Day 1
Tap, tap, tap, tap. Big blind man. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Rounded head a fleshy orb. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Call for contributions, oddly musical. Tap, tap, tap, tap. “I am blind, I am blind, I cannot work, please help me.” Tap, tap, tap, tap. A smell follows him. Day 2 Evolution. Now the blind man is taller, much thinner and tap, tap, tapety-tap. A fork on his metal cane. Tap, tap, tapety-tap. But he doesn’t sing and no smell follows him. No money either. Day 3 He is she now. She has no tap. No tune. But she sings for help. No smell, no money. No one listens. Published in #56 The Journal, March 2019
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Tin Cup Love Unable to speak the words I l-o-v-e y-o-u- Mum spelt it out using plastic letters from a tin cup. She taught me to read at our kitchen table in Norwich months before the big move south and starting school. One by one, I lucky dipped brightly coloured phonemes, chewy sounds in my mouth. I learned the tastes quickly and my appetite grew. Words, sentences, pages, whole books. By the time I started school I was insatiable, the tin cup overflowing with enthusiasm. A lover of reading, Mum started me with the second-best replacement to spoken affection. Years on, still searching in books, I understand Mum’s spelling difficulties: post-War parents who fumbled parental sentences. the key words of life self-taught. I wish I could return to happy kitchen days before school with Mum and her tin cup of love. As Far As She Knows I keep Mom’s school pencil case tribute to her best efforts in school. Her contribution to family legends: Scoring 1% in a short hand exam. Pencil case from New Zealand stacked strips of Kiwi timbers: kahikatea, rimu, matai, totara, pukatea, kauri, and rewarewa sovereign. Each name a caramel chew of vowels, deepening orange to chocolate, brown sinewy, one speckled stone, the last darkly regal zebra brands. Post-war case measures in inches, hinges open at one end with a creak, apologising for offering two tubular slits, room only for writing tokens. Mum remembers splinters of life: Pencil case her daily companion in Cheam County Secondary School. Her name and F16 scratched on the back. She’s forgotten what F16 means. As far as she knows, the case is from Great Aunt Vera, 1950’s émigré, unmarried Auckland Post Office worker for over twenty two years. 1992 the last mention in my grandmother’s photo books, the family encyclopaedia. Then forgotten, nothing left to write. Tea and Biscuits The day started with Radio 4: the UK Theme bouncing through history, pomp, myths, naval jaunts; then the Shipping Forecast deluding me into dreaming I could float off somewhere other than school. Mum served her motherhood: a cup of tea and two biscuits, usually digestives, my favourite, slightly soppy when wet. Rich Tea biscuits if supplies were low. Crunchie Creams at the weekend. The real treat was sitting with me while I soggily surfaced to face the facts: walk to school, few friends, grow older leave school, home, Mum. Every day for years she arrived, sat by my bedside. Not much to say, nothing new, sipping the same tea with me, dunking biscuits. Dad Went Out When he heard his mother had died, Dad went out for a walk across the Common. Alone. He never went out alone. I may be some time, left unsaid by the crunch of the closing door. My brother and I sat stunned by our Captain’s private grief, afraid he would not come back from the cold, unsure what to say when he did, the British family of few words and polar denial. We imagined him walking alone, bitten by those final decaying hospital bed memories, trudging through the mud-filled meadows, dripping trees, birds quieted, deer hidden. I suspected fury and wailing: curses and tears for Old Gods, his mind whitening with acceptance. Our Oates came back dry, tears tidied away, the farewell to his mother packed up with only oak and silver birch as witness. We sat together quietly on the settee. Mum made tea and chocolate biscuits. Published in March 2019 as 'The Words Unsaid' - a microchap by Origami Poems Project |
Poetry Biography:I have had over 70 poems published in the following worldwide magazines and literary journals: A Handful of Stones, Acta Victoriana (Canada), All the Sins (UK), The Amethyst Review (USA), Amsterdam Quarterly (NL) The Blue Nib (Ireland), Bolts of Silk, Borderless Journal, The Brasilia Review (Brazil), Bushfire Literature & Arts Review (US), Cadenza, Cake Magazine, Carillon, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), DASH (USA), Clackamas Literary Review (USA), Cooch Behar Anthology, Dawntreader, Dreamcatcher, The Dillydoun Review, Earth Love, The Ear (US), Eastlit (East Asia), Erbacce, Envoi, Finger Dance Festival, Ginosko, Gloom Cupboard, Hidden Channel, Inlandia Journal, IS&T (Ink, Sweat & Tears), Into the Void (Canada), The Journal, The Lakeview Journal (India), Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Lunch Ticket (USA) The New Writer, One Hand Clapping, Orbis, Oregon English Journal (USA), The Passage Between, Prole, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Sonic Boom (India), Third Wednesday (USA), Of Nepalese Clay (Nepal), New Contrast (South Africa), One Hand Clapping, Opportunity Publishing, The Oregon English Journal (USA) Origami Poems Project (USA), Panoplyzine (USA), Paper Swan Press, The Passage Between, The Peacock Journal (USA), Pens on Fire, Poetry Salzburg (Austria), Potomac Review, (USA) Prole, Pulsar Poetry, Rear View Poetry, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Qutub Minar Review (India), Red Ink, Shiela-Na-Gig (USA), South Bank Poetry Magazine, Stand, Waterford Teachers Centre, (Ireland) We Are a Website New Literary Journal (Singapore), Weber - The Contemporary West Review (USA), Windfall (USA), Writing Magazine, Words for the Wild and Verbal Art (India). Archives
March 2024
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