Off The Peg Et Al (18 Poems)

1.My Mother the Gazelle Mother was neither a horse nor a zebra More of a gazelle My uncle stole her favourite doll He buried it out in the field Grandfather thrashed him The tom-toms beat a warning in the dark When grandfather died It was a long fall from the cliff of love Now, my uncle was king of the family castle The gazelle became a rabbit in a box 2.End Play I am a sparrow, a mouse, a moon In water, earth, and air I trust Rounding a corner, all too soon All that I am will change to dust 3.Trying on Poem Titles for Size The Iceberg Theory Cleaning the Elephant The Forest of Tangle The Lost Baby Poem A Tray of Eggs St Francis and the Sow I saw you Dancing Father The Strait-Jackets Forty-One, Alone, no Gerbil Ode to the Onion Mrs Midas The Tightrope Wedding The Emperor of Ice Cream Killing Time The Panic Bird My Father Carries me Across a Field The Rustle of History’s Wings A Piece of the Storm 4.Callander June Clouds hold rain like pressure cookers Will they/ won’t they burst? Ringless-fingered mothers fuss round buggies The bus is hot’s a greenhouse cooking plants Ankle deep in buttercups, black cattle Sweat in a fizz of flies, on painted shadows I have made an appointment with June I have cleared my life for a week Half a year’s slipped by, I’ve been Too busy to notices the nuances of Time Yet I’ll observe the salt content of yoghurt The headlines in the latest people-scandal 5.Six Degrees of Separation Some folk I know have met important people A woman talked to a Beatle in a theatre He’d come to watch her husband’s latest play A man offered Leon Cohen a cigarette He didn’t want it, but refused quite nicely A girl met Sir Rolf Harris in her nightie (She was aged twelve, a fire in their Hotel) A boy, waiting for fruit, saw Margaret Thatcher, (Briefly just behind security doors) A man met at a famous actor at his stall. His wife was nice, he said, but the guy was grumpy. A girl spied Lauren Bacall at a do in Glasgow. She didn’t speak. A bouncer sat beside her A man was queuing at Lord’s cricket pitch Stephen Fry was standing two behind him A girl’s parents gave her cot away (It held six babies sideways) to Mother Theresa…. She also met Germaine Greer at a party… Too shy to speak, she’d eaten garlic fish cakes A Doctor faced with treating Eric Morecambe, Couldn’t put up his drip, her hands were shaking. A girl in a London Club stood up for manners. Told Chelsea Clinton ‘Switch your mobile off! ! ’ A woman slept in the Duke of Edinburgh’s bed (At Cambridge College, not while he was in it) And I stood three rows back from Alec Salmond As he unveiled the famous ‘Turra Coo’ 6.Inventory of Notable Things The Lerwick lifeboat climbing the High Seas The orange Indian skirt that brushed my ankles The elephant’s head, ears flapping like two fans The stag at the Brig o Quoich with the broken antler The Buddha’s shining face beneath Green Tara The infant son who growled like a bear Mandolin’s tearful tremolo a-quivering Grandmother’s grave in winter, holly berries Hurt places that healed, and those which didn’t The plastic deer in Callander that sings 7.Off the Peg: Bridal Fitting, June 2013 Marriage unhooks the girl from the family peg She’ll stand alone after that, unique, in her own self Fashioning a conjoined future with her groom The bridal dress shimmers with sparkles A scalloped frothy hem Like Primavera rising from the sea Happiness glows in the girl like a lit bulb But this is not a poem in praise of bridal props Rather to celebrate a daughter, ripe in loveliness The peach flesh of her back, her strawberry lips She has climbed from the childhood years Up to her own place. Her throat is like the linnet’s A nest of honeyed song resides there Slowly, through the bones of her hourglass figure, The past recedes. The future waits to come 8.Rules on Visiting Aberdeen This is not Vienna. No feeding of pigeons or seagulls. They shit on the civic statues, dive-bomb travelers We are a cold city. Don’t complain. Wear thermal underwear or stay at home The Bacchanalia takes place from Fridays-Mondays. Those of a nervous nature should stay indoors No nudism on the beach, no smacking children Despite the provocation, they have rights Don’t weight us in the scales beside Ibitha Don’t treat us like Braille, with hugs or familiar touching We are not interactive till we grow to know you And that may take a year or two my friend 9.Valentine Card I spent shed loads of money on manicures Dresses with cross over bras I was a sucker for makeovers I wanted to look like a mannequin Up on the catwalk haughtily strutting her stuff My hair was styled and bouffant My tights were fishnets Hoping to catch a beau I was the ad man’s pushover After there was absolutely nothing more to be done In the good looks stakes I was still always one of the leftovers Nobody wanted to woo And then the Valentine came Roses are red, violets are blue It’s you for me XX and me for you Well, I was halfway up to the moon Looping the loop like a loony When Mother whispered to Dad ‘Probably sent for a lark As everyone knows…. A card’s not the same as Actually having a lad’ 10.A Day to Remember I once took a trip to the past The journey was thrilling and fast But where I was conveyed The scene I surveyed Was Jurassic. The day was a blast. 11. The Cry of the Summer Butterfly Am I beautiful? Am I beautiful? The summer butterfly cries Yes, the flower whispers For today. 12. Midsummer Solstice On the Tomnaverie altar stone A yellow petal of broom Is flashing like a star About to fall 13. Doomed Ivy Roof high ivy Stripped down from the wall A young man’s plant Only the young can reach To curb its growth 14.C’est la Vie One parent drunk, the other mad A child of ten cleans out the grate The only family he’s had Call it misfortune, call it sad Call it the roll of the dice, or fate Many the journey starts out bad Monsters and perils, life’s Iliad What would it take to clean the slate? Make everything jolly and nice and glad? 15.Lines on a summer’s Day The hectic beating of wings Mayflies, weaving their death dance The loch opens its face To the shilly shally of rain drops An aspen sifts the golden dust of summer A cat’s eyes gleam from a mesh of honeysuckle Tall hens breast the nettles by a duck pond A tortoise, horny-humped Lumbers over a lawn to a cabbage patch Two spotted ladybirds Split their wings like flamenco dancers’ skirts Midges seethe in the trees between the pines Welcome snail as you cross the morning grass Like a juggernaut pulling a trail of oiled dancers Under a two bird sky Loch waves shiver on shingle Deep in a tree an invisible bird is singing Three spits of rain drop from a frowning sky A cat stalks by Mouthful of mouse to the left and right of its whiskers Red tomato on the green chopping board The hour all slice and peel White house, grey cloud, black swift White house, grey cloud, no swift High summer In oak’s worn heart it’s autumn High summer In oak’s worn heart it’s autumn A flimsy cobweb The fight of one small fly Hangs by a thread Sky blue forget-me-nots Buried in nettles Mist moves in the wind Bens become No Bens Nests are made to be filled How sad when silent! Fish plumps in the loch Nibbling last night’s moon A carved flower is weather cracked A craftsman’s work is withering The path to the bulrush pool Dreams of winter Free of talk and footprints A summer syllabub Rose offers her nectar Fox trots from the compost One bird less in Balquhidder Dead deer’s belly Split like a pea pod Food for feasting flies Grass is speaking in parables In the wood’s cool tomb Hare’s vertebrae clack like rosaries Mouse scuttles under a giant yellow iris The pool’s a broth of green A waterfall thunders Hosannas From the long dark throat of the Ben The Ben has forgotten its name For the wind to echo A line of ants process between the twigs Bearing the crackling relics of a leaf Dragonfly scrolls an illuminated letter On the gold page of the air I raise my palms to the sun Everyone carries hurts and ancient healings 16.House Martin on a Wire Its tail, the top two lines Of a music score The notes in the bowl of its breast Waiting to quiver out In a piping trill 17.Balquhidder 2013 Star struck daisy, buttercup Speedwell, yellow poppy, rose Mist applies a cover Where, unseen, the oak tree grows Pinnacles of fox gloves tower Where the fiery nettles sleep In the kernels of their nests Fledgling sparrows thinly cheep Widdershins I walk the bounds Of the morning in the glen Gathering honey with my eyes Hills to loch and back again So the golden moments pass Quickly as the flying years Like the sun motes in the grass Like the dew, the moonbeam’s tears 17.Bragging Rights at Haddo House Child one: I saw: Giant redwood, an avenue of limes A great stone mansion from Edwardian times Rowan, sycamore, squirrel’s dray Dark green woodland where the badger’s play Chanterelle, puffball, ink caps, cherry Elm, pink Campion and white snowberry Child 2: But I saw Meadowsweet, pignut, yellow rattle Frog hopper insect in its cloak of spittle Fungi, fountain, a game larder A lake where the otter and the wild geese stir Swans and cygnets, a dark bird hide A pipistrelle nursery with bats inside Child 3: I heard An osprey visited but flew away From the wild flower meadow and the rookery Child4: I spied Pine trees, lichen, marsh marigold An ancient beech tree that’s centuries old Alder, aspen, field mushroom Wandering willies and the golden broom Rye grass, yarrow grass, a heron and a well Forget-me-nots by water and a grey wagtail Comfrey, ragwort, woodpecker tapping A buzzard and a sparrow hawk above clouds, flapping Ox-eye daisies where the damsel flies speed Dandelions and nettles and the white hog weed St John’s wort, beechnuts, dove cots too Ragged robin in the rich, wet dew Child 5: I spied Spiral staircase, sundial, chapel Birds’ foot trefoil and the green oak apple Devil’s bit scabious, Kemble’s seat Deer and grouse shoots where the hunters meet Child 6: I spotted Rhoddies, clover, inscribed stones A graveyard for horses and for small dogs’ bones Yellow flag iris, marsh orchid Dens in the forest where the fox lies hid Children: Haddo, Haddo, the things we’ve seen In the grounds and gardens of Lord Aberdeen! 18.Rite of Passage Eleven years old, going on sixteen School prom, pupils signing t-shirts First outcrop of acne on teenage cheeks On stage, singing of angst and darkness Children wearing the clothes of their celeb idols Morphing into vamps Grow up! Grow up! The Ad man hype Colours their waking moments So young, so young, willing their lives away