I thought I caught
your high laughter
above the babble
of the rear passengers,
those still seat-searching,
that loud release
of your soul through
the packed plane,
but you were fifty miles
as the black crow flies
back in Sussex,
strutting, teaching kids
the art of slow cooking,
whilst our youngest
was absent, next to me.
We circled above you
and then turned east,
and the tight discomforts
of modern air travel
meant I was cut off
by the rule of law,
subject to sky marshals
and air hostesses,
the containerised whims
when being removed,
a divorce, felt as tightness
from the buckle and belt,
which have to be worn
due to the turbulence,
we could drop from the sky.
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.
