Old Weaker Poems


Election Day


The children are home
after swimming, the park;

and don't tell little Frankie
but the wolf

in her clock of animal calls
stuck its head through the glass

when a fox appeared
and howled, just to warn her.


Thai


The first time a bowl of green curry
and jasmine rice was placed before me
was like the first time a masseuse

worked my back with a bar:
one side smooth, a mint chocolate cream,
the other grooved like a mat of beads.

Tears, if not quite of joy, came to my eyes.


Everything is an Engine


The night-nurse is an engine
to deflect the insomniac recuperant
seeking access to the TV room at two a.m.

The extractor fan is an engine
pumping out the cold and keeping
warmth awake in the yellow ward.

The tap is an engine, dripping repetitively
onto the rim of the plug,
fascinating the narcotic gaze.

The arrival of the day-nurses is an engine.
Lights flicker on. Refusing breakfast
threatens detention until dinner-time.

Repeatedly, options are reduced to one.
Sure as a tiller steering a boat - its wooden fin -
it is an engine.


Bed


The yellow nightdress,
false-pocketed, thin as a moth's wings,
went up about her.
Found, she was the brilliant wire
within the bulb, unreachable.

In bed, she was
fascinated by the flame - the principle
which she could not crack,
that drew
her attention the way waves did.


Games


I can't concentrate on long things, but Lego,
my mum says I would sit for hours.

And Warhammer - little goblins
from a lead model shop.

I got that patience froom video games -
Snez, PSP, N64.

In one, you can call in helicopter strikes.
I used to baby-sit a kid who had it.

And this rip-off of FIFA -
Beckham was B. Eckham and Giggs was Greggs.

I used to play for absolutely hours.

But then there was a game
based on rain.
You could place mountains and mine valleys
to create lakes. it sounds like
the lamest game ever

but it was like being hypnotised.


Tally


Samm's a bad communicator.
Sooner go hungry
than venture into a busy kitchen.

Weekends, he attends concerts
incognito, cycles everywhere
in a local ice-hockey cap.

On the net, he slips amid a string
of zeroes - a clung blanket
bringing him closer to naught.


Portrait


Endearing how Anna yawns,
mid-conversation, mid-meal even.

She doesn't attempt to stifle it,
merely says 'I always yawn.'

She keeps a good kitchen, tells me,
'You always arrive when I am baking!'

Knows her way around a cocktail menu.
That Canadian ease with silence.