Beaks shoved forward, scaly necks stretched,
with mouths gaping, snouts snapping with an echoing snip from
the effort of land crawling just to lay their eggs with
eye-scrunching strain in hopeful clutches.

We stood and marveled with our cameras,
all red eye flashes and whooping fingers,
whilst the tide dragged at the night-time shore
trying to peel away stragglers from the pack of
unwary voyeuristic foreigners.

The musical swish of the wind-rattled palm trees,
made the bobbing fishing boats dance, painted in the yellow
ochre of candle lanterns that perched
like watchmen on the bows where it brushed just
enough of their pilots to make them appear like ghosts
dipping into the blackness as they
flicked out their nets
or dragged wicker pots from the stern.

A world away from this evening; the toes that
joyed at the sucking of sand dampened by the
warm foam of a receding sea curl now into the
unfriendly nylon pile of evening news and TV dramas,
readying for sleep before the chill of
tomorrow’s commute and office politics of
the punch in punch out, don’t-be-late
warning-mornings and the school runs
amongst the young mums parking heedlessly.

Funny how we’re all just turtles on turtle beach.

To the sound of screaming,
turns the eyes and the ears of the ordinary
agape in horror at the desperation of a jumper
as he splashes through the glass
fixing a final flickering gaze on tear-welling faces who,
with tightened lips let pass a whimper “oh no, oh no oh no”.
The rain of rock crashes chase away trivial reality,
the lattes, the must-do meetings,
the synchronization of calendars
in a kerosene flash; thanks to religious brutality.
There, urgent amongst the
surging clouds are those in
black turned gray. Gold-hatted
knights who shout for your own good.
Scared like the brokers,
fathers like the chairmen,
rushing like the insurers
but they choose to run the other way.

To love means my heart does little skips when I
look at my wife  and she hasn’t noticed I’m
looking so I can see the complex mixture of
browns that blend so perfectly to make the color
of her eyes.  It makes me smile.

To be there means to make The Little Kid put on her
Aztec hat, not because it makes her look cute, which
it does, but because it stops her face getting red
and puffy in the bitter wind, even though she looks sweet
with those fluffy red cheeks.

To be at peace means to notice the snoring of the dogs
as they lie stiff-legged in that sun, plush against the
carpet and to smile, again, at the silly sounds a little dog can
make whilst it sleeps.

To be happy means to take all of these things, live
them fully and let them sink slowly into what makes me
who I am right now; a happy man.

To be lucky means that I can tell you about them.

If you cross or transgress her she’ll smash you to bits
this girl is a tigress with a pole-dancer’s hips.
She’s learnt to be fearsome , she’s learnt to be curt
this way is far better, she’s harder to hurt.

She spits at the people who’re full of conceit
and she loathes the liars, those full of deceit.
See, once you’ve been bitten when expecting a kiss
the lesson you learn is: give love a miss.

But this hardness is wrapped in the green of an angel
that strides towards doors of the sick and unable
where she washes the needy, unseen by our eyes
and caresses the hands of the ready to die.

The mad, the unwanted, the babbling few,
the burdensome, the quarrelsome, the too sick to move.
She bites on her lip to snip off her feelings
as she doles out compassion and makes life have meaning.

Then slips into darkness with the turn of her key
and returns to her gremlin and slumps for TV
where, lulled by the warmth and fatigue of long days
she drifts off to sleep, it’s better that way.

These long-trodden ruts, with mud like pitch
by farming day and ankle-snapping wallows by
wartime night sucked at your boots and swallowed
the uncapped cigarettes of the part-time tommys
who perched, bayonets ready, over the vents of the
train tunnels. This Summer they bake stone-dry
undisturbed by you.

The secret corners of the meadows, like skirts unhitched
unbuttoned cloaks, let you pick, giggling,
your mushroom breakfast like that day we carried
them back triumphantly as victor’s trophies now
sit doleful and forgotten for wont of you.

And above the moor is the startled cry which
shrieks from the fluttering height of a hawk breed
called by a name none of us left can can bring to mind
yet it sprang to your smiling lips as easy as your
rambler’s stride outpaced us all; though you told me
and we rehearsed the right Somerset burr it passed
through my memory and out the other side.
I should have listened to you.

This Winter, when the hail fills the ditch
and the narrow snake lanes are drawn again
in pastel shades of frost and and the crows
shiver in the bare trees at the bite of a
bone-cutting wind, who will remember to crack ice
on the pond for the fishes if it’s not you?

When classes gather on rowdy trips,
chattering school days out poke at the
billhook and scythe on the hitch,
and with murmuring lips rehearse
the curls of a brogue tongue we’ve lost and
peer at the ruddy-faced sepia snaps of smocked men
crushed by the effort of lofting up those hand-built
hayricks, will they know one of the little boys was you?

Who is left to remember the willow switch
the strike of which peeled the smell
of the sweat steam from mud-dusty hide
to tear the plough through cake-crumb
soil with shrill pursed two-fingered whistles and
shouts of “here boys” and “walk on” to
plait the criss-cross pattern
of our farmland fit to burst later with Autumn
plenty if the who is not to be you?

How will we know the ways of every niche
to string the berry-bearing twine amongst
the nooks and crannys of glass or the bud
to tweak or root to lift and clumping ball
to split? The way to cast, broad and measured
in a cupped hand gnarled by ungloved labour
sleeps unwritten with you.

The joys of horse and rattling, rich
reward for boyhood toil, bucking cart,
riding high on the hay, your father pacing
at the rein; a tiny returning champion, skin
like leather; all now squared into an oil fairytale
to perch in maidenless parlours and picturesque
postcards who know nothing of you.

I knew you. I will remember.

I warned you it’d break us up,
split the “me and you”
and make it just “me” and barely “you”
you fool.

You don’t love me like I love you
I told you there’d be tears
the magic numbers are playing
TV on mute, cuts out what they’re saying
you’re crushing your pet
hugging it to death
with it drowning in your “sea of love”

But even an ocean of vodka
waves and waves of kisses
and toe-curling sex and love in the shower
aren’t going to rescue my heart, once it’s gone
and it’s over
even though it’s nobody’s fault
it’s true
just the same
do you really want a lifetime of faking it
with you lying still and just taking it?
With me killing the weakness
with a thousand cuts till it bleeds
and dies and leaves you depressed
and all of our ‘others’ distressed?

That’s all gone, that diamond look in your eyes
all that’s left is a cut glass fake
with a polished shine that fades with time
the sparkle’s dulled, I see it, know it
watery dull with just little corners tracing your smile
look; you got what you really wanted
too bad you don’t truly want what you’ve got

are we over?
are we over now?
are we over?
are we breaking up?

I warned you it’d break us up,
split the “me and you”
and make it just “me” and barely “you”
you fool.

You pushed and pushed
and I fell, fell right out of love
and somebody out there caught me
and stopped me dashing on the ground
funny how when you heard of it
you rang and rang my phone to chase me back
but by then I’d got another keeper
and they’re keeping me well away from you
I know it’s a hard lesson for you
but you’d better learn it well

so we’re over?
so we’re over now?
so we’re over?
so we’re breaking up?

I warned you it’d break us up,
split the “me and you”
no it’s made it just “me” and now you’re barely “you”
you fool.
You fool.

So I tap, tap, tap.
White you go
but I’m still waiting.
I’m still waiting.

Who are these boys,
the ugly man that runs the country?
A mere twinkle when I was first an
old woman.  A pretender who
hides his heritage for the love
of power.

Til I roll my eyes again and repeat
the nursery rhymes that I taught you
which spill out between the cracks of my
shattered mind.

I was the suffragette who first
dared The Channel.
I was the crooked smile who
cocked a snook at the stiffened
shirts of the gendarmes.
I was the mother who rocked the baby
you in my arms.

And I was the granny who bit the
nurse on the commode.

I was the face in the photograph,
tiny torso in a wheeled chair.
I was the groaning carapace who,
hollow-cheeked,
pinched the shawl about my
knees and swore like a navvy
at the lady in St. Nicholas Park
and smiled like a treacle mouth so
she didn’t know.

Until I rattled my last.

Until I sighed out my submission
as you held my hand – and fingers
loosened their grip on this moment
and slipped from you without the
chance to sing again about the
tower on fire and the good prince
with the baggy trousers like we used
to in the glimpses of the past.

You brushed my hair again and
washed my face one last time and
crossed my suffragette arms
across my suffragette chest.  One
last time.

You kissed the face of what was
left, red-eyed with a crunchy
smile at the memories.

And the people sang in French. One
last time.