English Poems From Stilts

Falling down In Rome, the ruins of the Ancients Still impress: marble columns, temples Stand in the dust of centuries In Britain, jerry-built houses Trashy ephemera of the moment Are swept aside for railways, Aeroplane runways Supermarkets Their rusting ribs, buckle like Legs with rickets At the rubble by their feet Squashed beer cans roll like bricks Toppled from edifices like plastic blancmange Unedifying, rotting away like waste Goods and Chattels What raised these following objects To the status of precious goods? Why do they stay like shadows In my subconscious woods? A scarab beetle, a signet ring A cameo necklace, a berry making pan A Zulu knobkerrie, a Victorian chamber pot A shiny ivory elephant from Ceylon A Reader's Digest book, a Victorian candle holder A cd of Edith Piaf, a champagne cooler A hearth where flames don't leap, they coldly smoulder These are images tucked away in memory After the dead who left them entered eternity When you were born You were a new song on sheet music paper The manifestation of hope You were Hogmanay when the bells ring You were wished for as a spring hare You were the silver sixpence in the dumpling You were eyes with the cataracts removed You were a clarion call in a silent day You were an open window, letting happiness in A skiff with new waves lapping In the Chinese year of the rabbit you were A Libra, born in the season of falling leaves And the coming of migrant geese And the golden leafed chestnut trees What a gift you were on a Saturday afternoon! Swaddled in hospital whites and crying lusty! Playground Mr Tumble, babble, bogies Do-ray-me, bums, boo hoo hoo Mt Wolf creeps up behind you Nosey Parker sun peeps through Can I, can I take your toy? If I break it will you cry? Bouncy bouncy ball is bouncing No no no- you're NOT my friend Screaming stamping in the corner Going home now- that's the END On this Day,7th July In America, the conspirators who tried to assassinate Lincoln Are hanged, swing 10 feet tall In London, terrorist bombs Kill 52 and injure 700 In Queenston, Ontario. Canada 15 die in an overloaded train In India, flash floods sweep a bus into the river 78 passengers drown In Lithuania, Nazis execute 5,000 Jews Hanging, drowning, bombing, accident So many ways to exit life too early And not one is less cruel to those left behind And none can be erased or blotted out In Aberdeen, I open the door to the flat of my eldest son Come face to face with death I grieve for his life not lived Stale pickings In my prime, my body Was a smorgasbord of treats Over three decades now, My skin, unsampled, has shrivelled My ribcage, has become That of a plucked chicken Too old to savour Beginning to smell of rot Over three decades now, I've walked, I've slept, I've talked Any automaton could do as much My nipples, like cherries, Wrinkled on the stem My lips, once wet as melon slices Have dried to a thin pursed line My quim, forbidden quince Has forgotten the path to paradise Almost half a life, a garden Dying of drought Music in a Scots Town House The sacred and domestic intertwined My brother's organ music sharing space With Kerr's cornkisters, rural family roots Tick tock, tick, the metronome tapped out The background to the scales & arpeggios The fine-tuned piano itself was very liberal Its keyboard gave it up for Beethoven, The Hens' March tae the Midden Madam Butterfly Tick tock, tick, the metronome tapped out The background to the scales & arpeggios The zither and the mandolin were maternal From mother's days in the thirties, In a minstrel band, her scores a mix of Yankee And country dance Tick tock, tick, the metronome tapped out The background to the scales & arpeggios Father had his voice: pitch perfect ear A tenor who could make a stone wall weep, In the Scottish fashion. He could whistle, too And yodel like a goatherd in the Alps The collective music experience of home Was wide ranging, split into fragments By personal histories, by differing allegiances Tick tock, tick, the metronome tapped out The background to the scales & arpeggios I connected with my father, grandmother Their music a gift from generation and culture My brother crossed the Rubicon of class, of education Into the trained refinements of Bartok & Britten Chirpy Cheep Cheep Have you ever considered the building habits of birds? Our bulldog ramstam woodpecker chipping a cave in a tree The African weaver-bird, building a tear drop from grass Like a wild bee's hive suspended without the bees Our resident house martin potters, making their homes of clay And the Australian bower bird who constructs a shrine to love Two walls of sticks or reeds bend gracefully to each other Festooned with objects to please the beloved's eye If a birds could speak to humans The crow could expound on the development of the egg The owl might rail at the illegality of egg theft Breaking the Protection of Birds Acts of 1954 The nightingale could echo John Clare Bewailing the land enclosure acts, That started the stripping away of meadow and flowers Ripping apart the fabric of nature's diverse tapestry