Category Archives: Life_the Universe_and …

August 24, 2017

Too steep

By hjs

I had no say in this matter.
At no point was there any consultation.

I was not properly briefed,
nor were the risks pointed out to me.

No mention was made of responsibilities,
commitments, complications,

and no, I did not sign
on any kind of dotted line.

I was not given an itinerary,
and I never saw a bill of fare –

and if I had, I have a pretty good notion
it would’ve been the kind without prices.

And now, out of the blue, you have the gall
to ask me to pay for the trip?

I’ll admit: it had its moments,
and I’m not saying all of it was not worth it –

but I draw the line at coughing up
for a stone and inscription, too.

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August 15, 2017

Footwear

By hjs

I’m not the kind to walk boldly,
barefoot. I have tried sidling
through life on stocking feet,
but in the long run it wouldn’t do.

Then I met of a pair of
sensible brown lace-ups.
They mean business and
get things done for me.

As the lace-ups leave for work,
the light-weight, cutting-edge
Gore-Tex hiking boots that live
in the mudroom tap their soles.

Upstairs in the wardrobe
a pair of crimson high heels
are in a sulk. My ballerinas
chatter away companionably.

Sometimes in public places
an enormous pair of shiny black
clown shoes slip over my feet.
People point and laugh; I trip.

I keep away from jackboots.
They might make me march
in step, and to music
I never hope to hear again.

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July 9, 2015

The View

By hjs

In a place of vast surpassing beauty
a man started building a path
to a view that was
just as fine as
any other
there.

Why is he doing it the locals asked
you can bet he’s going to
take money off some
foreign dupes
too stupid
by half.

And in time people came from afar
to climb that path to a view
that was just as fine
as any other
and just
as free

only
far steeper.
And so he grew
into a contented old man
happy in the surreptitious gift of
beauty he’d given the foreign dupes.

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February 7, 2015

In the Still of the Night

By hjs

I wake in the still of the night
and scribble a note in the dark.

I wake at dawn; in the half-light
puzzle over the hieroglyphs

whose meaning I cannot now
make out – and suddenly

catch a glimpse of my father’s life
at eighty-six,

half-waking
on his side of a half empty bed

to a semblance of light, a mockery
of consciousness,

lost in time, groping for things,
words, explanations,

anything to hold on to,
no matter how silly it sounds

to those who cannot understand
that figures on invoices

forever refuse
to add up, buttons on dishwashers

wander, and the phone
only connects you to strangers.

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June 15, 2013

Love story, Midwest

By hjs

That was long afterwards, though. Where I was now
was just wanting to get her to stop,

stop the car on that narrow lane on a Welsh hillside
whose name I’ve forgotten

like the reason for our insane quarrel, or where I found
the recklessness that made me

open the door of a car driving along a narrow lane
on a Welsh hillside, jump outside

while she was still slowing down, bang the bonnet
and leave a dent that we both,

separately, secretly, worried about for the rest of
that holiday, because of course

we hadn’t taken out extra insurance for the rental car,
as you do when you are young

and still trust in things mostly turning out right, and still
capable of insane, inexplicable emotions

that will make you jump from a car on a Welsh hillside
and write a story afterwards,

long afterwards, a story about a man skip­ping stones
over the surface of a twilight pond,

about two people walking through endless cornfields
towards the grain silos of a sleepy town

somewhere in the dusty Midwest of the United States;
a story about love.

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March 17, 2013

Birthday

By hjs

this morning
I found
in my sock drawer
that missing
grey cotton
sock

it’s my birthday

maybe
all’s well
with the world
after all

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March 10, 2013

The Fierceness of Badgers

By hjs

I know all about
the fierceness of badgers:

how a border terrier
will follow a fox

down  the darkest hole –
but should he disturb

a badger down there,
he will bear the marks,

and still win prizes
at dog shows

as if half his muzzle
had not been ripped off;

and this as a tribute
to the fierceness of badgers.

Secretive, nocturnal,
masked like thieves,

you only ever see them
at night or

safely dead
by the side of the road.

But today on a hill track
I came across one.

Wary, I stopped –
then inched closer

to take a snap
with my mobile;

still closer, and spoke to him
as you do to dogs.

He hissed.
I jumped back

and watched him
retreat into bushes.

He was young
and must have been lost

and afraid
as we all are.

And so we walk through life:
timid, gingerly, circumspect,

because we know all about
the risk of high places,

the danger of draughts
from an open door –

and the fierceness of badgers.

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March 9, 2013

Polar explorations

By hjs

Our lives are lazy polar explorations.
Our kit is safely stowed; the trade winds blow,
and so we’re swept towards our destination.

Adventure’s guaranteed. No deprivations:
warm tents, down sleeping bags; cook fires glow.
Our lives are lazy polar explorations:

we botanize, sketch, study rock formations;
swig beer, sport beards and watch the lichen grow;
and on we’re swept towards our destination.

Our routes are mapped. No room for deviation:
we’re headed north, relax, go with the flow.
Our lives are lazy polar explorations

until the compass whispers transformation,
a world of wind and ice and things below,
and down we’re swept towards our destination:

fear, disbelief, rage, hacked off limbs, starvation –
And now as white turns black at last we know…
Our lives are lazy polar explorations –
and so we’re swept towards our destination.

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March 7, 2013

The bathroom Schwanen, Bernau

By hjs

A welcoming bathroom, this: blond wood and glass,
the white enamel washbasin fashionably raised
above the shiny white top. And it was talking to me.

The air was alive with hissing and burbling, with ticking
and clicks, snatches of songs; and borne on this stream,
now, and again now, half-caught, the ghosts of words.

Doubtless a rational explanation applied, involving valves,
matters of pressure, bubbles of air trapped in pipes –
but still: that room had a message for me. In the dark

it was whispering secrets; in the small hours its hisses
grew desperate, offering the answers to all my questions –
and I lay listening all night, too tired to understand –

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March 5, 2013

Cutty Sark

By hjs

From the foggy Clyde
round the Cape of Good Hope
all the way to Shanghai she braved storms
and the advent of the steam age.

Who sentenced her to this?

Raised high and dry,
made fast with iron struts:
the viewing of a perfect corpse
by a procession of nosy landlubbers.

Taunted by seagulls, mocked
by the rising tide… The wind tugs
at her empty rigging. She will not move
for all the tea in China.

Do not go near her. Leave her be.

When all is quiet, she dreams
of sailing with her luckier cousins,
the Marie Celeste, the Flying Dutchman,
the Pequod on their endless voyages.

A wind is in her sails. The iron rusts
and falls away. The dry dock is empty.

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