Why walk such distances,
with only the weather
measuring your steps,
over The Downs,
as breaths are taken
in exertion and sights?
Why walk without
a destination,
but the next stride,
on loosened chalk paths,
side-stepping puddles.
Why walk from your fixed place,
packed-up, back-turned,
to be rained-on, blown,
to find loneliness,
to be met by hearth
and hearty places?
*Jane Volker’s blog:
http://wildatlanticwanderer.blogspot.co.uk
I have never enjoyed cold tea.
You know that slop-dreg inch,
lukewarm, tipped into the sink.
My dad drank gallons of it,
with swigged slurp – his sound.
By God, he could drink it hot!
Gulped down, necked red-raw,
followed by a Silk Cut drag,
until the throat cancer stuck,
and he coughed it all up.
Was it the bloody cigarettes?
He puffed over nine miles of fags,
And how many gallons of tea?
With a cooled inch left, I recall
the words from Frank Zappa:
‘Everything gives you cancer’
Our closest have lives,
To live and enjoy,
Delayed redundancy
In our sick bed-employ:
Carers, co-sufferers,
Career un-chosen,
Tend disconnected,
The mumblers, and frozen.
Altered, unfair,
Re-written contracts;
No wedded-bliss,
When ill cannot act.
Wives, husbands,
Family, relatives old,
Air-brushed awareness,
As PD takes hold:
My prop, my chained-helper,
Engaged, far too cheap:
Her offset disbursement,
Too tired to weep.
When care is passed on,
With my atheist-prayer,
I ask her forgiveness,
For our contract, unfair.
It was a path
from another time,
Your close enquiry
of an ant-marched line.
Crossing the equally
engineered rails,
We both avoided
the steel-trip trail.
You, eldest boy,
chatting alongside,
On the rough-route,
where Ruti had cried:
Your uncle asleep,
in this blown-thin soil,
Alone in this god-land:
an empty black voile.
Unlocked the gate,
metallic complaints,
I showed you the place
where your uncle waits,
your talk is erased
by the hand-carved curves,
Our name cries out,
among foreign words.
For Clair May.
She would climb the wall,
under lost summer-light:
A crisp swallow-dive,
the thrill-chill of night:
Leftover, chalked-up,
mean temperature,
meant nothing to her,
dusk-dip, cold, venturer.
Surfacing, ripple-waking,
false mirror’s stretch;
she gripped, bump-naked,
the pool’s hard edge:
A rough-laid return,
like a lover’s slap,
then conscious of time,
breast-stroke elapsed:
Lifted, from the water,
wet moon on her skin,
she wore Pells Pool,
back home, again.
