Res's Writing and Poetry: April 2013

Saturday 27 April 2013

"My Fortune Beckoning Cat"

I changed the batteries in my

Fortune beckoning cat,

And set him in my window, beckoning again.

Then I asked Barclaycard to repay all the

Personal Payment Insurance

That had been wrongly sold me!

Wrongly sold?

I believe that is a euphemism for theft!

“Wow!” said the man from Barclays.

“That’s a good pay-out!”

But I’d had three of his colleagues

On the ‘phone only a month or two before.

Demanding that I give them the few pounds

That I send to Médecins Sans Frontiéres

Each month. And what I send to Unicef

And WaterAid and Macmillan and a few more.

They said they had a higher priority than

The starving millions in Africa and Asia!

They said they could have me evicted!

Thugs in suits!

“Go ahead and evict me,” I said.

“See what bloody fools you’ll look,

Evicting a 70 year old Disabled Veteran

Just because you stopped

Lending ‘Interest Only’ Mortgages

To people of my age.

You’re not dying from dirty water

Or lack of medicines! Though your lack

Of manners may be terminal!”

They reluctantly agreed to let me stay

For a short while,

Provided I increase my monthly payments

By six hundred and twenty five per cent!

I was forced to sell my house!

And promptly rented it back!

I paid off my mortgage and all other debts.

Barclays didn’t even say, “Thank you!”

But then I changed the batteries in my

Fortune beckoning cat!

“Wow!” said the man from Barclays.

“That’s a good pay-out!”

“That’s not a pay-out!” I said,

“That’s you paying me back

All the money you’ve stolen from me

In the last eighteen or twenty years!”

And then I went out and bought another

Fortune beckoning cat…..

Just in case!

No wonder the Chinese

Are so enamoured of

These ‘Lucky Cats!’

Now Barclays keep asking me

To transfer any balances I might have

To them!

‘More neck than a brass giraffe,’

Springs to mind.

One cat beckons…

The other waves Barclays off….

It reminds me of the legendary bird

Whose cry sounds remarkably like

“Fuggoff… Fuggoff!”

"Wintry Sunshine"

Wintry sunshine

But oh such bitter winds

Spring so shy this year

Saturday 20 April 2013

"My Place"

My place now is Cornwall

I was drawn here by the clean air and the sea

Driven by that heat-wave we had back in ’76.

Cornwall is where the granite spine of Britain

Lies exposed to the wind and the weather

Before dipping below the Wild Atlantic Ocean.

It is a hard county. These Celtic people lead hard lives.

It breeds strong, brave men, wide of shoulder.

From mining tin from the granite, wresting a living

From the sea, or crops from the land.

When a lifeboat is lost here, with all it’s crew

From one small village, they’ll spend a day

Looking for bodies or survivors.

The next day a full crew of volunteers

Report for duty on the next lifeboat!

I’ve seen this happen and their courage still astounds me!

Here the old boys talk to the granite!

They have built houses from it

And Cornish Stone Hedges

Since the Stone Age. They’ll cut it

And split it at will. Only telling it first

What they want it to do!

It is a poor county. Most of the wealth

Was torn from the ground and the sea

Generations ago. But the prevailing wind

Has the whole Atlantic over which to purify itself

Before reaching here. Sometimes it will storm in,

Hurricane force winds, but the air is clean

And the water is soft. And so are the accents.

And I’d rather be poor here, than rich in a city.

It’s a fine place to raise your children.

There are many things that will kill them…

But not so many that will sully their souls.

They learn to swim early, and surf and drive tractors.

Most boys sit their driving test on their sixteenth birthday.

And with narrow lanes they often drive as fast backwards

As they do forwards!

It is a place of rugged cliffs and rolling hills

Green pastures with dairy cattle always ready

For a conversation over the field gate.

Dogs at heel and friendly neighbours… well mostly!

Narrow lanes where bramble, hawthorn and blackthorn grow

Swampy lowlands rich with lemon balm and orchids!

And rugged moors, purple with heather, sharp with gorse.

The place is littered with Standing Stones,

Iron age forts and villages.

Legends that on a misty night you might swear

Were coming true. Great inventors like Humphrey Davy

And Trevithick and Old Henry Trengrouse,

Who invented the ‘Rocket life-saving apparatus’

After watching the whole crew of HMS Anson

Drown down at Loe Bar, below Helston.

If you imagine England as a Christmas Stocking

Cornwall is right down at the toe.

And like a Christmas Stocking

This is where all the nuts collect!

Artists love the light here and the blue of the sea.

Sculptors settle, witches brew, old soldiers come to rest,

Musicians pick, writers write and poets bloom

Which may be why I’m so happy here!

Written for a Poetry Challenge on Elbow Lane Poems

Top photo This morning's view from my attic window.

Bottom photo Armed Knights Rocks at Land's End

"Spring?"

As the sun lifts

Swirling mist up from the sea

Does Spring arrive?

Thursday 18 April 2013

"Remembrance Sunday"

“Remembrance Sunday”

Was it the throbbing in his head

Or the growling in his stomach

That woke him?

He didn’t want to wake up.

He was cold and hungry, and with sleep,

At least sometimes, came oblivion.

When it wasn’t fiery nightmares

And for that the drink usually sufficed.

He pulled the thin blanket around him

A’top his cardboard mattress.

The throbbing grew louder.

He’d had a warm sleeping bag

Until last week when he woke to find

Drunken teenagers pissing on it,

And, not knowing if it was piss or petrol,

He ran, in terror, leaving all behind him.

That night he’d spent cowering behind

A waste bin, near a Supermarket

Trying to master his terror

While the sores on his legs

Itched and festered!

Still the throbbing in his head

Grew louder.

Reluctantly he crawled

Across the cardboard

In the shop doorway.

And there, marching to the beat of a drum,

Be-chained and resplendent,

Pompous and portly,

Marched the Lady Mayoress,

And the Aldermen,

And the town council

Attended by Army Cadets

With a banner

With Sea and Air Cadets

And a single bass drum that

Throbbed throbbed throbbed

In his head.

Old habits die hard.

He snapped to attention

And saluted the flag!

He would have worn his medals

But he sold them long ago

For the price of a full English Breakfast

With a fried slice and a cup of tea.

His jerky salute caught

The Lady Mayoress’s eye,

She took one look and turned primly away

Her chins quivering !

They were, after all, honouring the gallant dead

Of two World Wars and many smaller ones.

They had no time for the survivors

Or those who merely crawled away.

They who had sacrificed their courage

Upon the Altar of their Nation’s Wars.

And having spent it had nothing left for themselves

It was clear, the Nation had forgotten them

The Nation didn’t care.

As the parade drew away

The throbbing in his head died away too.

And he sat, wrapped in his thin blanket

On his piece of cardboard

And he remembered the fallen.

As though it were yesterday!

More vividly than the Mayoress

Or her minnions.

The Mayoress was dry eyed but he shed tears

They dropped on the sores from his last burning

Which were on the skin grafts he had earned

Wading through liquid fire on Sir Galahad

In Port Pleasant, trying to rescue his mates.

After the parade, and a wreath and a hurried prayer

The Lady Mayoress sat down to a hearty lunch.

“Remind me, dear,” she said to her husband,

“Remind me to phone the Chief Constable

To ask why our Remembrance Sunday parade route

Was lined with drunks and vagrants”

But she needn’t have worried

The receding throbbing wasn’t the drum

It was his tired heart finally giving up

To septic shock.

Burns on skin grafts do not heal

Especially when one is unwelcome

At the hospital, and the disapproval

Of the nurses and doctors

Frightens a man who spent all his courage

Years before in the service and uniform

Of a grateful nation!