Fade

She was slight to begin with.

Pared down by worry,

Three kids and an errant husband

Who carried grass seed in his pocket.

Illness took the rest

until pills were the only food

I could push through purse-string lips

before inertia set her blood like stone

There were moments

when a young girl fell back into life

like a failed ghost

with hot ‘how dare you’ eyes.

Then, the words ‘let me go’!

became my own

She dared cancer try its luck

and take anything from a body

that had nothing left.

Right on cue an evil limpet

clamped its self to her fifth rib

where an empty breast used to sit

Stupid tumour starved to death

just before she did

prised off by some thoughtful surgeon

during luncheon

popped into formalin and filed away

just before she was

Dominoes ( Last night, vandals destroyed 150 headstones and monuments in a quiet village cemetery)

A domino theory, proved

in a pub-less, peaceful place

devoid of faded spots

and the back to back clack

of six on six.

No airless  gym

with  varnished floor

buffed to perfection

and filled with wooden warriors

as yet un-toppled

by the deftest finger flick

local wall-sitters,

bored with easy kickings,

bus  shelters

and laminated kiosks

wearing chap cider smiles

to 'impress the birds'.

moved on to the Graveyard

Follow my leader,

off-ground tick,

stepping, stoned, as

Dr Martens gripped the granite

smearing dated marble tombs.

First the ancients snapped.

Jutting yellow tongues

tasting their last meal

of rubber sole and grassy heel

Then the newly fixed and planted.

Presiding over some

hammock of earth,

cement still wet.

The jumbled names lay shattered

like a broken-biscuit  jigsaw .

A dazed daughter

and  weeping widow

exchanged a piece of sky

for  a piece of son.......

Yvonne

                                               

My heart came of age

One balmy sports day

When Yvonne won the hundred.

Her quiet perspiration made me sweat out loud.

I ached to touch her,

Not like my signed England cricket bat

Somewhere between my Princess Leia Poster

And our slate-grey Persian cat

Her buttocks rose like new proved dough

Held high with braided hair.

So thick and tight the

Gloss oozed out like blackberries

Wrung through muslin.

I never braved her orbit

But glimpsed her second hand

On the backs of spoons and polished floors,

In a finger-smudged brass escutcheon

Or the yawn of a classroom door

I the savant, she my time

Penning the need for her on every lesson.

Skirting conversations, like

An expectant father fielding questions,

Flies undone.

Years later

Tight with drink and starving

I found Yvonne shovelling chips to midnight bums,

Air thick with grease and chat-up lies.

Head bowed low,

Staring into boiling fat.

In the back room,

Pressed hard against a frosted pane

A young boy wore my face

With no appetite for pity

Wishing he was still at school

Invisible

Sometimes when I venture out for a newspaper or a carton of milk I feel as though another tiny part of me has disappeared. This gradual body depletion is difficult to quantify as I know I’m still virtually the same person I was yesterday, with the possible exception of an extra grey hair or newfound wrinkle. It’s as though the more routine and predictable my journeys are the more insignificant I become. Perhaps I should attempt to halt or even reverse this slow disappearing act with a naked one-man-band impersonation in the dead of night?

It also seems as though the less I interact with my surroundings the more the invisibility is accelerated.  A hearty ‘good morning’ or ‘lovely weather today’ with any complete stranger tells me I’m still here. It’s when I refuse to engage with my fellow humans or choose to hide myself under hats, and behind sunglasses that the situation is exacerbated.

Certain senior citizens can slip through our observational nets without even trying. Their body language, gait, and dress all conspire to render them a kind of walking background noise.  A particular brand of adolescent filters out these urban ghosts because they refuse to accept or believe that one day they too will be shuffling towards Tesco’s with a beige and orange shopping trolley wondering if they remembered to lock the front door or turn off the cooker. Either that or they see no personal advantage from elderly interaction.

If I stopped going out would anyone miss me?  I could always don a disguise such as a false beard or wig and discover for myself. I’d frequent my usual haunts and say something like:

                “Whatever happened to that middle aged guy who used to come in here day after day for his paper and carton of milk? The newsagent might scratch his head or frown and say:

                “Oh you mean that quiet fella who wore the same drab clothes? Dunno, praps he moved away or died?”  Not exactly a heartfelt eulogy is it? Mind you, I could always stick up for the mute fashion disaster with some heartfelt anecdote or even suddenly unmask myself with a jubilant “Fooled Ya!”

I think some days we feel more anonymous than ever, wearing our transience or disconnection like a heavy overcoat.  I also think we prefer to make a conscious decision to emerge from our prospective dwellings ‘camouflaged and unremarkable’ or not at all, because we don’t wish to stand out and be noticed. We can’t all be in the limelight at the same time. Sometimes it’s infinitely more preferable to watch a firework display than to try and be the firework itself.

A few years ago, I wrote a poem  about an elderly man who was released from a mental health establishment to fend for himself in the community. Sure, he was told he had the backup of a CPN (Community Psychiatric Nurse) twenty four seven, but this man had fallen into a daily routine so entrenched that no one was ever going to alter him. Unlike me, he was extremely visible, until one day he completely disappeared. Below is my tribute to him.

Noel

Noel Coward lives in our street.

Each day at nine he promenades

wearing his best Oxfam smoking jacket,

recently died fawn slacks

And beige slippers

First he pats his pockets, 

before taking out an imaginary cigarillo

clamping one hand to his forehead,

mouthing “ooh silly me” and,

realising fags are normally filter first

removes it, bows and re-inserts.

Once lit, he stands at the pedestrian crossing

on Prospect Road parodying an old prostitute,

soliciting winks from passers’ by,

Taking great sucks of his pincer’ed butt

Like a reverse breathalyser

Blowing pseudo-smoke rings at traffic cops

His gait is something to behold.

Not quite John Cleese from the ministry 

more a speed skater in slow-mo

who trips over an imaginary toe

and slews to a teetering stop

I heard he feigned death

in Granton Park,

doing a very convincing heart attack.

Trouble was, the pretend Paramedic

Arrived too late

As did the imaginary undertaker, leaving

an eight-year-old girl feeding swans

to mark the body

face down in the lake

with two soggy rounds of bread

and a mouldy bap

Fine

Fine is for weather and leather, like new

Fine is for trinkets and diamonds like dew

Fine is for lying, when platitudes suit

Fine is for proving an engineer’s truth

Fine is for wining and dining and such

Fine is for sex- tales, ol honesty’s crutch

Fine is the tip-toe to madness and back

Fine is the heart-ache that screams ‘Heart attack!’

Fine is the wife who perpetually wants

Fine is the stitch on the silk of her pants

Fine is like ‘nice’ when applied to our lives

A shortcut for boredom, a home for our lies

Fine is for weather

And leather, like new

Fine is for trinkets and diamonds like you

I wrote this a few years ago when I was putting together a children's Poetry Anthology called 'Stepping on Jellyfish'. 

Feet

Funny things feet
You often see them in the street
Pacing, trotting, sliding, gliding
Housed in leather
Tied up
Neat

Ugly things feet
Mine are veiny pale and smelly
Like mini corpses
Or sleeping ghosts
Fed up of too much Telly

Useful things feet
Runners need them
Models feed them
Babies suck them
Cus they're good to eat

Ticklish things feet
Pins'n needles
Feathers, fingers
Keep them on their toes

Awkward things feet
Especially if you're drunk or tiddly
One insists, "I know the way"
The others half asleep.......

Good Writing

Good writers are like hen’s teeth. It’s relatively easy to report or relay information on a subject the writer has a background in. It’s much harder to take any subject matter and serve it up in a way that is both entertaining and informative. Good writing, unlike grammar, punctuation and spelling cannot be taught. Sure, creative writing courses are filled to the gunnels with wannabe wordsmiths convinced they’ll be the next J.K Rowling or Phillip Pullman. I should know I’ve attended the good, the bad and the downright appalling. Good writing should appear effortless to the reader when in reality the author has spent hours ruthlessly editing and tinkering with his or her work to make it the best it can be. It should be concise, immediate and pull the reader in.

I also believe good writing should take risks. The English language is constantly evolving and growing as more words in common usage make their way into the OED. Writers are no longer constrained by traditional sentence structure or punctuation and the best of new writing illustrates this. Poets are literary ‘test pilots’ who are constantly pushing the envelope by challenging the status quo.  Great poets lead us through an unfamiliar, almost alien landscape where we don’t have a clue what’s around the next stanza. They are in effect striving to produce ‘The Lorenzo’s Oil’ of Literature. This is distilled into being by a fair amount of nail-hitting, atom-splitting and advanced rabbit-out-of-the-hat-ology. It usually begins with a rendering of pain, joy or poignancy by trimming off fatty irrelevance and scratching out insipid detail.

At some point that will-o-the-wisp ‘The Muse’ usually helps out, but this relies on the conscious and subconscious getting along and we writers know they have a reputation for caprice and ephemerally bad behaviour. Finally, and most importantly you need to imagine your poem trying to describe to some heartless alien how your first kiss felt, not forgetting to be beautifully vague and leave curious voids on the page.

It can also be difficult to pace one’s writing correctly. Cadence and rhythm are vital in carrying a story forward. If a writer runs hell for leather through the first few paragraphs it soon collapses in a wheezing heap after only a few pages. Conversely, if they choose to wade through treacle with long leaden sentences then readers tend to extricate themselves before the end of the first chapter. It’s all about balance. Readers relish the quiet calm interludes just as much as the frenetic action scenes. The best books make us walk, jog and race along with them giving our minds a comprehensive workout as we travel towards the last page.

Finally, and in my mind most importantly, all good short stories and novels need big believable characters in order to exist and to thrive. I operate on the principle of character first, story second. Victoria Wood once said “Great characters can be lifted and placed  in any situation without any loss of impact or plot deterioration” I know she was referring to situation comedy, but the rules still apply to both short and longer works of fiction. If you can nail a character in the first page then the reader will want to stay with them till the last sentence. You only need to look at the works of Dickens to appreciate the sheer beauty of perfectly crafted characters that burn brightly in our memory long after the story has faded away

Do?

Do fishes dream of growing legs

And skating in the park

Do hippo’s wish their mouths were small

Not cavernous and dark

Do cheetahs ever blow a fuse

When running at top speed

Do elephant’s sometimes forget

They left their trunk to feed

Do Camels spit because

They saw a young boy do it first

And when frogs are blowing up their faces

Does the odd one burst

Does a falcon always spot its prey

When falling from the sky

Or does it sometimes blink too fast

With a tear it cannot cry

Do swallows really fall sleep

Upon the wing at night

And if they do, who tucks them in

All safe and snug and tight

10 minutes

We met at a Service Station

Somewhere off the M6

She, with London eyes and a Bradford smile

Me, with kitbag and case

Headed for Basic Training, beasting and half-arsed-bonding

She threw me a smile.

A lazy, scented lasso slipped over my heart

And reeled me in

We talked of Mum’s tears

And Dad’s warm, ‘Just in case’ scrunched up notes 

Palmed off between a lengthy hug.

Nodding sisters’ eager to claim bedrooms

Before the front door, slammed shut.

I gave her a lift as far as Watford

Two hours tried on 10 minutes for size

And liked the fit.

In the need to be heard

Neither of us really listened

To what the other said.

Except perhaps the space between words

Where hope, love and luck

Reside

And where possibilities queue

Like children

Showing off at their own birthday party

Mime

Noel Coward lives in our street.

Each day at nine he promenades

wearing his best Oxfam smoking jacket,

recently died fawn slacks

and slippers

First he pats his pockets, 

Before taking out an imaginary cigarette

Clamping one hand to his forehead,

And mouthing “ooh, silly me”,

realising fags are normally filter first

he removes it, bows and re-inserts.

Once lit, he stands at the pedestrian crossing

on Weston Road, parodying an old prostitute,

soliciting winks from passers’ by,

taking great sucks at his pincer’d butt

like a reverse Breathalyzer

and blows smoke rings at traffic cops

His gait is something to behold.

Not quite John Cleese from the ministry 

more a speed skater in slow-mo

who trips over an imaginary toe

And skids to a teetering stop

I heard he feigned death,

doing a very convincing heart attack.

Trouble was, the pretend Paramedic

arrived too late

as did the invented undertaker, leaving

an eight-year-old girl feeding swans

to mark the body

face down in the lake

with two soggy rounds of bread

and a moldy bap

My Shadow

My shadow leads I follow

It falls behind I wait

Like a Mum with a toddler

I know it’s me

But still I question its authenticity

Grilling it for signs of street lit fakery

Or airbrushed incredulity

When the moon is full

And the sky clear

My bold shadow walks purposefully on

While I slope behind.

Is darkness its enemy?

Or is it a merely a meeting of many

Gossiping about our fragile selves

Then sleeping

Like so many dogs have done

At the foot of my bed.

The Bright Eyes of Summer

Si-mon? Dad said, softly

and I knew, between the syllables

a life had gone

In the background

mums’ cries rose then fell

as grief dropped, then carried her off

again.

I listened, shock congealing

staring into the bright eyes of summer

supplanting my unsightly face with

a short business-like shower.

I gently lowered the receiver

like a stunned sparrow

I hit the front door head on, like a drunk

flung it open

sleep-running my way down some hostile lane

towards a Pub,

I forget its name.

The landlord poured me a dark brown drink

sighing, saying England were 223 for 7

I nodded  

thinking how Sam hated driving

and that freaks who gawped at car wrecks

wanted hanging

The Last Snowflake

At Cloud Central, things were getting interesting.  The cloud in question was so full of water, it kept hitting the tops of tall buildings and hills as it dragged its heavy cargo across the countryside. If clouds could talk this one would be swearing, a lot.

Inside, all the tiny droplets of water were waiting. They stood in long rows like nervous soldiers, looking for signs from their cloud mother that it would soon be time to go.

 Unfortunately, a few impatient drops couldn’t wait for Momma’s big green light, so they just jumped anyway and hoped for the best. The cloud hardly felt a thing as a few thousand droplets all joined hands and shouted ‘Geronimo’!

Sadly, the cold North Wind was far too busy making pretty patterns on a large lake to notice the kamikaze bunch as they slipped past him, catching a team of practising footballers by surprise.  The coach tried to put up his large golfing brolly, but the shower was over before it opened.

High above in the heavily pregnant cloud, the light switched from red to amber and five billion babies all shouted ‘Yes!’

          “Any second now” said Sam, a fat little female, shaking like a watery jelly. She didn’t have to wait long. The amber light flickered, dimmed and was replaced by a bright green “GO”. The mother cloud thought about adding some special effects, like thunder or lightening. After all it was nearly Christmas.  At the very last second she decided against it, so as not to frighten a large herd of cow’s right underneath her trailing skirts.

Right on cue, the North wind stopped doodling and went to meet the latest batch of wannabe snowflakes. A migrating flock of Canada Geese put pay to the dreams of a few thousand, as they sliced through them in a huge grey arrow formation.  Luckily, Sam wasn’t amongst this first wave. She was busy trying to unstick herself from a small red spider that had hitched a ride over from France.

          “You need to shake your third leg, not your fourth!” screamed Sam, pulling and twisting as hard as she could. The spider was far too busy repairing a small hole in his cobweb parachute to hear her.

          “This cannot be happening to me”. Yelled Sam. Come on, or I’ll miss my chance!”  She could see all her brothers and sisters below her, whooping with excitement. Finally, the spider stepped back to examine his handiwork and felt a little trickle of water on the hairs of his third leg, so he shook her off.

          “Ye-s!” yelled Sam, feeling the air rushing past her chubby little body as she fought to stay in shape.

          “They never mentioned this at flight school.” Every few seconds her arms and legs would break free and Sam had to suck them back in again before they left her body for good.

A few thousand feet below, the North Wind was working his magic. He liked this part of the job, because he got to create something amazing for a change. Most of the time he just pushed stuff about, like some old caretaker pushing an icy broom. Talking of ice, he started blowing gently on the water babies, as though they were pollen. Little by little the soft squidgy droplets began to freeze. He gave them tiny transparent bones from which new hands and feet started to sprout.

He also loved the sound they made as they froze - like someone rubbing the side of a balloon. A billion or so laughing, squeaking snowflakes is a noise the wind never wants to forget.

Sam was getting closer. She squeezed herself into a narrow spikey shape so she could fall a bit faster. It seemed to be working. The wind got louder and louder. Above the streets and houses, flurries of just - born snowflakes whirled and danced. Some stuck to chimney pots and TV aerials. Others banded together in clumps, for safety.

The earliest arrivals sacrificed themselves, melting into the tarmac like tiny white ghosts. Before long though, they stopped melting and started settling. Delicate lace footprints began appearing on the streets and pavements as more and more snowflakes were born.

And then, as quick as it had begun, the snowflakes stopped falling. People looked up into the sky, their mouths wide open, as if to say “is that it?” The North Wind stopped blowing too and had a quick look around to check for any stragglers.

          “Hey! Yelled Sam, as loud as she could. Wait for me!” It was too late; the North Wind sighed deeply and started to move away. This was a disaster for Sam. She’d come so far. It couldn’t end like this, it just couldn’t.

Now, as a rule, an empty-headed cloud isn’t the most reliable of mothers, but for some reason this one had very good hearing. She heard Sam’s tiny voice and decided to help out. Even though it was most definitely ‘against the rules’ she produced a small bolt of lightning and fired it right in front of the winds face.

          “What the... said the North Wind looking upwards. Doesn’t she read her own memos?” As he looked up he caught sight of something twinkling in the sunlight. He moved a little higher and saw a small, fairly insignificant water droplet falling like a dart.

          “There’s always one.”  Said the wind, smiling broadly. He took a deep breath, as though he was about to blow down a large tree and let fly. By the time it reached Sam it wasn’t half as strong, and she felt herself changing as she fell to earth.

          So this is what it’s like – being a snowflake? She thought, as she stared wide-eyed at the new icy ball gown forming around her. The kind North Wind sighed for the last time and blew off to make some mischief with a so-called windproof skyscraper.

In back gardens all over town, children were already throwing snowballs and making snowmen and women, while their parents took them gloves and hot cups of tea.  In one particular house though, there were no children playing, nor were there any signs of life, at all. Sam was almost at the ground, and she too sighed and smiled like the North Wind, because her only wish had finally been granted and she didn’t mind what happened next.

On the top floor of the dark, silent house a window creaked open and a rather wrinkly hand came out. The hand belonged to a very sad old lady who had just lost her husband. She shivered at the cold air on her hand and was just about to pull it in when she squinted up into the sky.

          “It can’t be.” She said, screwing up her red-rimmed eyes.

          “You’d better believe it!” shouted Sam as she threw out her tiny frosted arms and legs. The old lady slowly opened her fingers and watched as Sam came to rest on her cold bony hand. A face that had cried so many tears the night before, cried one more just as Sam, the last little snowflake melted away.

© Simon Daniels