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. 

Stupid, Bastard

There's a girl, let's call her Stupid (not her real name). She believes in the soft fall of rain on English outdoor pools, and in words. She loves the truth of their perpendiculars, the punctuated full stop of their delivery.

And there's a boy, let's call him Bastard (not his real name). He believes in scraping scum from the ochre-fenced badlands and in words. He loves the whirligig of their arches and loops, how they dissolve into storybook dust.


Do not let them meet.
Do NOT let them meet


Do not let her love his administered heat, or him love the curves of her cool 


She will have to write her own ending. It will have no resolution. It will be an unfinished work of heart.

Summer Snow

I opened the door to a late summer snow

Cold recoil of my naked flesh. 

The sun was pale with frost, and a

white sky was falling on ripening fruit. 

Your outline on the garden bench, 

a photo of her in your hands. 

I walked toward, holding all 

my questions in begging bowls. 

You glanced, grief-eyed, 

a moment's meet, then stood 

and turned to go. I ran

to where my name was never called,

the proof of you already dusting over. 

I sat where you had sat, and waited 

for the snow to clothe my shame. 

Mad Bad and Forever Young

Mad, bad, Reading Festival. Two of us amongst the teenagers, blissfully unaware of looking any different. Happy deluded us.

By the end haute cuisine is a paper plate of greasy noodles washed down with a slug of Jack D smuggled past security in a plastic bottle.

By the end you V sign the army of sexist comedians in the not so Alternative Tent, but love Tim Minchin's bigot - blasting mirth and mascara. And love that he draws the biggest crowd.

By the end you have danced to the Strokes' entire set in your wellies and collapsed in giddy giggles whilst the kids walk on by.

By the end the mud smells like slum and the entire site looks like your son's bedroom. But you can look into the long-drop toilets without gagging.

And in the end you laugh in girl-eyed wonder at the fireworks flowering in the sky as you leap up and down in shouty synchronized ecstasy with 70,000 others, yelling ' SUPER-MASSIVE -BLACK-HOLE '. You have covered your face in diamante studs and your wrists in glowstick bracelets. You are high as kites with only music in your veins.

And the words 'Grow up!' only prompt the reply 'What for?'

Both and, not either or

http://www.twitvid.com/4JTZH                                                                                                              London's burning. Fires blazing out of control. Ordinary people's homes and livelihoods being destroyed.Scared people locked in their houses hoping the wind won't blow the flames towards them. Gangs pulling open car doors and attacking people trying to drive home. 

The riots began in Tottenham after a man called Mark Duggan was shot, but now... what's going on is just an excuse for violent criminal activity. 


And Mark Duggan?  'Hardened north London gangster and drug dealer, or loving family man who would never seek confrontation?' asks the Guardian. Well maybe he was both. Both and, not either or.


I remember my very first day as an assistant in the Probation Service, decades ago. My manager took me to see a young guy in prison. He wrote romantic, sentimental poetry - I was moved by its beauty. As we left my manager said :


- Know what he's in for? He smashed a woman's face with a broken bottle.


Both and, not either or