This Happened.
This part is all about remembering stuff.
Stuff from my childhood, stuff about growing up, about holidays, about where we live now.
I’ve tried to be accurate, but tales tend to grow in the telling.
Memory Globe
Perfect little jags of reflection
All the same but each one different
Pretty patterns of things past
Thrown up and spinning in slow motion
Snowflakes in a memory globe.
Shake it and take a look:
Dead porpoise on a beach somewhere
Mrs Macnamara’s Bridlington B&B
A Houdini crab escaping from a
Sandy saltwater-filled sink
The pleasing collision of sounds in the words
‘Black Gang Chine’
And the disappointment at the paucity of pirates
Reading the headmistress’s calendar, looking up
At her enormous leather-topped desk
Paralysed and sweating with terrible tonsillitis
Staring round-eyed at the circular ceiling lights
Sitting at the top of the stairs, listening
Uncomprehending at heated after-pub conversations
Talking to bumblebees in the back garden
Tentatively ruffling their furry backs
As they plundered pollen from dandelions
All and more, circling slow in the arched air
Vaguely visible, catching the eye with sparkle
Melting away in the thaw of dismemory
Back and bright again when least expected.
FOMO
The dry-mouthed thrill of staying up
Willing yourself to blend, unnoticed
Into the settee, chameleonesque
So your parents would no longer
See you there, at half past nine
Five minute into Colditz, even though
It was a bit boring, to be honest.
Or the dry-mouthed thrill of actually being
Allowed to stay up (because it’s the holidays)
But no, your eyelids have other ideas
And the bones in your neck have been
Replaced by a Slinky, or maybe Play-Doh
Your heavy head tips over again and again
Into sleep
Like one of those drinking bird toys
Your Grandma won at bingo.
‘Time for bed, sunshine.’
Grooves
Contained within the grooves
Is not just music
There is also the memory of
Listening to these people and thinking
'Maybe I can do this, too.'
There is also the memory
Of a youth leader's sage advice
'It's not just about
pretending you're
Johnny Rotten!’
And he was right, now, hahaha…
Contained within these grooves
These bumps and scratches
This warped plastic
Is the unsound track
Of my loud, lairy teenage.
My Grandma’s Name was Lucy
As she entered the winter solstice of her life
She stayed in a home for the elderly blind
Sometimes, when I visited her with my mom
She maybe mistook me for her long-gone husband
Or her son (the name was a hand-me-down)
As if she was dialling from station to station
In her radiogram mind - until she tuned in to my voice
And her eyes brightened and she knew me
Gripped both my hands with surprising strength.
Once she exclaimed with a broadly dentured grin
‘Oooh - dunt he wear a lot of rings!’
To my amused mother.
Jazz Club
Back when there were ashtrays in bars
And next morning
The smoky cloak would cling
To every pore
They found themselves
In a jazz club up some
Snow-etched alleyway
In Prague
They ordered cocktails
From a picture menu
And listened as a final year student
Noodled around a tune
On a guitar the colour of
Bloody mahogany
Backed by a bored-looking bassist
And a drummer in a Kangol cap
Brushing aside a hi-hat and
A whispering snare
They don’t remember leaving
Or even one refrain
But the cocktails were good
A December Afternoon
in Puerto de la Cruz
Thick grey cloud weighs, clingy
Smothers the peak of the volcano
Like a winter duvet
The sun peeks over, sleepy
The duvet tucked under its chin
Far below
A picture book peninsula
Juts comically into the Atlantic
Pastel painted, tiny windowed
Box houses piled haphazardly
All the way to the ocean’s edge
At the edge
Staring at the chaotic blue
A woman stands in faded summer
Waiting for her jovially irascible husband
To shout her
Once
Twice
Three times
And as he whistles
Shrill with exasperation
She turns in mock surprise
The Solstice, Missed
Impossible to tell
If we were closer to the sun
This afternoon
A grey cushion of cloud
Hid it from view
A surprised-looking gecko
Crocodilian and unwilling
To stick around too long
For a photo
Zigged and zagged, comically rapid
Pattering up an outside wall
With a sound like raindrops
Back for a snooze up top
Until, woken by the promise of night
Will skitter after moths and mozzies
And chat with its partner
Over supper
Over my blinking sleeplessness
Meanwhile, now
The sky is as clear
As a kitten’s conscience
And tomorrow the sun will shine
But we will have missed
The solstice, sadly.