Old man shuffling across the chess board
(after Marilyn Hacker)
Luigi Marchini
I’m not in a hurry
for the train, black as the leather worn
by Jack, the ex-monk from the States,
which waits, has waited always,
in the right place
I’m certainly in no hurry for
the park bench with its dedication still bright,
still large on the space
where we used to sit and smoke, John and I,
alive, so alive.
No way do to I want to revisit
that back room where Martin, the builder,
snorted smack,
pruned plastic pot plants
the rest of his life.
I remember well those times we four slept on stations,
always missing the last train.
Did we really, after seeing The Seventh Seal,
spend all night on the platform
going over the moves
in that chess game before
looking up
counting albatrosses
made of steel and glass?
Doctors, soldiers, artists; we could all feel
the fragrance of the night breeze,
the depraved, the under aged, the privileged
when we danced on a park of pain,
drank until six am.
And there was the young woman,
always seeking pharmaceutical improvements,
who, on a sweat soaked July evening,
I tried to kiss…
if only
that move had been polished…
if only, if only …
The Hiking Boots’ Prayer
Gareth Roberts
I will weave myself a weather
full of mud and stumbling hills
entrusting all the breath
and space that still they own
to form horizons
from blood and wind and bone
for the best of teeth
to grip the grit
of stubborn ‘scapes
into hard known knits of country
un-bound by its geology
and the urgent pulsing vein
with weathered skin
straining every mile
and mile and mile and on
though socks wear thin
and layered hides
are un-weaved and picked at
until threads are strewn
on looms of moor (worn
no more but by winds
and rough grass)
and cannot pass the tests
nor prove to be such proofs
against what weathers come
but I who stumbly blind the path
to scrape the heather and the high tor
and am not torn yet
though cold and wet with sinews stretched
with every step engrained
in the crannies of my sole
until this day grows old
and the light is done
I will cherish every mile and distance gained
and pray more for the miles that come
Contortions of the Breathing Dead
Peter Devonald
/ moved the mattress out
/ into the garden
/ settee next
/ sideboard and chair
/ cling on to civilisation
/ in the still cold air
/ stripped the house
/ of love and care
/ dare the universe
/ to spring despair
/ bailiffs come and go
/ talking of Michelangelo
/ plunder the house of love
/ goodbye entertainment
/ goodbye internet and TV
/ all memories sacrificed
/ for red bills and CCJ’s
/ falling on a bruise
/ no clemency for grief
/ no leniency for loss
/ this garden remains
/ our quiet Eden
/ birds welcome me
/ with dawn chorus and song
/ the fox feeds me
/ recollections of summer
/ sighing innocence of sorrow
/ to watch the sun rise and set
/ to sleep out in the open air
/ to distil life to true essence
/ to breathe and watch
/ the flowers grow
/ to whisper uncomfortable truths
/ to live in the present
/ even when it’s misery
/ to embrace every cloud
/ as if it is our last
/ to observe cherry blossom rise
/ and fall
/ a walking shadow watches
Reasons to Retire
Tony Oswick
Customer-centric and talking the talk,
Business plans, stakeholders, walking the walk.
Game-changing, ground-breaking, boots on the ground –
Buzz-words abound on work’s merry-go-round.
‘Think outside the box’ are the words of the trainer,
Pushing the envelope is a no-brainer.
Keep in the loop and take it off-line,
Assessing the bandwidth is so asinine.
Empower, mind-shower, facilitate those
Who backfill and drink from a high-level hose.
Bring out the ‘A’ game, a paradigm shift,
Singing from hymn sheets – I don’t get their drift.
Incentivise, synergise, taking a punt,
Migration strategy, payment up-front.
Bottom-line, drill down and raising the bar,
Feeding back isn’t in my repertoire
Guesstimates, touch base, step up to the plate,
Moving the goalposts or plain promulgate.
Expedite challenges, ducks in a row,
Delivery pipelines are tubes I don’t know.
Level the playing field, cascading on it,
It’s win-win, holistic – look under the bonnet!
Impactful ball-parks, high-altitude views,
Content providers are things I don’t use.
It’s all on the radar and then there, of course, is
Personnel – now known as Human Resources.
Running up flagpoles with fresh joined-up thinking –
And does boiling the ocean mean that I’m sinking?
High-flyers, bench-marking, storming the brain,
Team players move up the management chain.
At the end of the day pick the low-hanging fruit
‘Cos thinking of blue skies is no substitute.
Peeling the onion to suck it and see
Is not rocket science – excepting for me!
My mind is a jumble, my brain is on fire. Time to go, give it up, just relax – and retire.
Freewheeler
Roger Elkin
As a youth my Dad was a bit of a lad –
collector of glances with his throwaway
smiles, his laughing cavalier eyes.
Local girls ogled this freewheeler,
liked his dull-thundering of miles,
drilling from distances, across moorlines,
down snaky lanes, till bizzing through
the village astride his Hornet motorbike
and vroom-cruising past the gossip-gang
chin-wagging in judgement outside the Co-op
his Dad managed – Get ’is cum-uppance
one day – and met it, not yet twenty,
head on at Rock End, smacking into
Jim Brown’s traction waggon, and
somersaulting through sky in slow
motion, stretches of hedge flashing past,
and hoping to God he wouldn’t hit
the grit-stone walling, till falling, falling,
left leg sprawled backwards beneath him.
Six months after, fractured leg mended,
had to be re-set, so was painfully broken
in slowest of motions, putting the brakes
on his racing, and gave him a halting
walk, a limping list which he lived with
the next fifty years. Turning from bikes
to cars caught him a wife, and a slowed-
down life, mostly wheelchairbound,
till, keeping feet clear of the pedals,
eyes smiling, quietly died.
Mars 1 Project 2012
Jacqueline Woods
Pilgrims in rudderless space
we cling to a dubious destiny
where the unknown holds
no history, and the fingerprints
of our future is yet unformed.
Six years of training, learning rules
to a new world, severing our past
until through cataracts of disbelief
we perceive oceans unfrozen,
global warming, terraforming to stir
the seeds within this Lazurus land.
Seven months gestation,
quads in an orphaned womb,
a perilous pregnancy which
could deliver us too soon,
our lives annulled as we
slip from our skin.
Twin moons will light our heaven,
time both wax and wane,
in this ghostly battlefield
where crumbled meteorites
once danced in crimson glory.
A century from now our visors
will be lifted, our hands unsheathed,
and in the tremble of new skin
touching, an ordinary miracle
will be born.