Scratchy old coats

I find an unregarded space –
as it might be, between the fridge
and the living-room door
or by the french windows
where the occupants come and go
round the bird-box next to the outstout. 

And I think at long last
of what it’s always been like
to be a dead sibling’s shadow,
the consolation child,
the miss-the-marker, la déception –
some pennies, I guess,
are surely reluctant to drop.

And I think of all those people
close by and further and further off
and of how, if I’d been allowed
a crystal eye from the outset,
I’d have seen them for what they were
and are, and passed on giving them
the time of day, and held
to my side of the street.

I think of those I’ve really liked,
who made a pleasure
of the trade of time.  Few enough,
few enough.  And last of all I think
of the threads to be picked up,
the scratchy old coats to be pulled on again
when the present absurdity is over.
And I realise that, mostly,
they should lie as dropped – that
I can see daylight
through the usefulness of some
and should never in the first place
have stooped down for others.

Outstout: a brick outbuilding (colloquial; also Scots adjective, ‘strong, sturdy, hardy’).

April 2020.

Zoombaya

'I'm not sure that this is wise, Pooh.'
'Well it's all arranged now, Piglet, so it's going ahead.'
'What was it again? This thing you should have been on?'
'Big extravaganza, Piglet. Last Sunday. "The World At One Tonight But Sadly Minus Ritula Shah. Allovus 2 Gevva 4 Evva". Musicians performing from their homes.'
'What, their own songs?'
'Well, yes, till the last one, when they all joined in.'
'What was that?'
'"Wotcher Fink Of All Me Bijou Fitments, Then?" Must have been by that Cockney duo.'
'Chas and Di?'
'Them, yes. Anyway, my invitation obviously got lost in the ethereals, so I'm broadcasting my contribution now.'
'Doing what?'
'Oh, Piglet, for pity's sake, what else but songs to fit the mood of the moment in these insert-usual-adjective times when we're finding ourselves in insert-usual-adjective waters? I've got them all ready. Look, I'll share my scree.'
'Don't do that, Pooh. Took me ages to clean up all the stones that came bouncing over my desk last time.'
'Oh, suit yourself. Here's my screen, then.'
'So…The Sound of Silence, On The Street Where I'm Reasonably Sure You Still Live, The Clapping Song, Foggy Mountain Lockdown, Zoombaya, Macarthur Park is Coned Off By the Fuzz--'
'--not forgetting my Gladys Knight favourite.'
'Sorry, which?'
'Midnight Van to Asda.'
'I see. And what's all that I can see behind you?'
'Sorry, which?'
'On your washing machine. All those sticks and cymbals.'
'Ah, now, that's for the big finale.'
'Of what?'
'Wagner's Spin Cycle.'
'Good grief, all of it?'
'Oh no, I've set it to half-load. Mind you, that means I'll have to furlough the Nibelungen.'
'Before the 9pm watershed? You'll get complaints.'
'Oh ye of little froth, Piglet. All will be wonderful. Besides, everyone will love my duet with John Leg End.'
'I think his name needs checking.'
'Nonsense. He's used it often enough.'

Magicoal

'Apparently it was very moving.'

'Sorry, Piglet, what was?'

'Her message to their nation.'

'Whose?'

'Hers. The Lady. You know, their Figurehead. The Number One Embassy Circuiteer. First dibs on the Ferrero Rocher and all that.'

'Ah, Her Magicoal.'

'That's the one, Pooh. Their Mighty Quinn.'

'So what did she say?'

'Well, she emphasised her duty to lead by example. As you'd expect. Said that she and all the Quinntuplets were practising isolation and social distancing.'

'Which in their case is as opposed to…?'

'Quite. Still, it must be very difficult for The Quinn herself. Usually obliged to be here, there and everywhere.'

'Really?'

'Oh my goodness, yes. Courtier sends word that someone's building ships and boats, or diversifying into monuments, or indulging in a strenuous bout of note-jotting, and she has to, as it were, get there.'

'To do what?'

'Well, one of her lesser-known duties is as Pigeon-Magnet, By Appointment To Herself. Nothing annoys your shipwright or monumentalist more than a flock of pigeons disfiguring hulls and plinths and what-have-you. So it's a decree of divine right and long standing that, once she gets there, they're all, you know, gonna go to her. As someone once remarked.'

'I thought that was Mary Poppins' old lady's job?'

'It's a split-shift thing.'

'Well, I never knew that their Quinn had been so busy.'

'Nonstop, Pooh. The amount of footage showing her being driven through the gates at Sandringham dead-out on the back seat after a good hour talking a lairy pigeon down from a stone cockade…well, you wouldn't chuckle.'

'What ought I to do instead?'

'Acknowledge, Pooh, that these are unprecedented times. Like she did in her message. Said that everything had changed so everyone must act differently. Most concerned on that point.'

'A concern that will no doubt manifest itself as a Quinn-gift to finance unlimited protective wear, increase the pay of bin-men and supermarket staff and institute a national education course, "Look And Learn: What Is A Care Home?"'

'Now, Pooh, don't be silly.'

'Sorry, Piglet. Just a momentary cup of meat.'

'At twilight?'

'When else?'

 

 

'Restoration' (Worcester Cathedral)

Restoration

(Worcester Cathedral)

 

Love slips in,
shakes the disobliging weather
from her folds,
settles tight as a bud
amid the stone topography of hope.

A bad go for her out there,
barred where most needed,
curses pitting her skin.
Forced to watch mercy-boats
bucking on the storm
from behind the iron thread
of harbour fences. 
Lost on the wrong street
far from the ageing mother of five
who are all doing nicely on the moon,
who spiders an x against the weeks
since she heard a voice
that didn’t want to sell or disillusion.

Love looks up,
sees the pageants of succour,
eye blessing eye in a marquetry of glass,
prayer-lights serried, waiting. 
Sees distance lose itself
in rapturous tumbles,
in pillars like the footings of dawn.
Hears the lone introit
of a monk long gone under time
as it wisps across the leads of the cloister.

Love steps out,
unfurls,
again spreads deep and broad upon the day,
again has at the ready way and word
drawn afresh from that vast unspoken. 

Queens Park Etranger

'Owl says it's back.'

'Really?'

'Right up there with the Deffo book.'

'So what is it again?'

'Albert Camus' "Antilapesto--Nifty Dishes With A Tang of the Med for the Existentialist On The Go".'

'I thought the whole point of existentialists was that they didn't go anywhere.'

'Pooh, I think it's a marketing--'

'I thought they just stood in abandoned rooms intoning I fear nothing, I feel nothing, I regret nothing (apart from Rene), I hope for noth--'

'But this is a different--'

'While Edwardian novelists yelled "You couldn't dream up a plot to save your life" through the letterbox.'

'Well M. Camus obviously took a break from all that to putter about with the old oeufs flambees.'

'So…chef on the side, then.'

'More than that.  Started life as a professional footballer.'

'Is that right?'

'Oh, yes.  Goalie for Queens Park Etrangers.  Five seasons.'

'Impressive.'

'Well, four.  Spent half a season on loan to Les Vagabonds de Wolverhampton and the other half as reserve right-back at Le Petit Chateau Astonne.'

'Un homme avec lots of get up and aller.'

'Careful, Pooh.  We'll get a sniffy letter from that Mr Kington.'

'Sorry pardon.  So…bit of disappointment to his existentially inert family, eh?'

'Oh no, they were all footballers.'

'Were they now?'

'Hence the famous opening lines of his most famous book: "Mother lofted in a perfect cross today.  Or maybe yesterday.   I don't know".'

'What's that one called, then?'

'Not sure.  "La Chute", I think.'

'Well there's a lot of that parmi la fraternite ee-aye-addio.'

'Mr Kington, Pooh…'

'Sorry, forgot.  Je suis desultory.'

'Not to worry.  Over and oeuf.' 

"Lean On Me"

'Pooh, are you there?'

'Helleher, helleher, this is 2Hundred Acre Winpo--'

'No, skip all that.'

'As you wish, Piglet.'

'A great shame about Mr Withers.'

'Oh, yes.  I loved his songs: "Ain't no shoeshine when she's gone…".'

'Pooh, it's actually sunsh--'

'Only known song about kleptomania in the world of footwear maintenance.'

'Yes, Pooh, you're probably…something or other.'

'Wonder where he got the name "Withers" from?'

'What do you mean, where he got it from?  It was his given surname.  He wouldn't have had any control--'

'Ah, but they say that names reveal character.'

'Dear heaven, do they?'

'Oh yes.  Withers, now…probably had a nice line in sardonic repartee.'

'Pooh, I really don't think--'

'Like that actress lady, Googie Withers.  Always played proper termagants.'

'Actually she played a variety--'

'Oh, no, Piglet, always personages of surpassing hauteur.  Had to, you see, with a name like that.'

'But that just doesn't follow.'

'Really?  And why does it not wotnot?'

'The characters she played weren't called Withers, were they?'

'Here we go. Same old Piglet.  Picky picky.  Always jugging hares.'

'Look, she'd have to get into the character she was playing.'

'What, you mean that Menthol Acting?'

'Well, she wasn't that kind of--'

'No, she wasn't. So my point stands.'

'No it doesn't.  It might be different if she was playing, oh, I don't know, Lady Alfreda Withers, arrogant yet vulnerable heiress to a docks-pallet fortune.'

'Well there you are, Piglet.  Lady Alfreda. Gimlet-eyed.  Corrosive line in light trans-shipment raillery.'

'But not if her character was, I don't know, Primrose Slade, an unassuming--'

'Unassuming? With a name like that?  Obviously a homicidal botanist.'

'What?' 

'Cleaver-wielding herbaceous borderer.  Known up and down the Mile End Road as Primmy the Chop.'

'Pooh--'

'Chop, see?  Nod to the Meat Marketing Board.  That's the thing about film publicity, Piglet.  Has to be hydrant-headed.'

'But Miss Withers couldn't invest any witheringness, assuming she ever had any, in a character who didn't require--'

'Not in an obvious way, Piglet.  Not in a spell-it-out way.  But I daresay as Primmy the Chop she'd utter some Wildean apercus before she got weaving with Spear and Jackson's finest.'

'"Lean on Me".'

'Piglet, I can hardly crawl through the screen on my lapsang and--'

'My favourite by Mr Bill Withers.'

'Ah.'

'"We all need somebody to lean on".'

'Doubtless what Primmy the Chop would say with a smile of mesmeric brightness in the seconds before the blade whirled--'

'Oh, dear, I think my waikiki connection's going.'