Soldiers

All lined up like soldiers, all handsome on parade
All lined up like soldiers, with boiled egg on a plate
Like ten glass bottles, of shades of green and brown
Just ten glass bottles, that wait to be shot down

And who cares, fot these handsome soldiers
Sliced up bits of toast
Who will sweep the shards of glass
Who values them the most?

Who?
I do
I do
Though they shoot at me too.

The Red Boots

I have red faux croc boots, which need re-heeling.

I have two flights of stairs, the walls of which need painting.

I have pile after pile of documents which need filing.

I have a coat rail that needs hanging.

I have conservatory windows that need cleaning.

You’d think that they’d be begging for my attention, but they’re not.

Write something - say the red boots.

Write something - say the stair walls.

Write something - say the documents.

Write something - says the coat rail.

Writs something - say the windows.

I pick up the pen, have it poised in my hands for hours that seems like days…

I let it fall away….

I have nothing left to say.

Composure

The widow is composure. She must be, has to be.

Sometimes, composure is natural, like this evening, when everything is bearable, normal even. Her son is helping unpack the groceries and lay the table for dinner, her youngest daughter is having her piano lesson in the room across the hall, her eldest is upstairs, duvet sprawled, book-reading and radio listening.

But there is something missing.

He is missing.

She chops peppers and puts them into the sizzling buttered pan, peels onions and does not cry.

For if she starts, she thinks, it will never stop.

What is it?

She looks to me with the expression of a boundless and hopeful puppy; as if I can somehow heal the invisible wound, as if I can give her that thing which she needs.

But I don’t know what it is.

It is not the book I have in my hand, or the words that roll from my tongue, or the smile we share.

These things, they are a start, but it is not enough, not enough by half.

She looks at me, still hopeful, but the message in her eyes I cannot read, and, because of this, I cannot bridge the gaping chasm.

I don’t know what will.

But I do know that I am determined to find out what it is that she needs.

And when I do, she shall have it.

The Silver Envelope

In the silence of the morning, the postman brings me an envelope of silver.

When I open it, a sky of blue sweeps out and lights the hallway with its luminescence. It is a card, but, at the same time, it is not just a card.

On this card are words of deepest, royalest blue, two sets of words, on each side of the pristine white pages. One set has me shake my head in bewilderment for a moment, because I recognise these words; these words are mine.

Yet it is not my own words that make me smile the blissful, unencumbered smile of an infant, it is those of a friend; it is childhood bonds and laughter ringing out like bells and the eternal spring of hope.

And it is that which sets this grey, drenched sky a radiant shade of blue.

Good enought to waste some time...

The beautiful couple had the quintessential love/hate relationship.

The love was needy and co-dependent and fierce in its demands.

The hate was angry and loud and violent in its slamming.

The beautiful woman frequently threw the beautiful man's clothes out of the window of the pent-house, often tempted to throw him out with them. But there was no need; he left voluntarily, slipped placenta-like into the warm embrace of his mother for a day or so, while the fire of the hate cooled.

But the beautiful woman hated being alone.

After a particularly vicious fight, and after he had stayed away particularly long, she threw caution where she usually thres his clothes, made a call to the substitute who simply happened to be conveniently available and spent the night with him instead.

The beautiful couple's bed could tell the difference from the scents and the sounds.

The beautiful man, when he returned later that day, the substitute had been conveniently sent on his way, could not, and that night the beautiful couple's bed was considerably bewildered.

The beautiful woman scarcely gave the substitute another thought other than, Well, he was good enough to waste some time...

Scuffed Princess

I used to sleep in a princess bed.

It was all lace cream curtains, swirled, solid brass arabesques, beautifully swirled like the cursive, looped handwriting of a love letter. No-one could have nightmares in such a bed, made safe by the sturdiness of the structure, shielded from night spirits by the innocence and purity of the draped ivory lace.

It was a symbol, an image, a snapshot of who I was, or who, at least, I believed myself to be.

Now I have a scuffed and scratched black car which I park on the driveways of houses that should, and maybe have, featured in Ideal Home magazine. It is much mended, the black car; it tries not to let me down, in spite of its weaknesses. We have much in common, my car and I.

One would think I would be more enamoured of the princess bed, would choose that, were a choice to be made,

But I wouldn’t.

I am as much a shabby black car as I am a carefully polished four poster; and proud to be so.