The Oxford Emperor's New Clothes

"But our education system fetishises Oxbridge to a blinding extent"

We who are ignorant, who see spires and dare to dream,

Who aspire to a status for the children that

we could not sustain for ourselves. How we cheered

on Michaelmas day: “The world lies at her feet!” we said.

It’s true, the world does lie, and her feat will be to survive.

To sit through this farce till curtain call she must outride

the confident stride of Old Etonians, the asinine posing

of the Polo team, the Bullingdon bullyboy frolics,

the Bollinger and beluga gorging of the Gaveston girls.

Hold your head high darling. Your academic flame flares

bright over their nepotistic game. Look them in the eyes!

Manhood

When he left the first time he had red hair.

Soft, and it fell across his forehead.

Bright eyes, and a new love to shield him

from harm.

When love left him and I came up

on that raw winter day to hold his hand,

he had a bare broken head of stubble.

All trace of autumn shaved away.

He was still without hair when he limped home.

One swollen vein pumped above his eye. Angry neck.

Today he left again; his new hair sprouted 
into tufts, so much tougher than before,

than when he was a boy.

Don’t ring me, he said, Don’t hold my hand.

This time I’m gone.

Birth Plaice

It’s only now I understand how

you gave birth to me twice.

Once,

in the salt shade of Osborne’s cockle sheds

Wheedling me out like a periwinkle while

your husband crammed battered fish

and chips between his  barbels.

And again, twelve years later
Your flesh become the mud of empty tides

This time pushing me far 

from the harbour of your thighs

‘It’s sink  or swim little shrimp.

Sink or swim.’

Migration

September.


Every day smells of losing you.


People drift like smoke through


Trees. Every day I see mothers,


Expectant, beautiful, babyful. Or


Mothers with boys who run ahead


But wait at kerbs. And


Every fledgling photo of you 


Releases memories to fall like leaves.

Empty Nest - Haiku

I re-arrange books


putting 'Mother' behind new


untitled volumes

Bone Dry

Seven years I've sat in this cave
watching the sky lift and fold.
Shucked shells where my eyes were blue
My lips, a fossil kiss. The desert wind
blown through the hollows of my bones.


I've survived the silence by eating 
my words. So do not ask me if I love;
I have nothing left to say. 
Just hold the husk of my hand in yours.
Pray for something good. 

My Arrow Boy

And though the tide returns each day


Its green notes singing to the sand


and though the sun shall rise each day


when I dream of an empty promise land


Maybe when you leave for the city of spires


I will come to understand 


the width and the wisdom of Kahlil's song


that Life longs for itself, and so must run.