Float like a butterfly. 05.0.2012.

I used to float like a butterfly,

sting like a bee

but that was many moths ago.

The Crane Fly 24.01.2012.

The Crane Fly.




Last night, you tiptoed

along the curtain rail.

Your cabriole and caper

swept you

into a dark corner.

Here, you reached

your final resting place.



There was no

crash landing

this time

away from the

dizzying heights,

the lights.

There was no more

ditzing or

trampolining.



Instead you put out

wavering sensors,

touched down

quietly,

cushioned by

your landing legs.



I left you there,

settling over your

undercarriage,

pleased to give you

respite after all your

uphill toiling.





I was a little afraid

of the dancer in you

as a child.

After all, you were

so much bigger

in those days.



Still, I never wished

you dead; I had rather

that you would float

free on scissor-legs, away

through the

window gap I always

left you for your

Great Escape.





Was I afraid you

would brush my cheek

in the dark?

Did I think you would

scare the living daylights

out of me?





Now, of course,

I realise that there

are much bigger

things to be

afraid of.



Now I realise that

you couldn't hurt a fly.

Birkenhead Central Library 13.08.2011.

In 1966, after school

we leaned against

your railings,

waited for the F19.

Behind us, you were

a pale grey monolith,

stilled by wisdom.



You were always there

just in case, like the

safety of home.

You would have welcomed us

but we thought we were

still exploring other worlds.



Forty five years later

you are still the

pale grey monolith.

You still welcome us,

offer your wisdom.



Now we lean our bikes

against the railings

(are they really the same)

disappear into the

limestone world

for whole afternoons,

into cool chamber and census

to look for our father's

home.

A robin alarmed

A robin on a

fence post

puffs himself out

for all he's worth,

dipping and tittering,

shaking like an alarm clock.



He knows his enemies

in a linear way,

knows the way of all flesh.

So he squares up

to this sudden shocking plunder

of bulldozing proportions,

squares up to something

forty times

his size.

Open Reach girl 20.07.2011.

Tall, quiet, assured,

you came right to

the address,

no messing.

Unassuming you were,

though people,

I assume,

assumed.



You read my notice;

'Bell not working-

knock loudly. Thankyou.'



You knocked loudly.

As I opened up, you

stood before me-

all there in navy blue and

high viz, a paramedic

of the wires;

apologised for

knocking loudly,

took down my details,

assured me that

there would be a line.

Smiled a mile-wide

smile.



At the olive green

junction box, you rearranged

combinations, threw switches,

did not flinch,

separated wires,

bundled the twisted

red and yellow pairs.

Worked alone.

Phoned home.



Reaching the van

you pulled down the ladder,

threw up the climbing gear,

made your way up the gaffs,

got down to it,

gathered up the loops

on the dead-end pole,

hard-hatted and braced

for anything,

spidered up there.



You hugged the pole, peered

at the wire web,

pulled on mechanic's

white gloves,

reached the supply space,

cradled the box,

opened it.



Intent on the problem

you knew you could solve,

you worked it out,

stared it out,

embraced it as

the unforgiving sun glanced

off your linesman's hard hat,

faded your vest,

glinted on your tool pouch,

heated the creosote,

shone fiercely.



I revelled in your

level-headedness.

The way you,

sure-footed

and booted,

outshone others without

meaning to,

climbed poles

whether greasy or not,

gripped the gaffs,

twisted the wires,

inspired-

accidentally.



Afterwards, you shouldered

the ladders, slotted them

back on the van roof,

thanked me for nothing,

three-point-turned neatly;

left, no sweat.

Your Mother's Daughter 12.08.2011.

Your black Kompressor Estate
swirled into the car park,
scudded gravel that spat out
from beneath tyres.
You sprang out of a beaded seat,
clipped the door shut,
hived off any nonsense,
made the point.

The wisp of split-blonde
shoulder-length hair
echoed your passenger's
grey, shoulder-cut hair,
yet you were altogether different.
You pulled forward a black cardigan,
smoothed it down
over troubles.

Sliding round to the car boot
(whose bumper sticker
announced a common
passion for Dobermanns)
you made it fly open;
made another point.

Finally, you rounded the
flank of the black car,
yanked open the
stubborn passenger door
(since your youthfulness seemed eternal)
prised out your wavering,
bewilderd mother, handcuffed her
to your arm, marched her
slowly after a minute of her arising
(which seemed to you an eternity)
willed her along the flagstones
like a category A prisoner.

Sighing below herself
your mother went along with it,
wishing for some kind of reaccord,
forgiveness always on her lovely lips.
You jabbered at her, gabbled out the words,
disquieted, not liking how you were,
you wished away the minutes,
the hours, the ties
that screamed the quiet truth
(even in your Singapore home)
that you were still
your mother's daughter.

From behind, you were two persons
connected by some length
of life that tarried behind you,
seethed around you.
From behind, you were still
your mother's daughter
and she was still
your mother.

In a doctor's waiting room 20.05.2011

The patients face each other

as if downstairs on a

double-decker bus


In this waiting room

there's some connection

that strings them together

unwillingly;

that reaches across discretion

unhappily;



In this place,

muteness  alone

speaks.


In this place, the posters

talk to us, read us their

stories, ask us questions.

'Meningitis and Septicaemia-the signs'.

'Health MOT. Are you due?'

'Back Ache? Frozen Shoulder?

Joints and Points now have three clinics

on the Wirral'.

'If you had blurred vision

and a sore throat, would you know

what to do?'

'Breast Milk.It's amazing'

On one poster, the joyful figure

of £1,000 has been reached in felt-tip

for the Kenya Camp.


In this place, there is not a single murmur,

though the statuesque wait on with

their small protests; a cough here,

a shuffle there, a vacant stare,

the flipping of a mobile,

a rearrangement of clothing.

A man in workboots grunts

as he rises to the siren call,

heads for the red crisis LED lights.


In this place,

muteness alone

screams the truth.

A parent-teacher meeting 13.01.2011

A parent-teacher meeting. 13.01.2011.



At six, the dark envelope

of a fleeing blackbird

folds itself down at the foot

of a beech hedge.

My bike wheels ticker

in the dusk-ink blue.



I pass the celebratory school room,

lit-up, as though

all its occupants were

tucking into something.



Around the computer desks,

shifting under the dark

bulk of parents,

shorn-headed boys

have been scrambled

for the night.



They sit small,

still wearing grey,

scrunch their fists

under the tables.



Their cheeks colour over

what has been glossed over,

what has come crashing

around their bright red ears.



Elephants tired of being

in the room have left,

have squeezed through

classroom doors,

have left them swinging.

'Too late to say it now'

thinks one lad.

Too late for the bright moment.



The bulky parents,

those who have finally

been drained of questions,

drained of care,

are loathe to leave.

Instead, at Nine,

the teachers rise

to leave them.

Night Journey on the M62

The motorway lights slide over

our driver's pate. His Doc Marten

issues play the soft pedal clutch

of this great white Wurlitzer.



Safety is in his wristwatched hand,

resting on a serge thigh,

and the knife-edge crease

of his pale-blue shirt.

Safety is the mannered flick of

the console switches.

Safety is the thud of studs as

he switches lanes,

the lay-by ghosting past.




Safety is the throbbing wheelbase,

is the cushioned hiss of

air brakes, the coach

kneeling down at his

Gardener's Arms stop.

striding forward,

billowing out, surging over

the Thelwall Viaduct.


Away over home, the neon

clusters, the billboards

say 'The Future's Knowsley'

and the mind roars with laughter,

mistranslates it:

The Future's Nowhere



A hundred novel pages read

do funny things to a night journey.



A thousand journeys say

you will be delivered safely

to your destination;

(we still say 'destination').



The driver takes us down

to 50, then 40;

after all that striding,

all that billowing

and surging

he takes us down a motorway that

fizzles out at Edge Lane,

the end.

Newspeak

Spotted in The Guardian 23.03.2011




'emotional optics'. ' Background: Allied forces attack Libya.. indiscriminate bombing, random strikes kill many Libyan citizens.

'A Senior Cabinet Minister admitted that the emotional optics of cruise missiles raining down backed by coalition military briefings had unwelcome echoes of Iraq.'



In the same paper...



'mission creep'. Background: Allied forces attack Libyan citizens in the week in which a split between a military who urged caution and Cameron's pursuance of Gaddafi



'there was disquiet about 'mission creep' ..and whether the intervention would end in an unstable partition of Libya.



The head of US African Command Gen. Carter F.Ham said he was not worried about 'mission creep.'

Hospital cafe13.03.2011

Shelved, for a time

in the cafe queue,

the visitors glaze over,

dazed, gaze through the

thickets of care, of chat

and that;

seek crumbs, slices of

comfort- hot paninis,

steak pies,
Roquefort binlids 

something wholly

inappropriate;

burn fingers, mouths,

minds;
watch the green caps
and aprons rush around,

watch the incubation

of hot food.

Hospital visitors. 13.03.2011

Hospital visitors 28.01.2011.

The disarrayed folk collected here,

dragged out at strange times

are huddling behind the swish doors

that flap open, give way
to a fate that is

death or deliverance.

We mass in the corridor,

just beyond the life support business.

The heart and heat of terror

seers, coalescing inside us.

We are aghast as never

before.

The hand cleansers

are salvation

We wash away certainty,

cleanse fear,

bacteria, everything

here at the font,

bathe sorrow over

and over again,

fist over fist.

Carla Connor from Corry 20.12.2011.

Carla Connor from Corry.


The twin-exhaust purr of her voice,

sleek, mature, Mancunian.

The sight of that big bunch of

car keys, that curtain of

dark hair swished in her wake,

after the black belted mac,

after the fact.

The double-locked flat door,

the intercom, the glugged

half-pint glass of red.

Everything smouldering.



'Not in the foreseeable'

she announces.

'Not this side of next week'

or 'I'll take that as a yes, then.'

Birkenhead Park Station, November.

Low sun through huffs of breath

gilds the standing herd,

they who are stomping a little

as the Westminster clock hand

clicks down the quarter;

they who have started

to dress down darkly,

announcing the month.



Brushing each other

towards the opening doors

they are sucked inside.

Falling out onto seats,

they are docile now.

It is too early for Iphones

so they rest on their morning

thoughts, assemble themselves

over copies of the Metro.



The orange LED figures

snake their way across

each carriage screen,

mesmerizing,

snitching the stops

no matter what.

Clubbing.

Tarmac spangles and the world

rushes before our eager feet.

We are stepping out,

spilling into the night.

Already our boots are ringing

rhythms on the wet pavements.

The lights with their auras,

that warmth under the ribcage,

the rain slanting, all-friendly-like,

the gay snug shouts,

the milling beforehand,

the tender beats inside the tent

are all one and that is all, is all, is all.



Already, I am remembering

what is present.

There is, there will be

no trouble. Instead we'll defend the

defenceless. The talk is earnest.

Here there is gravity, levity.

Here, we're connecting up joy,

joining the dots.

We have our little tasks too.



In the toilets, handbags drop,

things cascade,

sweet stories peal out,

beauty rushes past and

swimming bath laughter is

everywhere.

It's hilarious, you see.

Here we keep pace with everything

because we just can't help it.



After the build-up,

there will be others in the quest

that will last all night, and beyond.

For now we are pioneering,

bathed in special colours and the

returning harbour waves of

sound in a place completed

by itself.

In here,white lights suffuse

the already suffused.

With others we dance

and are perpetually greeting

new faces as long lost

sisters, brothers.

I am sure that the girl

with the shy hair and subdued

presence fancies me. This is why

her dancing, her body has turned

its periscope towards me.

That is why her loaded look

has picked me out from her corner

of the dancefloor, meaningfully.

Of this there can be no denying.

That is why she knows everything

about me, recognizes me

as the long-lost lover,

moves with me,

passes me the coded message

carefully, repeats it

then disappears into her friends.

Manchester Poem.03.11.2010.

The sun and I are glancing off

your High-walls to heaven:

your dear glazed bricks, your

fast iron, cast-iron studs,

your gushing locks.

Monumentally

you soared in 1895

with a mind for Arts and Crafts,

Ars Laboris. Kept on soaring.

Rose from the Irwell

who still murmers black below.

We see her over the plated,

rivetted bridges,

a creature disturbed and disturbing,

glimpse the private lady

at her toilet.

Speaking of toilets

Manchester's oldest Pissotiere,

where gentlemen

publicly emptied their bladders

into Lady Irwell

is next to Joshua Brookes

and just before

The Lass O'Blairgowrie.



But it's glass and chrome,

reclaimed brick,

factories

of the mental kind

that are soaring these days.

It's monumental MMU

with its hard-faced,

glass-faced

commerce.

Slumber 01.11.2010.

His head bows

then lifts,

then bows again.

Lifts, bows,

then lifts again.

His folded arms

hold him at bay.

Whisked, whole,

to Salford,

his dream fizzes away.

On a National Express coach 30.10.2010.

On being unable to sleep aboard a National Express coach.


'The lucky bastards'

I think

when I see them

slumping and nodding

despite the spangling of a mobile

or an Iphone inside which

some twigs

seem to be having sex

or else there's a fire in a pet-shop.

Despite the terse 'hullo',

the non-consequential

fired into the back

of a headrest.

Despite the shoved seat

and fizzed coke.



I long to no longer long

to be drawn along

the mysterious

undertow

as they are,

pushed (or is it pulled)

along that nameless grey corridor,

part of a vehicle

that is going somewhere

magically by standing still,

along that strange trajectory

which is not a straight line

or an arc

but charms

all the way

like some kind

of white lie.

On discovering a failing bee-hive 06.06.210.

They were general bees

coming and going

to the trenches

dressed in livery,

marking out their time and duty,

sliding, charmed, down the crevasse;

burring out luxuriously.



I watched one,

smaller than the rest,

paler, labouring his way out,

saw his particulars,

his clambering doom.

They were all marked men

marching out

from that moment

onwards.

At the Nurse's Station 03.06.010.

Julie, the duty nurse

In green scrubs

Has burst out of the sick bay

In stitches. She has accidentally

filled in two triage reports

Of the same case.

“I’ve seen two of that gentleman”

she tells the registrar

in blue.

”Funny, that.”

“Errr, time to go home, love”

shouts the triage nurse from Bay Three.

“You’ve had one more than the patient.”


Close at hand,

Mr Malik’s safe, brown Specialist

arms are bent over the file, the screen.

They are sturdy,

standing him at ease.


As Julie’s laughter

Reaches him.

A smile starts to slip up his face

like the sun trying to slip out

from abiding clouds.


A slight shade of blue

and dismay

has tinged the whites of

his downcast eyes as

he reels off the figures

internally.

His glinting stethoscope is still neatly

Curled around his neck,

a hard-won badge.


A yawn blooms in his mouth.

He half suppresses it, half allows it.

It’s still only three in the afternoon;

(time and space in the triage bays

has stiffened, too)

Elsewhere, nurses fly about.

The man in Bay Five

notices their agility,

their freedom of movement

because he has none.



On the only monitor not currently in use,

the acronym P.R.O.U.D unfurls itself,

shimmers on the light-filled screen.

The following lines form slowly

out of nothingness, then slide away

over and over again,

as shoals of fish from a tank.


P…patients are at the heart of all we do.

R..respect for others at all times.

O…our hospital is for you.

U…united in all our services.

D…dedicated to public healthcare.


The registrar writes up

Mr.Malik’s report with

a white pen.

There may be four hours

to kill before x-ray, so

I puzzle over the pen.


It is a replica of the bones

of a human leg.

The tibia and fibula are the part

gripped by the living carpals

of the registrar’s hand,

the nurse’s hand,

the specialist’s hand
Julie and Mr. Malik alight and depart

as deftly as swallows on a wire

at either end of the nurse’s station,

stoke up the ‘to be seen’ crate.


The triage curtains swish closed

and the fallen man is divided from

his care by blue fabric and the afternoon.