I wrote two letters to you Z. just in case.

ONE

Dear Z,

Sad news. It was hoped G

would rally under the new

treatment. It was hoped the light

would glimmer in her eyes

once more like two stars. It was hoped

I would not stand by her graveside,

delicately lay her favourite flowers

on the cold grey stone. Her son

says he will never wear his Union

Jack suit again. He says “It’s betrayed

him.” He did not want to be independent

of his mam. She was his certainty.

The rains have started again. We have

a loose tile. H says it is a faulty baffle.

The Polish deli sent flowers

and a get well card. Nicely done.

Yearning still,

Y.

PS Gonna slap that bloke with wheelbarrow coffin silly. Knock the bastard into next week.

TWO

Dearest, dearest Z,

Blessings come few and rare. The new

treatment worked. She’s in remission.

Her son, the terrorist clown says

he has lot of stuff to work through

with her. Life is not going to be easy.

He says he betrayed her trust.

The rains have stopped. Thank Christ.

We can get replace the absent mortar between the bricks

and get the askew guttering

straightened out. Thank God G

is fine, if not G as in Great.

Yay,

Y.

PS Seems wheelbarrow coffin bloke

has gone.

Alan argues Adam allows awkward

awe amongst alphabetically arranged

arrogant allusive artists

all asking arrogantly ” Aye? Aye? Aye?

Acute adolescent, asinine adult admires

apples and appearances.

*******

Belies belief, Bill briefs bloody boys
black bright bloom blues blighted

brackish breath. Bacon breakfast
brilliantines Bill’s belly blossom beneath
billowed bouche. Born backwards,
battled bullies.

*******

Clever Cedric clears chocker calendar.
Carefully calculates choices. Chosen
chaps collect clapped cars.

Colic child chivvied chastised. Clamoured
closeness. Clerical cadre chipped. Chases
clubbable classy chavettes

*******

Dementia Dennis dilly dalies dribble

drawn duck down drills dark drips dog’s dinner

dignity dangles dazzle dour dims days, destroys

daughter’s delightful dream, dad’s dappled destiny.

*******

Echoes epistle ears. Enter entices entry, envelops

entropy. Engorges, eludes, emerges entranced,

embroiled, enhanced. Exist enjoyed, enjoyable.

Eye eggs erupted exit eaten.

Empty. Ennui. Enlightened. Enraptured.

(W to X)

Dearest X,

G is afeared to go out.
Hospital braised her liver

when they scalded the growth.
She needs to piss, a lot.

She’s weak and dizzy. Water
inflection. Thin as bamboo.

I can’t concentrate on this
refundum. I’m all fret.

Wishes,

W.

*******

(X to Y)

Dear Y,

Watch out for your mam.
She’s in fault finding mode.

G’s son catapulted
back from Amsterdam
by news of his mam

taken in ill. His Union
Jack cozzy held up in customs.
Thought he’d packed drugs

in bulldog’s nose, and them
massive hands and feet.
He don’t need drugs. He’s already

away with the fairies, like his dad were.
He’s at her bedside now. You’ve got to ask
when, where and how he got

message she were badly so quick,
like as if he knew already.

Xcell my dear,

X.

PS As with all elections feel like everyone’s signing my name by proxy. Ha ha ha ha.

put my leg in boxer shorts,

the wrong way,

pick up my wife’s toothbrush,
and use her toothpaste,
oblivious to both.

put on too many clothes when it’s hot,
too few, when it’s cold.

chivy as plastic bottles tumble
down the bus aisle,

see young folk ride their bikes
on the pavement,

or push into a queue.

I have underpants with holes
in the crutch through wear not design.

laugh at books and signs full
of epigrammatic phrases about

growing old, living with someone,
the habits of cats and dogs.

remember when I was younger
saying “If I ever get like that
shoot me.”

T to U)

Dear U,

Green and pleasant
becomes patriot and traitor.

Civil War, roundhead, cavalier,
Lancastrian and Yorkist.

Families split, blood divided.
We need to find commonality, man.

Step out the door, a lottery ball.
Speculate to accumulate possibilities.

You’re ball rolls by chance not design.
It might be chosen. Who really knows?

If you stay is it same old, same old?
Elect a step out the door into whatever

rain or sun decides to fall. Vote
either way the future will happen.

Try and trust,

T.

*******

(U to V)

Dear V,

Grief rubbishes all but day to day.
All books, tv, newspapers are gust,

here and gone. Close your eyes. Listen.
What does your intuition say?

More control in who goes where,
and why. Who has the control?

What is powerless when whatever
government imposes from above?

Choose what you wear it is either
too little or too much. Choose

where you go depends on how
many chinks in your pocket,

flaps of paper in your wallet,
how much swipe on your card.

G tells me she’s had the results.
Her cancer has appeared again.

Her decision whether they remove her insides, stop it spreading further.

Undecided,

U.

*******

(V to W)

Dear W,

After the vote the grass will still
be cut, borders weeded.

Shops will sell what they can get.
A will battle B over A to Z.

The government will always be in doubt.
Europe will always be pilloried

for sticking it’s nose into our
business, and markets trade

with whomever they want. NHS
continue to be privatised. City

always bets on the roulette economy
desperate to be confident. Green

and pleasant encroached by brick
and tile. Big business find loopholes

and badger politicians for boltholes,
all the while saying they’re your mate,

and can be trusted to pay back
whatever they owe, blag you dry.

Then use your cash for foreign
holidays and no forwarding address.

Vote sensibly,

V.

PS What folk have died of voting?

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.