by Pam Crane
But red, blue, yellow, purple, green,
What do they really mean?
Each faces the same
Enemy, utters the same
Platitudes, and this year’s men
To our generation
Are alien.
How could I know your Dad and his Union brothers
Toiling for coal and gas and oil and bread,
Raising their standards for the wives and mothers
Till they and the men exploiting them were dead,
Laboured to waste the earth for all the others
To come? Oh yes. The maps are turning red.
Forward to Index
1WABI-SABI
This isn’t about my lounge no longer in the saloon bar.
This isn’t about the lack of panelling
and having to live with the Collinsons’ twelve-year-old wallpaper.
This isn’t about the 1970s rockface
over the grate instead of a tall mantel;
This isn’t about the stink of exhaust
and incense when I settle each evening,
Wondering if it came with me ...
Nor is it about Woodfest again,
nor about the sun shining on fresh-carved creatures;
nor the crowds milling round the coffee-stalls,
nor the colourful crush in the second-hand tents;
Nor is it about the little ones wide-eyed in tow,
and on tip-toe with dripping ice-creams,
Too much for their little eyes to take in ...
And this is certainly not about
Eating chicken and chips, my fingers suffering.
Not about my tongue and nose in love
But my finger-skin wrecked,
my thumbs shredded;
This is certainly not about the question of eating in gloves ...
This is not about my Best Buddy
with the loved voice -
on the phone, in the next room,
Not about his voice calling upstairs,
or popping his Santa Claus head round the bedroom door;
This is not about that voice I hear every day,
not about the voice I sing with over and over again ...
This isn’t about the way the past is confused with the present
Nor perfection with imperfection, nor yet my
giddying encounters with
Wabi-Sabi
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VOICES
Pretty voices
Witty voices
Something in the City voices
Silly voices
Chilly voices
Night on Piccadilly voices
Tiny voices
Whiny voices
Magical and shiny voices
Army voices
Smarmy voices
Diners Club Umami voices
Grumpy voices
Jumpy voices
Old and fat and frumpy voices
Cheeky voices
Squeaky voices
On the spectrum geeky voices
Picky voices
Tricky voices
Just time for a quickie voices
Jokey voices
Blokey voices
Anyone for croquet voices
Haughty voices
Sporty voices
Still a catch at forty voices
Sleazy voices
Wheezy voices
Always bright and breezy voices
Pally voices
Scally voices
Evening at the ballet voices
Hoary voices
Tory voices
Read on Jackanory voices
Crazy voices
Lazy voices
Forties Gert and Daisy voices
Phoney voices
Groany voices
Can I have a pony voices
Soppy voices
Foppy voices
Won’t you buy a poppy voices
Catty voices
Batty voices
Getting very ratty voices
Dopey voices
Mopey voices
Feeling rather ropey voices
Sleepy voices
Weepy voices
Definitely creepy voices
Snobby voices
Yobby voices
On about a hobby voices
Risky voices
Frisky voices
Confidential whisky voices
Plucky voices
Clucky voices
Absolutely mucky voices
Kooky voices
Rookie voices
Looking for some nookie voices
Happy voices
Snappy voices
Life is really crappy voices
Scary voices
Wary voices
Hippie, beardy, hairy voices
Cheery voices
Weary voices
Indistinct and beery voices
Funny voices
Sunny voices
Never short of money voices
Dirty voices
Flirty voices
Reading Krishnamurti voices
Arty voices
Hearty voices
Going to a party voices
Holy voices
Lowly voices
Yelling at the goalie voices
Many voices
Any voices
Even two-a-penny voices
Singing, chatting, making choices
Laughing, warring over toys, is
A cacophony of noises -
Deafened Heaven still rejoices
(Wishing we would lose our voices?)
Forward to Index
BEWARE!
Beware!
Secure your hard hat.
Danger lurks in the flat
Field and fresh air!
Beware!
Don’t go near the water.
A man and his daughter
Are drowning there!
Beware
Everything you eat
Can kill you. Horsemeat
Everywhere.
Beware -
Only the thin look great.
Say you are size eight
Whatever you wear.
Beware
Losing your self-esteem
When Following your Dream.
Worst nightmare.
Beware:
Kids must cope alone
While you are on your phone
With stuff to share.
Beware
Trends that are so last year.
Insist on the latest gear -
It’s only fair.
Beware -
For anything really nice
Don’t pay the asking price
Anywhere.
Beware
Those beggars on your street;
They drink. They never eat
Or wash their hair.
Beware,
That man with the ready smile
May be a paedophile.
Get out of there.
Beware:
A touch is an assault.
Nothing is your fault -
You were In Care.
Beware of cuddling. Beware of love.
Beware of the velvet hand in the iron glove.
Beware of black and posh and daft and queer -
Beware of everything you ought to fear.
Estranged from mercy, trust, reflection, prayer,
People, beware.
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TUNNELS
We are the men who bring the trains ...
Tunnelling, tunnelling ...
We are the blokes who clear the drains
Tunnelling, tunnelling ...
We are the docs who mend your brains ...
Tunnelling, tunnelling, tunnelling.
Blasting a way through ancient rock
Blitzing a stinking garbage block
Boring through bone against the clock ...
Tunnelling, tunnelling.
We are the guys who drill for oil ...
Tunnelling, tunnelling ...
We are the brains who search the soil ...
Tunnelling, tunnelling ...
We are the chaps who heap the spoil
Tunnelling, tunnelling, tunnelling.
Drilling the earth until she screams
Probing the past for secret dreams
Ripping the heart from golden seams ...
Tunnelling, tunnelling.
We are the creatures put to flight ...
Tunnelling, tunnelling ...
We are the ghosts that haunt your night ...
Tunnelling, tunnelling ...
We are the bugs you fail to fight ...
Tunnelling, tunnelling, tunnelling.
Riddled with graves a world will die
Riddled with guilt, the mind awry
Riddled with death, we all know why ...
Tunnelling, tunnelling.
Forward to Index
1ConfessionS of a Media Hack
God Almighty, I confess
To romancing in excess!
Calculated to deceive,
My whole career is make-believe.
Anything to get in print,
Raise my profile, make a mint;
I will kill a reputation,
Trash a life to please the nation.
I will steal a joke, a plot,
Fake the talent I have not;
Plagiarising doesn’t faze
In pursuit of readers’ praise.
In my fabricated lives
I fornicate with others’ wives
Adulterating lazy text
With the louche and highly-sexed.
Thus my neighbour’s trophy wife
Has a secret second life
Where her curves will never age,
Stripping for me on the page.
His the mansion, his the cars,
His the parties with the stars;
His the cash, the looks, the glory ...
All are mine though in my story.
I have been deprived. I had
Disrespect from Mum and Dad.
Now it’s payback time; my rage
Unedited fills every page.
Worst of all was Sunday school.
I looked and felt a bloody fool.
Each wasted day because of you ...
The dead God I am talking to ...
God! What must I do or say
To make this feeling go away
That you are real; that you have spoken -
All the rules you made are broken?
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MAY-DAY
I wandered, lonely, as a cloud
Of loose balloons above the fair
Carried the colours of the crowd
Into the blue and steamy air;
The crush, the smells, the shrieking rides
Swamping the town between the tides.
The folks out foraging for fun
Saw no-one watching by the queue,
Merely a shadow in the sun
Only a breath away from you;
Your onions flavouring my nose,
Your ice-cream dripping on my toes.
The chilly girls, the loud parade
Dispersed to hot dogs on the pier,
Counting the money they had made -
The same routine as every year.
The rattled bucket caught a pound
I picked up on the rugby ground.
That’s all I had. I hope it went
To folks in institutions, or
To help some other indigent
Hungry as me, whose feet were sore,
No dog for comfort, no guitar,
Curled up where all the dustbins are.
I wander, lonely. As a cloud
Of pungent steam rolls up the town
Enveloping me like a shroud
Your lights wink on, my sun goes down.
May-Day, May-Day by the sea;
Tears at bedtime - none for me.
Forward to Index
THE CLEMATIS HEDGE
I had a lovely hedge - so full of bloom
In winter, strangers wandered by to stare.
I’d pause and chat while leaning on my broom,
Happy explaining, happier still to share
The shelter that it gave above the wall
To runners from rainstorms, children’s hide and seek
Amid the long leaves tumbling. This all
Gave pleasure, until late last week
When men and shrieking saws without consent
Devastated my Clematis, and left
Nothing but shorn twigs. They haven’t sent
A bill - the work was free. But I’m bereft.
Where will the blackbird make his home this spring?
Where will the wren hide? And our robin sing?
Forward to Index
SPRING...?
It’s March the First; the weathermen
And women cry, “It’s Spring again!”
Despite the blizzards in the hills
And hardly any daffodils.
The frogs are humping in the pond,
One fern has made a tiny frond,
But not a leaf is on the trees
And walkers hunch against the breeze.
The Sun is barely in the Fish,
Whatever our presenters wish;
The Equinox is weeks away,
Whatever weather pundits say.
The astronomic start of Spring,
Bright catalyst for everything,
Is when our star burns the Equator
In the Ram, the life-creator.
Dishonouring St. David’s Day,
Our sense of time has gone astray.
Disdaining sleep, we raid the night
For hours extravagant with light.
We chill the heat, we heat the cold,
Stay adolescent till we’re old;
Dress up our children to attract
And then get stars and teachers sacked.
Refuse to rest, refuse to die,
Insist we have the right to fly,
To play God with the biosphere
Since we are all that matters here.
Come back, St. David! Help us back
To sanity! We’ve lost the knack
Of simple living, sold our souls
To self-esteem, commercial goals.
I long for unpolluted air,
For bees and beasties everywhere,
I’d like a night alive with stars,
Not nasty neon clubs and bars.
I long for peace, untainted bread,
The pulse of Heaven in my head.
I’d like a weather-girl to say
“It really will be Spring today”
Forward to Index
THE SNOW GUN
I’d like some pretty with my cold.
This winter is already old,
And not a frost, and not a flake
Has twinkled on our town to break
The nithering monotony
Of January by the sea.
The days are grey, the mood is low;
We haven’t had our share of snow.
No-one wants to walk the Orme,
Dull without a winter storm.
I wish that I could find a way
To brighten everybody’s day!
I’d love to have the magic gun
That makes a blizzard in the sun,
That showers ice on everyone!
I’d love to point the cannon high
And fill the January sky
With dancing flakes that float and fly!
My gun would freeze the salty air
And frost would sparkle everywhere,
Flashing diamonds through the waves,
Dazzling crystal in the caves;
Our beach an arc of shining snow
In winds that make our faces
glow.
We’d walk beneath the frosted trees
Tinkling like piano keys
Under the fingers of the breeze,
And everyone would smile and say
As happy people crowd the bay,
‘What a glorious Winter’s day!
We need some pretty with our cold
To charm the young and cheer the old;
Gardens white as wedding cake,
Skaters out on every lake,
A frost-fair on the glassy sea -
So bring my magic gun to me!
Forward to Index
A DOG’S LIFE
Old Kos is gone
Shadow of Bernie Rish
Long-time companion
Ate from the same dish
Drank from the same tap
Plodded the same stairs
The old black Lab
Now beyond prayers
Before he died
He would meet my eye
Press his glossy side
Against my thigh
Patient he would stand
Unable to tell
My listening hand
Where to make him well
So Kos has gone
And Suky quietly killed
By a vet’s injection
When I was unskilled
- at ten - in taking care
Of my Terrier and Dad
Let her run everywhere
Like dogs he once had
Pained I look back -
Dad’s birthday surprise
The rescue dog whose lack
Of training and wild eyes
He couldn’t handle. Years
Of boasting and bluff
Ended in shock and tears
When he had enough
No dog for me
Only the neighbour’s pet -
Tiny tearaway Sally,
Little Blossom who met
A rose-bush at a run
that blinded her, calm black
Chelsea the famous one
Who guides our Nicky back
Bobbie (a Pisces)
Our Kent Guide-dog friend
Shared her Callie’s crises
Their happy end
The smell of soft puppies
A mother’s melting eyes
Amid warm apple trees
And holy skies
And once in a while
A visitor - like the stray
Called Lady a real trial
