAMIAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 THE ONE ARMED BANDIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 CHICKEN RUN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 SUNDAY, APRIL 10TH 2011, 3 P.M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 PATIO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 STRETCH MARKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 THE BENEFIT OF EXPERIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 THE SUMMER OF ‘69 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 EXHIBIT
NATIONAL PARENTS’ DAY
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Sharon Lansbury
AIR SHOW Planes, planes, planes scattered over England’s quilted planes: Ancient heroes, tired but performing, just for you: Retired from service, longing only for something to do. Like whipped clowns they dance in the summer skies and as you cheer down below and eat your ice cream, hot dogs, burgers, and drop your litter tears fall from ghostly eyes. We pilot these glorious machines and fly through the ignorance of modern skies lost in our dreams – purpose served. We are exhibits now, who long to shout: Don’t you understand? Can’t you see? What your laughter Is doing to me? Landing, duty done, rest from sortie – you cheer and a proud pilot, tamer of lions, poses for the local press: Close by, they’re selling chocolate spitfires.
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Chocolate Spitfires
HERE WE GO AGAIN Here we go again in the middle of it – what? That Christmas Thing: Tsunami starts mid-December trying to remember what I gave him/her last year – aliens queue in supermarkets up and down the towns, cities, fields; gathering nuts in May for that one day. Christmas Eve – forgotten something, probably loads of things: Unexpected guests – didn’t buy you a present, didn’t think you’d be here; didn’t send you a card, didn’t get one from you last year. Have a Sherry, sausage roll, mince pie, search for reindeer in the sky, even though you’re old enough to know better. Speeds to its close, as if Christmas Day knows, and thinks:
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Sharon Lansbury
I agree – it’s bollocks for you and bollocks for me. Load up the car, on our way, M1, M4 join the others heading for Christmas day and all its barmy illusions, delusions, promises – oasis in the arid desert of the year: Eat, drink, tear the wrappings from gifts, love them hate them, totally indifferent: Oh thank you! My God how lovely! Just what I’ve always hoped I wouldn’t want. Mulled wine, turkey, sprouts undercooked, Christmas crackers overlooked: Knew I’d forget something. TV on – Christmas Selection tasteless, predictable, eat more, fall on the floor, filled glasses, mess everywhere, and some anal misfit gets the Hoover out.
Wave hits: We didn’t see, didn’t know that planet Earth was celebrating Christmas too –
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Chocolate Spitfires
Boxing Day, wave spent, flood recedes, water lies like too many mince pies in bloated bellies and we float, powerless, try to laugh at the usual shows as another Christmas flows into history. More booze. Have a date, Quality Street, (but not the purple ones) – tangerine, and where have you lot been? (outside for a fag) – listening to the smoky fog sound of people having plastic fun in the town, pubs, wine bars, streets, private parties; doing what we do in an emergency: Coming Together. Time to clear up the mess, get over it, move on, rebuild, new beginnings for a nice shiny New Year: New Year’s Day – wake up, feel new, feel changed (as though life really has), get up, plug in my computer, wait for ages for Google to appear and see what it says in my HOROSCOPE: I see, with a deep inner, almost psychotic fear that I’m lined up for another amazing, groundbreaking, fabulous year. I write this poem, metaphorically speaking painfully aware, that so many are weeping real tears. 10
Sharon Lansbury
EVERYTHING’S WRONG (Remembering the Summer)
Mediterranean heat wave. That’s what we’ve got now. It’s on the news, just like winter when it snowed: Too much, wrong type, wrong time, the country can’t cope. Just like the leaves in autumn. Too many, wrong type, wrong time, wrong way to fall, Wrong direction, landed the wrong way; Especially on railway lines. Just like the wind: Wrong wind, wrong time, blowing the wrong way. Just like the thunder: Wrong sound. Just like the lightning: Wrong sort; Struck the wrong thing: Struck me. Wrong person, wrong place, wrong time.
ARACHNOPHOBIA Spider, Spider crawling right Through my life both day and night, What loving God would bring to pass Such a fearsome creature? And if God had to make this thing Surely also he would bring Some coping mechanism That would end This unwanted tyranny? Spider if you must crawl right Through my life both day and night Do not blame me if I must Reduce you to a pile of dust – And Lord, forgive me, but the blame Must lie upon your doorstep.
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Chocolate Spitfires
SKIN Do you like the skin you’re in? Does it hold you close to yourself? Protect you from harm? Heal itself rapidly and automatically? Keep you dry? And warm? Safeguard your vital organs? Keep you in shape; hold your bones to form, Your muscles in line? Get boils and blisters and rashes? Liver spots when you’re past forty years of age? Become irritated when you wax or shave? Crack and crease and lose its suppleness? Sag and pucker? Discolour and fade To tissue-paper thinness when you age? Display like an art exhibition Moles and blemishes with insupportable delight and pride? Does it present you with acne like traffic lights: Red bump, Amber lump, Green puss when squeezed, And yet still repair with miraculous, magical ease? Love the skin You’re in.
HARVEST Sorrow is a lonely thing, No one wants to know, Like writing poetry: Instead of shedding tears, I shed words. I cast them Like seeds onto the land And only hope they grow.
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Sharon Lansbury
COOK OFF! I made a stew And thought of you – Chopped onions Made me cry, Dried my eyes, Ran my wrists under the cold tap: Sudden relief! Cessation of grief! Scraped carrots, Cut off their tails! Off with their heads! Reduced them to manageable hunks, Added them to Diced chicken, Onions, Peas, Brussels sprouts, Memory SHOUTS! Put in a tin of baked beans, Don’t know what it means, Boiling mad. No longer sad. I made a stew, I thought of you. Glory be Gone from me. Go boil your head: Love is dead.
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Chocolate Spitfires
WHAT I DID ON THE DAY YOU DIED On the day you died I drove to Brighton. I wanted, For some inexplicable reason To be By a vast expanse of sea. I imagined That you were a tiny, Imperfect, Shell on the shore, Suddenly taken by a crushing wave Swept up By Chance and Time Meeting briefly, Becoming one. And in that powerful moment When the stars were aligned I stood alone, As the realm of the living surrounded me On that glorious promenade: Only the seagulls cried.
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Sharon Lansbury
THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING I’ve read all the books. Stoked up like a fire on Guy Fawkes’ Night I explode with hope like a warehouse full of bangers ignited by a bunch of kids. I do exactly as it says in the book: Buy the video, DVD, cassette for the car – T-shirt, Badge, Stickers: Follow the instructions for a successful life, practice every day; brain so washed I can’t think for myself anymore: So intent on positive thinking, I didn’t stop at the red light, went through – killed myself, injured you real bad: Left you my books, Videos, DVDs, Cassettes for your car, T-shirt, Badge, Stickers: Follow the instructions for a speedy recovery, practice every day while you’re lying there with your brain so damaged you can’t think for yourself any more.
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Chocolate Spitfires
ELEPHANT I don’t know how we do it: Round and round, like hamsters in a wheel – like packets of processed ham, taken at birth, broken down, reformed, moulded, shaped, set: Sliced, categorised, packaged, stacked, sold, bought: Opened out, displayed, added to pizza, shoved between two slices of bread; alongside tomatoes and cheese and mayonnaise, none of which we particularly like. I don’t know why I do it: Why couldn’t I have been an elephant instead?
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Sharon Lansbury
WAITING ROOM I sit, in a cold smelly room at the station, waiting for my train. Other passengers wait with me: A woman knits, and I listen to the faint sound of the tinkling needles, click, clack, click. A child runs around, slips, falls, cries: An old man sniffs and coughs up enough phlegm to weld steel. The crack of loudly spoken, badly enunciated words makes an announcement: The express roars through, scares the child who cries again; the knitting woman drops stitches and the old man dies of a heart attack. My train is delayed: His is cancelled.
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Chocolate Spitfires
104 BROOKMEAD WAY:1964 For my Grandparents: William and Mary Lansbury
coal fire: cracked and crackled, popped and spat as you lay there, horizontal, watching black and white TV; football, smoking Embassy No. 6 one after the other – fags clutched between your amber tipped fingers; gripped in the vice of your perfect teeth drawing in contentment, blowing it out again – your own private peace: still you always smiled and welcomed me, and gave me a sixpenny piece from your pocket, a sweetie from the jar and I took them both; greedy with my treasures beyond any other desire.
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Sharon Lansbury
wandering about I heard men roaring at goals and women exchanging gossip over tea and half way up the stairs I would sit and wonder at the Miracle of my Happiness.
STOPPING Good God it goes so fast – A week ago I was rushing round, shopping, writing lists, stocking up stockings filled sorting out clearing up getting ready ironing, doing rooms wrapping presents writing cards packing bags: It’s all over when we stop.
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Chocolate Spitfires
REFLECTIONS there was a window and I saw it: exhibit in an art gallery like looking into a mirror and seeing myself monotone on this cold late November day; full of shapes and shades, no colour to speak of not even a white or silvery sky: black spindles and spikes – sleeping trees, branches, twigs, no leaves. the lake a definite shade of nothing, just a glimmer of cold spotted with white blobs – seagulls inland for winter still as my life, as cold as the sky: everything the colour of me.
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Sharon Lansbury
WORKING Wolf clothed as sheep – blight on day carries the unsuspecting victim into tortuous night, filled with worry and fear: Creeping, this silent enemy of mankind entwines heart, mind soul, and limb, ensnares with its tentacles barbed with stings. Taken to its lair, once there, we are immobilised and trapped by self-induced, imagined, perceived needs – Beware! It offers candy-coated delusions for our labours; shows us its policies placed for well-being, security and protection: Groundless lies to fool and trick: Lip service paid with salary slip.
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Chocolate Spitfires
SWEET PEA, SUMMER 2009 I stopped, looked at you: remembered you from long ago: a day in early June, planted you, tiny brown ball; patted you down, fed and settled you in. Watched every day back then, and your head appeared through the gritty birth canal and you pushed and pushed and I watched and waited and longed for you: Thriving, as I knew you were, I went about my days and delighted when your flowers appeared. I loved you and gave you notice and breathed in your sweet scent until August: Lost interest – you were over, gone, past your best no longer of interest.
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Sharon Lansbury
Frail, fragile frond, life blood gone, limp, putrid, ageing, dying; a Winter wind lifts your eyes and they meet with mine: Tiny brown ball, there! Fast asleep in an eiderdown.
FROZEN frozen lake ducks skate kids slip and slide enjoy the ride: Went to Tesco an hour ago – took it slow, stocked up. not moving, going anywhere steering clear. Back inside: can’t get me.
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Chocolate Spitfires
ARGUMENT Anything on TV? No, repeats, crap. Oh. What shall we watch? Whatever you want – Oh. How about this? How about that? No: seen them before. For God’s sake, Someone, something, anything knock at the door. Well, movie? Seen them before. Choose what you want; I don’t mind. I’ll select a few old favourites, stuff we haven’t seen for a while: Hoped to see a smile on your face – disappointed. How about this? How about that? No – yes – if you want; You choose. No you. I don’t mind Neither do I You choose No you: How about this? No. Or this? No. Or this? You choose – I’m going to bed.
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Sharon Lansbury
FOR WALTER (2009) I sat alone in the stillness of New Year’s Eve and Year sat with me, a tear in its eye for the last of its days: ‘I’m dying’ it said; ‘I’m dying too’ Year remarked that it hadn’t been too bad for me: ‘No’ I said, though it had. ‘Will you name me?’ asked Year, ‘Yes’ I said. ‘What do you want to be called?’ Year didn’t know, asked me to think of something: ‘Watershed’ I suppose – ‘It’s a bit long’ Year complained so we shortened it to Walter and Year was happy as the clock began to strike, and I held him until it was time to go.
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Chocolate Spitfires
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS New Year’s Eve – 31st December, 2009; watching the closing of this final of days: sky, horizon, a mixture of greys. The icy landscape begins its final sleep as darkness comes, blown in on a chilly winter wind: Trees wave as if to say farewell – and a blindingly bright full, dappled, silver speckled moon peeps from those now black shadowed clouds – spectres, ghosts, dance a frantic Tarantella; a sudden flash of light on water – Warning: Life contains Flash Photography.
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Sharon Lansbury
MID-LIFE CRISIS Tide breathes in, breathes out – the soft, mellow clomp of horses’ hooves on damp sand. Breathe air worth taking into lungs, older and more fragile; middle aged: Means so much more than the same scene, place, air, tide, did in youth. Truth comes and remains in the lagoon of the heart – full of fish to eat, and on the island, fruit, sufficient to meet middle aged needs.
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Chocolate Spitfires
HOME IN WINTER Pallid, frail, the dying day clings on as dull frosted shadows screen print windows: Icy frost, overstays its welcome defying crispy fried sunlight. It would not budge an inch this day – four twenty, lock in door, key turns, porch light on, lamps click, lit; fires lighted, central heating clicks, clunks, clangs, bangs; warmth appears like sudden magic and shortly, outer garments shed, turn down beds: Soothed and warmed – Dinner on. Curtains drawn, What’s on TV? Feed the mewing cat, barking dog; kettle on for tea. Warm the oven, warm the pans, frozen feet, slippered – rub hands (gloves, useless).
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Barren trees look on and in, in envy – spook us in these Arctic nights, when, before day lights we go to cars in early hours and scrape snow and ice and think: of being home in Winter.
THE BIG MATCH Full of Christmas Cheer, he sat on the loo and hoped for the best: Stared at the floor in earnest concentration at the grid of the tiles and suddenly thought of Milton Keynes. And then, by some almost magical means all was sorted – bowels restored to normal shape and size and there, before his very eyes, the bathroom tiles and grouting transformed to people shouting: Arsenal had scored.
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POINSETTIA All over the place it was: Before Christmas – blood red leaves liked slabs of ruby – green leaves, slabs of liquid emerald; given, taken home, put somewhere safe, watered, nurtured, fed. Leaves dropped, gems lost value, spikes with piddly glass stones stuck on top with Bostick. Poinsettia: The Before Christmas Plant.
CHANGED Dark outside, soft light within, soothed, I sit soaking up the warmth and glow of a fire I sat in front of long ago – fifty years or more, a child, part of the time when you were young and others, just as important, were alive: We shift like coals dragged, Helpless; reminded by random, unexpected moments that we are changed.
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Sharon Lansbury
POOKA! For James Stewart
Dominic and I were talking after dinner – glass of wine, salted nuts in a bowl, roaring fire (he added a log): ‘What’s a Pooka?’ I said. ‘A Pooka is a spirit – mischievous but benign, in animal form: Always very large; appears to this one, and that, stays a while then goes’: It was late, a chilly wind howled around the house and the hall clock chimed. ‘Best be off’, said Dominic, who put on his coat, scarf, gloves, hat and Wellington Boots and I waved him off. ‘Thanks for a wonderful evening!’ ‘You’re welcome!’ I said, as I watched him disappear into the gathering, thickening fog; my dear old friend: Six Foot, Five and Half inch Frog.
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FOR RICHARD AND JUNE CROSS Friday, 8th January 2010
She was taken, who knows where, or why, or even how – and such a huge chunk has been bitten from you as though a shark had (surely) mistaken you for ailing prey: Your wife, your life gone, and the most piercing pain now is facing the reality of realisation: I wrote a question to God on a piece of paper, burned it in a dish and watched my feeble words transcend the snow, ice and bitter wind of that bitter day. Swirling upwards, I watched that ectoplasm mist and, to my comfort and joy received a reply from a high-ranking Angel as a single snow flake fell: “God’s sorry for the pain you’re suffering, one crumb of comfort I send to you: There’s a frightful shortage of Angels my dear, and only the Finest will do.”
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Sharon Lansbury
TEXT MESSAGING (From Scottie)
Open fires. Wine. Conversation: Politics, ghosts. Dino’s cooking NOW!!! (Reply) Country walk, home, set fire, beer, wine, music. Prep roast with all trimmings. Laughter, warmth, Joy, odour of wood smoke, roasting meat, candles as winter day fades to sleep: Let it snow!
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THE BIG FREEZE January 2010
Poorly today: Cough and Cold Staying home in bed while, overhead, snow lies; 30 million tog Siberian duvet on roof tops. Freezing fog roams, swoops, skates and brushes the frozen surface of the lake – icing sugar on cake, and the sky is a milky, bright orange-pink smoothie. Day breaks, colours change, white with a hint of white printed with barely visible powder grey trees; tessellated wallpaper pattern. Resting now, since the last bout of violent coughing: Nose jammed up like the M25 – North and South lane closures, throat sore, aching, sweating, no appetite. Lie back in the silence and watch daytime TV: The Window shows great programmes about the sky – headlamps glisten on a distant road – diamonds twinkle through the chill mist.
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Sharon Lansbury
Blow nose, running now, like a thoroughbred at Ascot – colds are such contrary things; of all the heartache winter brings colds and flu near the top of my list. Take another glug of vile cough mixture, Lose all sense of taste and smell except for these heinous concoctions. Settled now, with some sense of peace and calm, I watch the solitary channel: White, White, White and wait for the weather forecast: As if I didn’t know: More Snow. Sleepy now, close eyes, TV off, Radio on: Catch the Wood Pigeon, Sparrow And Crow Show – hear the studio audience applaud Aero Plane and its Muted Rumbles, next on, Distant Traffic Tumbles from side roads, slips and skates; Milk Float (today’s Special Guest) gets through, delivers essentials to Me and You. The crunch of cautious feet on frozen ground and hardly any other sound breaks through, as the radio fades on the Frozen Days.
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THE WEAKEST LINK Why Robert? He got a few very simple questions wrong – Harry, why Robert? He got some questions wrong and I couldn’t vote for myself: Robert, you are the weakest link Goodbye. You only won a little more time, statistically, Jane is the weakest link, Sarah is the strongest, but it’s the votes that will decide: Who votes? I have the right to know the criteria for this game! Is Brett out of time? Should Sharon dance around her handbag at the local disco? Should Tart bake herself? Time to vote off the weakest link: The final walk of shame – those who could have, didn’t: Those who didn’t could have: There can only be one winner.
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Sharon Lansbury
MONDAY 18TH JANUARY 2010 The Six O’Clock News:
Haiti earthquake: Trying to think, it’s real, happening now – as the crow flies can’t get there; it’s a film, fantasy but not. As I sit here, in my living room, dinner cooking, on stable ground it’s real. There. Now. I can give a pound. Disaster is the News The Good Life next; Sherlock Holmes, Ballykissangel, Doc Martin, Monarch of the Glen: Take me away from my reality and yours. Dinner’s ready: I eat, and exist in my safety – conscious of all of you unknown souls, just as important, vulnerable as me. Shall I die tomorrow, buried beneath a lorry on the M1, or choke on lung cancer? The earth quakes for everyone every day: You died then. I will die of something, Somehow, Sometime.
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EARTHQUAKE If we had an earthquake here, now, homes destroyed, and there we were, in tatters, rags, nothing left but rubble and ruin, The Government would put us up in shelters; feed, water us; vandals would pillage, free to roam, pick the pickings: The Police would try, best they could to stop it, but wouldn’t have the power so to do: Free for all, except for the victims of undeserved disaster.
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Sharon Lansbury
GOING BANANAS WITH THE JELLY MAN AGAIN He was back: Wanted to leap off another cliff – or maybe the same one we leapt off long ago: I needed to go off a cliff, didn’t believe in the Jelly Man who didn’t believe in himself, but I was in the mood to jump, so, taking his hand, as good as any other, off we went. I emerged from the foamy surf first: Swam to the land, with nothing and no one in my hand – didn’t think of the Jelly Man anymore – hoped he would find his Jelly fish limbs, come up floating and find a shore.
LEESON’S HILL I remember it: Sand pit, water trough, sucking filthy water through tubes with the other kids: Play time – little bottle of milk; biscuits – chocolate and two plains bought with tuppence.
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DUNES Sand, lonely, solid beneath my feet: Better than standing on a street. Out there – the line drawn; ocean, dribble, like spit opens out into vast terror, filled with devils who would eat me should I step a toe, foot, leg, waist deep – sharks attack in three feet of water: Tigers, lions, bears behind blind forests: Stand still, in the middle of an open stretch of yellow gritty land – hold breath, listen, wait, watch: Build a castle in the sand, creep inside then the tide washes fear away.
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Sharon Lansbury
THE CLASSICS Tragic Mr Shakespeare how crinkled, creased and furrowed your brow if you were writing here and now – would you be published? Romeo and Juliet, a play of sexual etiquette; men take bows, women hope they’ll find a way to cope. A lump of flesh, a pound or more: Merchants ever at the door: Deplete our income and deplore Sense and Sensibility. Wuthering Heights, sleepless nights – the modern world how we are hurled! Seek comfort from writers such as you when we have not the faintest clue – we look to books to bring us peace and some frail tranquility. What if you were living now? What would you write And how?
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THE COMING OF SPRING Imagination, or a whisper – there, like a child hiding in bushes: A whoosh in the trees, as if in affirmation: Did the ground beneath my feet just quake with the birth of new life? An odour in the air, an undercurrent of warmth like tides conjoining: I shiver with joy.
EULOGIUM I recede from life: Like tide from shore, Like lust and love replete – Deeply sensing, knowing, accepting And in this, at peace, The sands dry: Talcum powder on a random breeze. Waves shall not pass this way again To stir up the minutiae of our existence, And neither shall I: I set you free and watch you sail, I’m free to be me, free to fail.
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UNDERTAKER The Undertaker takes under. Taken under, souls alone, under ground beyond life, but hopefully still have scope. Undertaken by Over Takers, the under taken slither and grope – overtaken by undertaking, the taken under strive to cope: The dead live, the living undertake to die in hope.
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RIGHT NOW…. Monday, 25th January 2010, 1.35pm
If I were a season I would be spring: A month – May: A flower, a budding snowdrop, a time – just past the yard arm, glass of chilled white wine: A meal – poached salmon, a colour; pink: A piece of music – Mozart or Chopin, a car – Mercedes Convertible (roof down): The weather; warm and sunny with a gentle breeze – a granite cottage nestling in indecisive, dithering trees: A roaring fire, a balloon ride, a neap tide: Washing dancing in the wind, a floral cotton frock, a butterfly, a wasp, a bee: swallows gracing a powder blue sky, a warm and balmy night, candle light, lanterns in a fragrant garden: An open window, a door flung wide, open to everything inside: A peaceful sleep, 44
Sharon Lansbury
a happy day – church bells, waves crashing on a shore. It being winter, though, right now, true happiness means Shepherd’s Pie with a tin of baked beans.
ADDICTION Booze, fags, drugs – these are not the enemies of mankind: These are merely vultures hovering overhead. Speculative, they circle, supported on favourable winds swooping down on the already dead.
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THE GIRAFFE WHO CAME TO TEA I let my imagination flow: Had a really good laugh – I imagined a knock at the door And there was a lovely giraffe (said he’d come to tea). In he came and there we sat, chatted about the state of Zoos; said he’d live in Tonbridge Wells if only he could choose. I asked him to stay for dinner, but he had things to do: He thanked me most sincerely and made his way to the loo. The stairs were rather awkward, on account of his gangly legs and neck: He pee’d in my front garden and I thought, what the heck? I wondered as I watched him leave, if he’d visit me again, my Imagination laughed at me And said I was insane.
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Sharon Lansbury
WHO INVENTED THE BLOODY MIRROR? dusk now – it’s hard to see. all I see is the memory of the light of the day – squinting, I read. watch TV with a deeply furrowed brow; it’s an effort to focus – I squash and contort the smoothness of my youth, unaware of ageing until the inevitable mirror confronts me: I see what I am, with the lineless clarity of youth and see that I have travelled well, but rather further than I had thought.
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GRAVITY far away, far away, through the Square Window: I watched incomprehensible suffering unfold – disconnected, mind, body but never soul: frozen in England, white, white, winter white, covered in Snow White. like seeing a ghost: I know what I see, but it cannot actually, really, be: suddenly see reality – a spec of dust on the moon; nothing I can do for me, nothing I can do for you: we lie at the feet of mercy, crouch in the footprints of gravity.
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Sharon Lansbury
BOILING MAD boiler broke – no heat, hot water – boil kettles, buy electric heaters; fill water bottles. takes me back to my childhood – the three day week; Miners, was it, way back then? candles, log fire: played cards with my mother by torchlight: 1967, would it have been? Harold Wilson springs to mind, hope my fading memory is not unkind. forty years on, candles, log fire, no hot water, or central heat.
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JUST LOOKING Drowsy, warm, chilly Winter toes; filled with food, probably too much wine – Notice the light outside: six forty two peeeee emmmm: still light! Wilting buds in amidst the carnage and filth – decay of last year, lingers on: The browns, the greys, mustard yellows, puke greens, Septicaemia rainbow, there it was: A tiny shaft of pure bright, healthy perfect lime green: Something living, thriving – a diamond in the putrid mud, shining, sparkling with life – green with envy, green with hope: Glory Be.
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Sharon Lansbury
VULNERABILITY I am terminally ill. Does that make you Vulnerable? I am Vulnerable to death. Fact. So are you: Vulnerable, from the moment I was conceived. Is my life, my Vulnerability, not mine? Not my own? Is life or death not mine to choose? Thank you for caring for those vulnerable to greedy, impatient relatives, yes! Please think, care and speak out against this heinous Pest. I am terminally ill: Do not invade my right to live – do not do too good a deed, and feed my vulnerability: Don’t freeze me out. I know what I’ve got, I know what it will do, when it will do it and how, I choose here and now. Do not render me vulnerable, please.
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PEANUTS i love them. roasted, salted, shovel them down; flavour bursts, crunch, crunch; explosion of joy – not going onto the internet to find out more about them.
TUG OF WAR soft and gentle as I am, I can win our tug of war: I must push instead of pulling.
KEITH FLOYD broke the mould – shoved political correctness up your bain marie: health and safety? bollocks to all of that and more. Food, wine, friends, song, poetry sizzles in pans.
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Sharon Lansbury
PRECIOUS GEMS Diamond Days. Gone. Replaced by other gems, Just as precious, Just as bright – Diamonds, yet to be Cut and Polished.
THE HAPPY TABLET plummeting ceases; anatomy normalised, settled, like the blessed solidity after the sickening, swirling, whirling of too much wine: on a frail ledge now, not still falling – falling still.
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BALLYKISSANGEL Sheep. A cream coloured bus, masses of green. Oranges drop to the ground – Mrs Hendley falls apart, music starts: Long roads, clean, clear, sheep bleat, sheep bleat, Father Mac stops his car, takes a pill, music starts: Stranger appears walking through town, Siobhan sees blue – phone rings – a sheep? It’s Eamon, something happened to a sheep; Father Clifford, a stranger at his door – McDonalds mobile rings, “Egan and Quigley.” Stranger going up the stairs, Siobhan is pregnant. Why don’t I just watch it? 54
Sharon Lansbury
DISENFRANCHISED an old man sat by the fire in his pub. early spring evening – twilight turquoise squares dotted randomly, around the room; windows, azure jewels set in misshapen, bent lead rings, he rose to leave, because of the crude piercing cackle of the women made of plastic: angry, he walked his short distance home, fed the cat that wasn’t his, sucked a pipe with no tobacco in it, lit his fire and imagined them on it, slowly melting.
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FAST FOOD after breakfast out they went with the dogs and the kids. wellington boots cast off, mud everywhere; coats, scarves, hats, mittens – a bedraggled trail to the table; ate, drank, flopped on the settee – watched TV. Fast Food: slowly, someone cooked it.
DAZ DAYZ Daz cleans out the dirty even at thirty: Nanna washed sheets in the butler sink, by hand; rinse, rinse, rinse, out in all weathers, put the washing through the mangle, out in the yard: I don’t know how she got her washing dry. never saw her iron; never saw a board – such a tiny kitchen. 56
Sharon Lansbury
BUMPING INTO THE JELLY MAN I think I was coming out of the Library: There he was, The Jelly Man, coming out of a bank, I think: We said hello. He was just as jelly as always, hadn’t changed, but there again, neither had I. We were on solid ground – far from cliffs and crashing waves far below, not leaping off anything, other than the minor incline of the curb.
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TEDDY BEAR’S PICNIC hearing noises in the night I crept down stairs into the hall, up to the kitchen: A light was on, candles flickered, happy laughter of a growly kind filled the silence of the deep night: Through the gap in the door I saw – twenty three or more teddy bears around the table, Dinner party in full Throw, I did not disturb, crept back to bed, ignored my noisy neighbours and slept: I’d do the washing up in the morning.
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Sharon Lansbury
THE POWER OF LANGUAGE Called him a wanker: Didn’t know what a wanker was, don’t do dictionaries. Called her a spastic: Couldn’t define the word, never heard it before. Someone said it’s the thing to call someone. Called a bloke a prat once – couldn’t tell you why: Called out to anyone who was about – bollocks, arse, tosser, bastard, git. Glory Be for the power of words: Magnificently mastered by the thickest of turds.
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TEDDY TWO POUNDS weekends in Portsmouth; staying with Ori – Saturday after breakfast, off we go, arm in arm, down glorious old Albert Road with its menagerie of shops: zoo of distractions, hyperbolae in motion – sublime to crazy and dotted with eccentric pubs like a very bizarre patchwork quilt. I always find a lonely Teddy Bear that I can afford.
RECIPE Cottage cheese, scoop to bowl, satsuma, peel, segment, combine: Eat with fork or spoon optional: cracker. Slimmers: No butter.
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TERRORISM Bright, light, sunny spring day – clouds appear, not in the sky; They’re on the News: Terrorised, we draw curtains, turn off lights, hide lest we be seen. In the safety of darkness we dare not move, think, feel, utter a single word: Terrorised by our Dictators who, with glorious, Award-Winning planks in their eyes, send their armies forth to remove the specks in the eyes of other Nations: Terrorism? Like Government Issue bottles of milk: Left, in the early hours on our doorsteps.
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THE TWINS Typical Gemini they said: Niagara Falls cascading up and down in her head. One a golden butterfly, the other a stinging bee, neither knowing which will take centre stage from one nano second to the next. She waits as her sister performs; World Champion, this, that, other – creative, upbeat, revelling in the joys of their conjoined existence, knowing she can do anything until the mountain, there before her, cannot be moved. Shackled by inability, powerless, impotent, her sister rises – butterfly crushed, bee buzzes like an explosion in their heads and sting after sting pierces wings as delicate as a snow flake. Butterfly heals, grows new
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means of getting about; makes them herself from bits and pieces and flies up and out of the pit that twit, her twin put her in: Life once again a whirl For the Gemini Girl.
THE END OF FEBRUARY Lighter evenings: Recognise and understand the language of Nature. Power, force, it comes! Death of impotent winter; souls fuelled by the fire of fresh coal, shovelled in with irrepressible vigour.
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IMPROBABILITY watching TV, something inane, gave the impression I wasn’t alone, a hippopotamus fell down my stairs. I helped it up, it said thank you; (it wasn’t hurt, just a few bruises here and there). The hippopotamus didn’t care – just wanted to get out, knew how it felt, showed it the door and out it went. wished it had asked me to go with it.
FAMILY I realise, with hollow, piercing, yet surprisingly indifferent dread That when all’s said and done, I most closely resemble our dead.
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I WONDER wonder now, if you will call before you go off on your travels – hope you will, hope you do, would mean so much. I doubt it though. you have not lost me, you threw me away like garbage, not not even worthy of recycling. lowest of the low, you would praise rats for gnawing me.
THINKING BACK Thinking back, I think of you – knew then you’d regret it one day. Nothing I could do; but stand idly by and watch you slowly sink and die.
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THE MOON AND ME In the isolation of the dead of night, clouds part like curtains, and there he is: The Moon. Whole, round, smiling, or in part; I am no longer alone – we natter away the silent hours until dawn, when he must disappear to his labours and I, appear, to mine.
HAPPY ENDINGS some are, some not: lucky, happy living souls dread the inevitable end, those unlucky, tortured, long for it: every end is happy if better lies beyond – if round the bend is not the end.
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VISITOR Quite content, watching Pie in the Sky, I saw a shape appear: It moved. Who are you? I said. It looked at me, (thought me mad) a platypus of course – it said. I offered it a glass of wine which it accepted, with impolite haste – and so we sat, not saying much, made itself comfy, wrapped itself up (it wasn’t hungry. Ate before it came – is IT insane?) Getting late, growing tired, I said: shall I make you up a bed? No reply. It was fast asleep and faintly snoring. Silently, I crept up the stairs, and wondered, would it still be there in the morning, and what on earth is it going to want for breakfast?
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CONSCIOUSNESS bones don’t exist. muscles disintegrate. mind shuts down. entirety of Being dissolves between mattress and eiderdown. precious moments, as we are briefly aware that everything we are seeps, like raindrops, through minuscule particles of soil – dripping off to sleep. as random as a fallen seed we catch the drips and wake, like snowdrops in spring, and dodge the frosty cold snaps.
BLOODY HELL Utterly, hopelessly, thoughtlessly, mindlessly shattered, I fell into bed: Ten minutes later a Poem arrived. Wide awake, I dream of sleep!
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MARCH I’ve missed you, the sight of you, odour, pungent like over brewed coffee – the joy you inspire: Then a vague hint of deep jade green pierces solid soil; slithers – dirty yellow, dull sheathed, just before brilliance, purity: That sharp shard of low carat gold, like a duckling breaking from shell; mucky, putrid, cloaked in the mucous of birth, and suddenly there you are: Daffodil.
TOSSING COINS If the Moon was tossed like a sixpence, would it be heads or tails? Would it land in Devon or Dorset, or further North in Wales?
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EXHIBIT Trapped in a cell Fed Watered Basic tools to survive Kept my head Looked and saw At the base Of my prison Door a slither A shaft of light That shouldn’t be There Got up onto Weakened legs And feet Smote of hope Could it be Way not blocked Cell door Not locked? Crawled on hands And knees Felt the faint breeze Of freedom Pushed it A centimetre Feared Making the faintest Sound put my ear To the dirty ground No sound Of the footsteps Of my captors Wide now, that Impotent door
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And there in The cold grey of A very Early dawn I rose to my knees Carefully placed my Feet on solid Ground and Rose Stood tall Stretched my bones And amazed That I could I stretched And there I stood In a meadow Bursting with Early summer things The sky powder blue The shade that Older ladies choose For knitting Matinee jackets Mittens and Booties For new-born baby Boys Shredded by time Preserved for ever Now I too Am a patch of Ancient wilted Cloth protected Respected Honoured
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Adored Set on a plinth In a glass cage With a card at My feet Four lines Describe all that I Am I watch them gaze before they move On to the next exhibit
NATIONAL PARENTS’ DAY The winds of change are blowing, Coming on westerly breeze, Loosening leaves now Autumn’s here, Severing them from trees. Parents sit for they cannot move And watch their children go – Carried on an easterly wind, To what, they do not know: Southerly gales bring errant kids Knocking on old oak doors; And for a few hours, parents delight At the sound of their children’s feet on the floors! The north wind blows And the house is empty; The children have left once more. Parents wait, at a wooden gate, And long for that tap at the door.
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HOW IT ALL BEGAN Once upon a time there was Everything. Everything didn’t need to be Anything. Everything created Thought which thought what it was Created to Think And Everything found itself Questioned by its Creation. All that Everything was became Nothing. Thought discovered that Nothing did not exist. So it would not allow Anything to be Nothing. Everything became Anything. Anything became Everything Or Something. Confused, frustrated and extremely tired, The Universe exploded. There was a big bang and Everything that was Anything because it could never be Nothing became Something which clearly and definitively explains that the Universe is actually the Hundred Aker Wood and God is a Bear called Pooh.
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DEATH ROW I’ve never thought of seconds ‘til now like micro-organisms eating away at life; turn your back put the kettle on then you notice it gone. I saw lilac through three bars and thought of coloured walls and contrasting trellis plants to match creeping higher, alive. can’t sleep can’t decide bide my time sunrise – like the spark from a match in gloom hear their booted feet the coo of a distant dove flapping wings jangling keys echoes. It’s time weak at the knees counting seconds beating drum 74
Sharon Lansbury
HIGHLAND STATION shambled shed, tired sign – elderly, gripping a zimmer frame. silver rails glint in sunlight donated by charity – shingle twixt planks of fossil wood; hard as diamonds. hills, mountain-like, purple: heather bound, this Southern Line. trains come, turn, go no further: stop at the place that takes you away – on The Tartan Line. dropped off as night falls, arrive alone with dusk, and a single bag, at nothing and nowhere. watch the painted tube puff like a fat cigar down the narrow pencil tracks fusing into fuzzy furrows. welcomed by eagles, gorse applauds and thistles like tall, slim officials in plaid blankets stand up as the sun goes down. clouds, like fearsome chariots, race across a darkening sky, and the station opens for the night train that carries no more people this night. 75
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FUTILE AND POINTLESS ON A THURSDAY AFTERNOON Do I know I don’t know. I see things; patterns, processes, stuff that resonates like cakes – a million different kinds yet cakes, are cakes. Is your life a repetition of mine? I see you putting a cake in an oven – I know – you have forgotten the flour. Do I tell you? Will you listen? Love me more, love me less? Would my good intentions be worth it? Or should I let practice make you perfect?
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SUNDAY LUNCH Mister and Mister Magpie forage and peck. Brothers in law sent to Tesco for forgotten things, while Mrs and Mrs Magpie and the kids at home, prepare Sunday Lunch: Basting worms, finely slicing buds, marinating insects the human eye can barely see. Mister and Mister Magpie stop at the pub, cluck, twitter and chortle about how they really ought to fly back to the family nest for Sunday Lunch.
WAITING FOR EDISON I am in a dark house, furnished by family and friends am I invisible, or are they blind? Am I mute, or are they deaf? The hand that made thee did not make me: I am in a dark house waiting for Edison.
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IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME Wind is a torrent of turmoil, throughout my intestinal tract. The moon is a fully-grown baby I’m bloated with unjustifiable fat. The road is a ruby raw ribbon like steel, lacing my bowel; run for the runs are marathon winners, or I’m digging it out with a trowel. The pain, it comes and I know not why, or how the food I’ve eaten renders me useless, tragic and frail, without warning, so utterly beaten: I’ve tried gluten-free, forbidden fibre foregone dairy and wheat. Don’t know what on earth to try next, what to do, what to drink, what to eat: I have an irritable bowel, they say, and they say no more than that. So the wind is a torrent of turmoil, rampaging through my intestinal tract and that’s the plain and simple fact.
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PHONE BOX Disgorged from the train I watched it chuffing and heard it chugging tasted diesel ran after it, as it disappeared into the fog of a Highland night. Spewed and splattered on the platform like a cat’s hairball the dream changed to reality alone, miles from anywhere my footsteps banging drums woke spirits that seeped from heather to feed upon me and I walked in fear that mount trail the phone box urging me on accompanied by some very distant childhood memory knowing it was there somewhere. Hoped I had taken the right path through doubt and fear and nonetheless being convinced by that late hour of my failure to fail;
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there it stood - a hundred yards ahead in the darkening mist yet unmistakable, gloriously red! So many messages it sent in those childhood days relayed across the lochs and mountains of the Scotland of my youth comforter, friend, there to the end, and Home, hopefully a few more yards around the next bend.
STOPPING DEAD IN MY TRACKS Sunday, 29th May 2011, 7.50 a.m . staring at the last flower final Clematis Montana bloom season over in the blinking of an eye it seems: here today, gone tomorrow, like daffodils. like life: in five days’ time I shall be fifty.
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HOURS FROM NOW, TIME At some point, around late twenties, time meant something to me. Saw it annually. By thirty five, it aged and years became months: Twelve; cloaked in seasons that raced through and around me like fast trains thundering through stations, leaving in their wake, dust that smattered my eyes. Months became weeks as suddenly as thunder storms in June. By late forties, weeks surrendered to days becoming, to me, ancient battlegrounds, glorified by history and anyone who remembered what happened then, what went before: Shared joys, tears. Hours from now, time, my fiftieth birthday looms where has THIS day gone? The hours, pass like pollen on the wind; deeply, personal, introspections, thankfully, I reflect: Unconscious yet, of minutes, let alone seconds. 81
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LAND ARMY GIRLS 1944 Pointed ears sweating, shimmering. Velvet flanks pull plough beneath an English summer sky. Zebra-striped, molded earth, land army girls swank and sway, totter and trip, love and laugh through furrowed burrows, brown as gravy plant potatoes as though it will make a difference of some kind: Country not lost or taken stupidly discarded, irrationally, ignorantly, irresponsibly, desperately sadly surrendered to decline.
I DIDN’T WIN THE LOTTERY Six ducks, sitting in a row plus one - a bonus. Loaded my gun raised it, aimed. The winning lotto numbers appeared on my computer screen and off they flew every single one.
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HUMMER SEAT Wood pigeon children laugh, squeal in summer heat. Sounds float on night air like eagles on up-draughts. Doors and windows flung wide, people flop like wilted lettuce. The first spots of rain thump, then more and more as it pours from a coal mine sky. Lamps lit. Lightning flashes and alters the pace of summer heat Thwap of cork Glug, glug of wine to glass Rain will not stop our play: Pood wigeon lildren chaugh and reel in hummer seat.
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BARBECUE The magic of a summer night royal blue - deep velvet, crushed, folded sky; crumpled voices laugh, shrill and joyful close by. Chink of glass as people toast in celebration over smouldering remnants of barbecues across a heat wave nation. Rhythmic thuds pummel the surely endless night they spill from parties into streets, cities, towns arm in arm, hand in hand champagne, canapĂŠs dinner jackets, silk ball gowns or miniskirts and boob tubes tight as rubber bands. Stilettos cast off. Women hobble in stockinged feet now full of snakes and ladders; boyfriends empty powerless bladders in hedges and over garden fences and walls chuck empty cans of lager and pursue the cluster of girls tottering, hobbling, giggling along respectable streets. The magic of a summer night nears its end as sunrise peeps above the foot of the stage. The conductor turns the final page and the orchestra packs up. 84
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Indigo sky, bruised by clouds full of rain seep from the East, purse their lips, blow and send man-made debris skipping, tinkling along the edges of sparkling, dusty gutters. Milk floats.
FOR DAMIAN It sounded like snoring. Peeking through the curtains, I saw a pig. Totally pig, except for its wings. I watched and waited, longed to see it fly! Didn’t move, eat, sleep, wash, drink, Dared not close my exhausted eyes For fear of missing the Pig that Flies.
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THE ONE ARMED BANDIT Dedicated to Rascal - Norwegian Forest Aristocat. So loved.
Not a gambler, I went into the betting shop nonetheless. Surveyed the temptations mewing, vying for my investment. Tiny tails quivered like quill pens dipped in ink, whiskers twitched, noses pressed to cages weighing up my gullibility here’s a right mug. Drawn to one; cappuccino and cream ball of fluff, back turned to the world, scowled privately in disgust at his cell mates prostituting themselves in the hope of a decent home. One sun flower-yellow eye opened a crack for evil eye-to-scared stiff eye contact: Bugger off. Leave me alone. I left with my winnings! Eighteen years living in a war zone he tolerated the finest food, silk pillows, pride of place by the fire personal grooming and prawns every week. Eighteen years living in occupied territory his. Front forepaw now lame, his disdain for us is fever pitch like an old human, fully aware but powerless, immobile: Independence gone - fed at one end, wiped out at the other. Attitude still the same looks down at us as he looks up (how does he do that?) As though we are to blame. He has given up, I think, and so have we: There is no hope after eighteen years’ addiction to the one armed bandit.
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CHICKEN RUN chuckle, chortle, peck and cluck sleep on straw when day is done; lay eggs don’t remember how or why or when I got to now pieces of me removed from packaging thrust on hot coals in summer heat: spitting, sizzling, sprackling, twitching turned and based, then I recognise something: ‘I’m your thigh! Your leg’s in sauce’ - marinade before the coals, pieces of me over there roasting; out of doors, feeding souls sprickle, sprattle roll in battle, removed from heat, barbecue READY! All sit round - I feel and see them chew, munch, swallow, eat.
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SUNDAY, APRIL 10th 2011, 3 p.m.
I hear the distant intermittent traffic on a nearby road Mid-April, Sunday afternoon, warmer than usual: an air liner - a diamond speck trailing fart sewn by invisible fingers through a blanket of perfect sky. I watch the immaculate seamstress a friendly breeze makes its way through my home, emerges, bringing with it the odour of Sunday Roast.
PATIO I lay my head upon a slab. Fought it off quickly So fast, it grabbed my hair, pulled on the roots and would have made me part of it had I not had better sense and one more sip of wine.
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STRETCH MARKS Languid, resigned, I am coiled on a rack in rainbow lines of colour and shade in a haberdasher’s shop until a length of me is purchased for some purpose elastic for old knickers repaired: Cut to order in precise measure, agreed in writing, then stretched beyond my limits by an ever-increasing belly ‘n bum that will wear all elastic out until, irreplaceable, you’ll go buy a five-pack of G-strings brand new from Marks and Spencer
THE BENEFIT OF EXPERIENCE weather more like June, children play outside for the first time in ages: delighted by their joy I nonetheless note the clouds far in the west and hope they will be home before the storm.
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THE SUMMER OF ‘69
We were eight years old and the very best of friends. We went to the same school, tried our best to learn in the same class and lived a stone’s throw from one another. We were inseparable during those halcyon days, outdoors in the summer months in the nearby fields and by the stream, and warmly installed in each other’s houses during the winter, like pieces of ghost furniture accepted and mercifully left to our own devices. Other children didn’t interest us. Polly’s imagination was more than sufficient food for our occupation. We left the other kids to catch sticklebacks in glass jars, collect conkers and play knock down ginger with our more dangerously responsive adult neighbours. I hadn’t the slightest clue that we were aliens from a planet called Janus until Polly delivered the news to me one day early in the school holidays. I was astounded to discover that we were a pair of Special Agents placed on earth to protect it from the evil Madam Crowberry who lived among the headstones in the local graveyard. It thrilled and delighted me to think that I was part of this incredible plan and I almost burst with pride when she told me my real name: Norahs Yrubsnal! I had to promise Polly on pain of death, (whilst having no real conception of what death actually was), that I would never breath a word about our secret to a living soul. Polly explained that we could never trust anyone because Madam Crowberry had the power to change herself and her followers into human form, even other children, our siblings, parents, teachers and the Reverend. We plotted and planned all through the summer of 1969. We had a secret code that only Polly and I could understand, a language that only the two of us could speak and special badges that we would show each other when we met up each day to prove our true identities, for Madam Crowberry’s powers were such that she could even duplicate people’s looks.
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The summer stretched like elastic and the holidays were unending. The other children had an inkling that Polly and I were having a great deal more fun than they were and made frequent, but unsuccessful, attempts to join us. We were followed and spied upon, which added verisimilitude to the overall plot and seriousness to our mission. Polly said that Michael, David, Janet, Teresa and the Beverley Twins were not the human versions. We ran through meadows and woods, hid in the branches of climbable trees and crouched behind gravestones. Perhaps it all ended because Polly’s family moved to Suffolk at the end of that summer, or perhaps a more sinister reason lay at the root of our demise. Could she possibly have been captured by Madam Crowberry and turned into a copper kettle as Polly had always feared? I can’t remember precisely when, where or how it all ended. We evaporated like a vapour trail from an aeroplane, thick and solid until the wind tapered it to nothing. I don’t want to believe that Polly was taken by Madam Crowberry all those years ago. I believe now and always will believe deep in my heart that she was called back to our home planet to take up a Super Special Secret Mission that she couldn’t even tell me about. That’s how high-ranking she was. No, in the winter of 1969 my best friend, Yllop, went home to the planet where seman era tleps sdrawkcab.
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L A P W I N G PUB L I C A T I O N S
SHARON JANE LANSBURY
Sharon Jane Lansbury was born in Kent, England on the 4th June 1961. She attended Bullers Wood Grammar School for Girls in Chislehurst, Kent and pursued a career in the Marketing and Communications industries after leaving school, aged 19. Writing has always been an all-consuming passion and in addition to adult poetry, Sharon has written an extensive collection of poems for children and two full-length children’s novels. Sharon now lives in Northamptonshire, England.
k …There’s a frightful shortage of Angels my dear, and only the Finest will do. In an age when even Angels need to write up risk assessments, altruistic human kindness debased by jobs-worthiness and self-endangering heroism frowned upon, there will always be those who have the guts, gall and principle to do the right thing. S.J. Lansbury’s poems focus yet again on just how ordinary things of life suddenly take on the hugely important role of making us special. In Airshow it may not be politically correct to sell ‘chocolate Spitfires’, then again, liberty, freedom and democracy were not won by chocolate soldiers or dropping fizz-bombs into the bath. Delightfully, Sharon Lansbury brings a comic and satiric touch to our common experience. Richard Montgomery
Cover image by Richard Brooks
The Lapwing is a bird, in Irish lore - so it has been written indicative of hope. Printed by Kestrel Print Hand-bound at the Winepress, Ireland
ISBN 978-1-909252-09-7 £12.00