Not In the Mood
You can’t turn it on and off like a tap,
you’re either grabbed by the throat,
a rabbit cornered by a hungry stoat,
or you’re totally lost without a map.
This is the way when a pristine sheet
of white paper stares back at you,
daring you to commit a word or two,
to launch a line with a promising beat.
Sadly, there’s no inspiration here,
just an obstinate will to transcribe
a thought or two about a tribe
of would-be poets lacking a seer.
So these poor verses just fizzle out
drift to a halt, wobble and stall,
cower low behind the nearest wall,
emitting a whimper, not a shout.
Cells and Stuff
I’m not minded to lose much sleep
over definitions and theories of life,
not through a lack of interest
in the genesis of stuff that divides
its way to me and what I have for tea,
but because I see human finitude
for what it is and pretends to be.
Now don’t go getting me wrong:
I’m a fan of biologists who set off
from the cell – their atom – plotting
from lab to lab, hunch to hunch,
refining what’s what and who’s who;
no, I’m all for the scientific project!
What I’m trying to say is simple,
a narrative to preserve our sanity:
it’s that we shouldn’t beat ourselves
up over stuff always just out of reach;
let’s stick to the science of wondrous
enigmas and chill with fallibility.
Bad Genes
Mother said father lost his oomph
when he returned from war service
checking contraband in Trinidad;
well, I seem to have inherited a little
of his inertia.
It’s not that I’m lazy – I think – more
that my attention is foreshortened
when confronted by the day-to-day
duties of living what others see
as comfortable lives.
I can read and write with iron will
and stamina, lost in that nebulous
world of ideas and theories for hours,
privileging Bhaskar’s real over
everyday events.
Ok, I confess that daily skirmishes
with mundanity leave minor scars
on my conscience, and I’m not averse
to sociologies of everyday life,
but ‘doing it’ is different.
Who makes those rules I infringe
against I ask? And who determines
what punishment to be metred out
to bemused innocents like me
who just want space?
I appreciate the need for housework
but who says how much and when?
Dirt, it seems, reappears at will,
And as Wittgenstein argued, there’s no
possibility of cleanliness without it.
Some dirt should be minimised,
Scrubbed, scraped, dissolved,
swept under a carpet at least,
but much of it is a harmless affront
to the frankly overly zealous.
So let’s compromise our way
to lives midway between responsibility
and, it you insist, irresponsibility:
I won’t call you lazy if you don’t think,
plus I’ll hoover now and again.
Mixing Senses
At first thought you have to be a recipient of faulty wiring
to see sounds, hear the wallflower smudge its way to colour,
feel a loved one setting off on the long journey home;
but this is nonsense: becoming a poet performs this trick.
Have you never stretched to your finger tips and touched
the choral leaves of Spring, or the nubile date-red lips
of those rosebuds scrabbling loosely up the garden fence?
Can you not hear the fleshy greens, the coloured gems?
Ears can learn to see seas combing pebbles on the beach
and sharp eyes to message emotions to tingle the skin;
in quiet moments if you hold your breath the clean odour
of winter translates into a comforting sense of wellbeing.
Sex
Sex is the strangest thing,
not a gem, more like bling,
a white-hot consuming fire
taking you down to the wire
before its flames burn out.
There’s the hors d’oeuvre
if you’ve got the nerve,
plus the skill to fumble
before the fateful tumble
into consummation.
Maybe its best to abandon
thought, to mount a tandem
toward a crimson sunset,
but I’d be reluctant to bet
against a postmortum.
Ah well, nothing to be done
lest it spoils the fun,
so ditch the brain and park
and ride till all is done.
What Do You Want to Be Lad?
‘What do you want to be, lad?’
he said, the way teachers do.
O-levels loomed close, so I had
to choose, but I hadn’t a clue.
Problem was there were boats
to burn if you got it wrong,
A-levels wouldn’t play host
to careers scorned the most.
So cavalierly I tossed my hat in
for a respectable well-paid plan,
said ‘solicitor, sir’, and Latin
was price to pay to be that man.
Hannibal crossed the peak
his elephants to the fore,
while I sat at my desk, weak
with the prospect of law
and loathing my Latin Primer.
I elected A-levels for pleasure,
opting for English, History
and Economics to measure
my fitness for that mystery
that was to be my future.
Plumbing the depths I retook
two A-levels, earning myself
a breathing space to look
further afield for wealth
enough to feed a family.
And so belatedly I went
to Surrey University to read
Human Sciences, now bent
on diligent study to lead
to an academic career.
So, looking back, not knowing
what to do or be was okay,
and I can say without crowing
that I benefited from a delay
in fateful decision-making.
‘What do you want to be lad?’
My advice to most lads now
would be that it’s not so bad
to say, with furrowed brow,
‘I haven’t a clue yet sir.’