I wake up.

Pay attention.

How is she dressed?
Why is she here?
How does she move?
Where is she going?

This fly, this ant, this cat,
this woman with a child.

(I)

DAD NEVER ONLY CONSIDERS

the relevant part of a map.

When he gets lost, he stops the turn of the world,

at the entrance to the busiest junction,

sometimes, before a roundabout,

and unfolds a view of the globe

to its fullest extent to find his way.
Perhaps, at work, when he changes

one tiny part of the system he traces

its effect on a detailed draughted whole diagram of council offices, hospitals

or nuclear subs where he has installed

new heating waste management services.
And I at work or home cursed with the same

need for thorough deliberation,

find bosses, wives and workmates sigh

at my slow, detailed examination

of the blood, sinew and bones

of an issue, that had I rushed,

as when angry, only find confusion.
My dad and I bring the whole going on

of the rush, tumble and speed of earth

to a brief stop, as others

who wish to get on, hoot, cringe,

whistle and toot their dismay.

We ignore them all and quietly,

stubbornly, slowly map our way.

*******

(ii)

MY DAD TRIED TO KILL ME

()

()

()

When he taught me to swim
I was underwater

above me

his massive torso was

air

I could not get any
My lungs ached
()
()
()

()

()

()

*******
(iii)

BLUE FUNNEL
White, steaming big neck

swings like sail in full

horns razor sharp Madras cow

clanks down metal aisle

three funnelled merchant ship.
Dad, up from hot boilers,

his mate behind the beast

hits it with a stick, herds it

back to wooden corral

above the hold.
Heat, more flies than sweat,

Dad knew white monster

coal blistered face

nostrils hissing air

steam scream water

through pipes, pistons.

knew caress of its flank,

every flinch, flick, strain,

yawn of engine below,

only way to get there.
Indian cow sacred,

So are ships boilers
*******
(iv)
THE ARTIST

Eleven years old

I open my Dads teenage sketchbooks:

Cows sit down in HB pencil.
His Dad’s backyard full of tools.

Preliminary pencil sketches.
Come at

his female nudes.

Drapery hides modesty.
Details of green Clwydian hills,

mountains, landscapes,
rotted stump colours

ablaze yellows, ochres,
I want to draw, sketch,

inspired.
I ask him for his other books.
He doesn’t have many.

Gives me all:

Alfred N. Whiteheads

‘Problems of Philosophy’

An Introduction To Immanuel Kant

The Poems of Rudyard Kipling.
He plays 33″ record of Dylan Thomas

‘Under Milk Wood’

so every side of my life

a quote from it in my head.
*******

(v)
STRIDING EDGE
two stairs down from landing

sister and I safe

‘Neither half up, or halfway..’

hill/mountainside braced against icy

gust mam/dad below igneous lava erupt

at each other

two hills supported us till now

silence, lounge door opens mam climbs

stairs/hill/mountainside,

and as she speaks

“Your dad and  I have decided we cannot be together, anymore. You must decide who you want to live with.”

“I’ll do whatever you decide.” my sister says. I am eleven. She is nine.

ice encrusts

solid rock expands

rock falls away making valley sides

sister and I stand on Striding Edge

razorback, serrated edge five years later

cold mist,

prevailing wind, ice brings wet eyes

we are with divorced dad hiking Helvellyn,

sandstone step

gingerly

damp slips hands/boots,

Kevin Keegan Afro black sheep

fleece flops side to side

hiking boot midair,

sharp intake,

drop down

to Red Tarn

somewhere in mist,

somewhere in mist sisters/dads hand

manoeuvre frozen legs, up,

.                                           over, round,

shifting from one side edge

.                                                  to the other,

weeks with mam, weekends dad,

careful what you say,

.                                       interrogation from both.

mist clears enough for summit sight.

time away at college. focus.

careful to have three rock holds. focus.

remember once summit reached

always another higher later.

my hands support sister/dad/mam

when sides

fall away

*******
(vi)

LONG GALLERY

With each cough I feel his

vibration under my feet

in this green oak skeleton

whose Tudor beams bend and creak

my eighty year old dad says

” Got bad news. Lung specialist

says I once had 25

per cent larger lungs than most
people my age. Now its gone.”

“Is it getting worse?” I ask

feel the echoes of his tread

on the wooden boards. “Yes”.
“So, Dad, you’re going to die

of asphyxiation?”

I look out of priceless glass

Tudor windows “Possibly”.

Dear R,

As I sip my dark coffee
time to cast over the overcast
after the burn of re entry

land disorientated in a wasteland
and await kind hands to steady

these legs unused to the gravity
of the situation. Time will tell.

I had thought it all fiction,
then reality shot and cut my heart.

This empty, upturned capsule
of a coffee cup my re entry vehicle.

Would be great to see you soon.

Returned to another earth,

R.

Dear P,

Outside the local library
after his blade and bullet
she was sat, as if on a beach
under a warm foreign sun.

Her blood trickled like melted icecream.

Out of this tolerance and love

O
(In memory of Jo Cox, M.P. assassinated
yesterday in her home town of Birstall, Leeds. Words based on those of an eye witness) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Cox

*******

(P to Q)

Dear Q,

On promises and hopes
a cross is put in the box.

Will practical assistance be given
to those with no voice,

unheard, dismissed, forgotten,
not newsworthy people

who wish to escape blade,
bullet, dust of their homes

still on their feet, in their blood,
a need for better views

from new windows, under
solid roofs and cleaner air?

Persistence in hope,

P.

Dear F,

Dressed in this Union Jack
suit with it’s big feet
and oversized hands,
young people put the boot in.

I’ve got bruises like watermelons,
my knees are butter mountains.
They don’t appreciate I’m a man
in here not a cartoon.

It’s like a burqa. People can only see
my eyes. I’m a security risk. Police
ask for my I.D. , regular. Where’s
the fun gone in dressing up?

My bulldog mask doesn’t help.
I get my ears tweaked,
snout grabbed with two fingers,
“onk, onk.” I sweat

like Billy O, and toddle
the hashish canals until my next
bruise. A toke or two relieves
the pain and I’m glad for the money.

My landlady between tricks
hands me her shopping list.
Once I’ve got heavy bags
in each hand I’m an easy target.

Regular football chipped and sliced.
Received good wishes from D.
Sometimes she’s not all there,
other times she’s wick.

Please send another £300 quid.
I might last a month on the street
theatre then have to consider
factory work, or god forbid, office.

Yours in Europe,

E.

*******

(F to G)

Dear G,

You know when you have
all yours keys out, but for the life,
can’t remember what locks
they all fit, or even what doors,

for the life, I can’t recall why
I’m writing to you. I’ll try jog
it in the right order, sometimes
it comes out higgledy wriggledy.

Tell you about what’s happened.
E is bound for death in a handcart,
or wheelbarrow. He’s on leave
from Europe or remaining a cartoon.

I took the washing upstairs
because it’s too rainy for the Siegfried
line. Hung it on the clothes donkey
until it’s dead dry, shaken not stirred.

Fabulous to you,

F.

PS The street signs tell me The Greatest is Dead and Jesus is Alive.

*******

(G to H)

Dear H,

I am waiting in the hospital cafe
run by volunteers. I arrived too early
with a vote of confidence
from the weather that has let us off,

with a caution, for now. Most folk
are after asking what most things
are for and where they’re going next.
I had a black coffee and Bakewell flapjack.

We’re all waiting for results. Yay
or nay. Decided by other folk.
Heard a lady in Tescos shout:
“I’m not having you order me about.

I’m not having anybody, least of all men
dictate what I must do!” I smiled at her
and she scuttled past. Not sure she saw
me with how folk are always rushed

with this mindfulness and filling in
colouring books like as if they were kids
in junior school with a bit of time
to themselves which they haven’t

got with these SITS or is it SATS.
I know they’ve to sit down to them.
Testing their incompetence
says E. He’s gone foreign now.

O. Just got call for my appointment.
Well chemicals did bugger all.
Must be ripping my head open now,
then. Aye, that’s answer all are waiting on.

Good Outcomes and God’s Best to thee,

G.

*******

(H to I)

Dearest I,

Our love is a dream of Europe
united, my Big Ben and your
bateaud Seine. My Bratwurst
and your Bridge of Sighs.

Saw a chap today trundling down
what few cobbles we have left
a coffin with a wheelbarrow in it.
“What did the wheelbarrow die of?”

I shouted. “No wheels” he replied.
Have to make sure wheels don’t
come off our barrow my love,
else we’ll be manuring the cemetery.

Our Polish Deli is now a supermarket
of foreign goods and phrases. It’s
like a puzzle. I’m defeated
when I’m forced to ask for help with the labels.

Hope our love isn’t a puzzle. Or
at least only a quick crossword.
I’m your Greek bail out,
you’re my Referendum.

Decide to see me soon.
I’ll suffer more austerity,
be on the bread line
for a touch of your lips.

Hot for you,

H.

Dear B,

There’s a street party somewhere
on my body: kids are crying
and chasing their icecream
down the gutters with the rain.

Russians are running
hooligans at the French
and English. Liberated.

Rain still knocks at doors
and windows but we’re determined
not to let it in without proof
of good intentions and a trade.

Outside the food bank a lad
celebrates the Queen’s 90th
by taking a coffin in a wheelbarrow
down the buntinged high street.

Admiration,

A.

*******

Dear C,
The street party referendum voters
would have us abandon our Ardenne
Pate and Parma Ham of unknown
import and export.
Chap called with a wheelbarrow.
He wanted to know whether
we were into buying his Mam’s
manure fresh out of her coffin.
Don’t walk under A’s legs else
you’ll get bad luck. She insulted me yesterday, said I were big up top
and down below. I defended mesen,

saying I were buxom and bubbly.
She called me a bitch, I called her an arse.
We laughed. Kept backbone of English natty.
Blessings.

B.

*******

(C to D)

Hi D,

bit of crisis last night, water
pissing through bathroom ceiling.
Put towels down and got blacked
up tracing roof leak in loft.

Called plumber who advised turning
water off. Still dripping through.
Summer is leaking all over,
and clearing its tubes.

His mam were in a shitheap coffin
while I knocked nails into his wobbly
wheelbarrow, rustbucket. Coffin
were floating like a boat.

A still moaning about B.

Consolations,

C.

*******

(D to E)

Dear D,

This should really reach you
before you go abroad
to be a pantomime terrorist.
I’m sneezing, a lot.

Must be the dust in the air
from your winged stilettos.

Walking round our new Polish
deli is like going abroad. You
don’t get a word of what’s what
and have to read the pictures,

like they did in churches
in the olden days or ask
a guide, a shop assistant
as to what stuff is. Our F

would know because he’s
been learned right, has languages
and all those hard words
in his head. I ask him,

don’t reckon on understanding
his answer like, have to take
it home and cogitate over it.
I get it eventually.

Dearest to you,

D.

P.S. Don’t get wet.

TO BE CONTINUED

I chat to the museum curator
of the motor museum
at his post behind the counter.
“Have to bring my wife. She
was into bikes, and can remember
every…”

He looks at me.

“every…”

I am an idiot.

“Those things with numbers
and letters on the front
of cars?”

“Number plates”.
He replies with sharp sarcasm,
and no smile.

The older I get

what were once obvious words

arrive less

and less when and where I need them.