A Few Poems
Scoot
Made from long forgotten toys
and bike bits, my scooter arrived
on the doorstep, freshly painted red,
big and clumsy. My father hoped
scooting would put meat on my bones.
I got the hang of it straight away.
I'd clatter down kerbs, flatten daisies
and criss-cross empty roads. Sometimes
I'd carry foot passengers, mostly teddies
or an occasional obliging cat.
No one coveted my wonky pram wheels,
chewed rubber handles and tinny bell.
For years I scooted along,
not caring if skin peeled from elbows,
stones embedded into knees
or bubble wrap blisters appeared on palms.
I had the means to go between
the fields and the estate, the shops and the subway,
my house and friends. And to go alone.
The first time my scooter cried blood –
red blobs of rain-washed paint and rust –
I screamed. My father pushed his face to the window,
hands either side of his head
in defeat; however hard I scooted,
I still wore my bones.
Sapling
My father thought he could cure his knee
by swinging his injured leg over the kitchen table.
I'd collect my dolls to watch from the doorway.
He's ruptured his cruciate ligament, I'd say,
as if I understood the words.
From there I could touch
the taper and curve of his wooden crutches,
propped against a wall like saplings,
could imagine my black crayon
had made grains in the ash-wood,
lines headed one way then the other – a pirate's map.
If my father caught me looking I'd flip my gaze
into the garden, to the beginnings of a plum tree,
delicate in the sun.
It didn't draw me the way those crutches did.
Years later, that tree still stands. On visits home,
I'll settle on a blanketed lawn to sketch it,
adjust my pencil to suit the light, set the lines to be reborn.
I know this tree and its moods better than I knew my father.
Sometimes I'll think of his hands
gently planting the next-to-nothing of a sapling,
of his shadow where other shadows now fall.
It's as though I can see him.
A stranger picking plums.
water
when i become water
i shall be a lake full of fish and stone
upon me wooden boats will bob
children in bobble hats
will row around my perimeter
or across to my island –
almost too far away to see from land –
to swing on rope climb trees outpace horses
you'll know me
i shall be friendly and let each gaze
touch my honest surface
i won't be in a hurry
i'll dawdle
animals will come to drink from me
locals wrapped in goose-fat will swim my laps
or sit in deckchairs on grassy banks to read books
in spring and summer
belted kingfishers will build
nests they'll choose the side in the sun
once before rivers ran dry
and oceans died when the sky held rain
there were many lakes
swirling and fertile and deep
but i will be the only one
when i become water
Link to video for poem
Summer's End
At summer's end
we came to race boats
across the ford at Kineton.
We carried nets, thermos flasks,
wore red to deter wasps.
Today the valley thrums with insects.
Ants like magnetic particles
drawn to the surface.
I tread them back into the earth.
Vulnerable to drought,
the ford is a cobble-stoned puddle.
Silt will slow its journey
to the Thames.
No sound, no trickle, no gush.
Two horses gallop over,
a faint smell of grass and peppermint,
then shy away.
In this moment of birdsong,
ox-eye daisies and variegated light,
it's the way someone has fixed the rotten gate
with blue twine that captures me.
This one thing:
the impermanence of wood.
Made from long forgotten toys
and bike bits, my scooter arrived
on the doorstep, freshly painted red,
big and clumsy. My father hoped
scooting would put meat on my bones.
I got the hang of it straight away.
I'd clatter down kerbs, flatten daisies
and criss-cross empty roads. Sometimes
I'd carry foot passengers, mostly teddies
or an occasional obliging cat.
No one coveted my wonky pram wheels,
chewed rubber handles and tinny bell.
For years I scooted along,
not caring if skin peeled from elbows,
stones embedded into knees
or bubble wrap blisters appeared on palms.
I had the means to go between
the fields and the estate, the shops and the subway,
my house and friends. And to go alone.
The first time my scooter cried blood –
red blobs of rain-washed paint and rust –
I screamed. My father pushed his face to the window,
hands either side of his head
in defeat; however hard I scooted,
I still wore my bones.
Sapling
My father thought he could cure his knee
by swinging his injured leg over the kitchen table.
I'd collect my dolls to watch from the doorway.
He's ruptured his cruciate ligament, I'd say,
as if I understood the words.
From there I could touch
the taper and curve of his wooden crutches,
propped against a wall like saplings,
could imagine my black crayon
had made grains in the ash-wood,
lines headed one way then the other – a pirate's map.
If my father caught me looking I'd flip my gaze
into the garden, to the beginnings of a plum tree,
delicate in the sun.
It didn't draw me the way those crutches did.
Years later, that tree still stands. On visits home,
I'll settle on a blanketed lawn to sketch it,
adjust my pencil to suit the light, set the lines to be reborn.
I know this tree and its moods better than I knew my father.
Sometimes I'll think of his hands
gently planting the next-to-nothing of a sapling,
of his shadow where other shadows now fall.
It's as though I can see him.
A stranger picking plums.
water
when i become water
i shall be a lake full of fish and stone
upon me wooden boats will bob
children in bobble hats
will row around my perimeter
or across to my island –
almost too far away to see from land –
to swing on rope climb trees outpace horses
you'll know me
i shall be friendly and let each gaze
touch my honest surface
i won't be in a hurry
i'll dawdle
animals will come to drink from me
locals wrapped in goose-fat will swim my laps
or sit in deckchairs on grassy banks to read books
in spring and summer
belted kingfishers will build
nests they'll choose the side in the sun
once before rivers ran dry
and oceans died when the sky held rain
there were many lakes
swirling and fertile and deep
but i will be the only one
when i become water
Link to video for poem
Summer's End
At summer's end
we came to race boats
across the ford at Kineton.
We carried nets, thermos flasks,
wore red to deter wasps.
Today the valley thrums with insects.
Ants like magnetic particles
drawn to the surface.
I tread them back into the earth.
Vulnerable to drought,
the ford is a cobble-stoned puddle.
Silt will slow its journey
to the Thames.
No sound, no trickle, no gush.
Two horses gallop over,
a faint smell of grass and peppermint,
then shy away.
In this moment of birdsong,
ox-eye daisies and variegated light,
it's the way someone has fixed the rotten gate
with blue twine that captures me.
This one thing:
the impermanence of wood.