It’s true there is a battle,
But I shall not yet bear arms,
Instead I aim to win you,
With a quiet war of charms.

She knows not of her opponent,
Or even of the threat,
And the amor in my armoury,
Is not collected yet.

But the tools at her disposal,
Are more deadly than a blade.
For my foe has you already,
And she thinks her bed is made.

The battle ground’s uneven,
The odds are in her favour,
She’ll need every scrap of fight,
And all the might God gave her.

For I shall not stop in this life,
Nor even in the others,
And I call to all the Goddesses,
The Gods and all their Mothers.

The ones who know what’s right,
And who I should belong to,
The saviours of my heart,
Who know how much I want you.

I have faith in all their powers,
Even though I am a sinner,
Love, I will have the victory,
But you will be the winner.

Big girls

feet slip,

big flop.

Rucksack, backpack

Easy stride, slack walk

Slack talk, kick slack

Flip stride, flop talk

Flop glance, flip slop

Flip walk, flop past

Flop slip, flip hip

Schlip schlop, slap slip

Kick slick, footie slack

Cas slack, sling back

beach bound

sea-salted heel

slaps the deck.

Five mottled sparrow eggs cushioned inside a breezeblock

with strips of my garden raffia, twig slivers, moss

and odd wing feather sentinels. It is shoulder height.

We tiptoe along the chemin to our plots, smiling, curious.

Today, nesting lies rag-strewn over rough ground,

the breezeblock hollow, empty, black. A baleful pall

hangs in the air, its solicitude unbidden. Then –

I hear cries and flapping wings, a duck fires a volley,

sculling low, seeking to evade three drakes in pursuit..

She rests a moment, the drakes encircle. Her protestations,

her body, are smothered in the long field grass. I wait

until her shaking head comes into view, then turn,

passing marguerites, buttercups and the empty nest.

Unsettled sweetness clouds her too-blue eyes,

tongues whisper secrets half aloud.

Her clothes are a joke, stolen from Fairyland,

her hair’s raked out like straw; an angle thatch.

She darts about, disturbing sleeping Jane.

What will she do next? They’re after her.

‘Come back to bed now, Bertha.

Put the candle out. You shouldn’t be here in the Master’s room.’

Grace Poole is in her cups. The mad one and the drunken one,

sly devils, work to undermine the man.

The flame seethes under the curtains in the bed chamber,

there’s trouble brewing, something’s caught alight.

Expect nothing, Miss Havisham waits in the corner,

by the cobbwebbed chandelier, plotting, and musty with longing,

though Estella’s long gone, her lover fled away,

and Pip has never cared about her, not really.

There in the children’s quarters, Violet Elizabeth Bott

is screaming the place down and no one will shut her up.

She’s sick all right. Put your hand to your ear.

Can you hear her? Can you hear her?

And the French Lieutenant’s woman on the Cobb,

thinks she has waited long enough.

Her eyes are watering, but not with tears.

Her cloak is spattered with the sea salt wind.

And where the Fens dissolve and meet the sea

that unpleasant old woman, Mrs Ravoon,

squats in the moat and mumbles someone’s name.

Mother, what do you want, sitting there all alone?

They are waking up after a long sleep.

They are all waking up after a long sleep,

and they are mad as hell.

We had a sweep in the week

and he brought us some eggs

we don’t get another one until

Monday is your car open

the swing seat’s in the garden

if you want to sit down

Tut’s on you like things like that

have you seen this shot of her

she’s got horns she looks sort

of 1940s doesn’t she has anyone

seen the Radio Times

I’ve looked in the bucket

you said they put you to sleep

when you were in hospital that

man the day you came back he

was put into a home oh we’ve just

missed the secret life of the cat

well he might have gone to a nice

home so you quite liked him then

there’s the Great Wall on More 4

China’s secret history you like

things like that did you get any

tips then but it’s a bit embarrassing

when you have hot flushes and you’re

doing yoga and your sweaty feet slip

on the mat it’s in here you know

that man they took to hospital

so have we established

you’ll give me a knock when

you’re finished in the bathroom

oh there’s Dorothy and Charles’s

wedding she’s put some photos on

facebook it’s the family when they came

to stay with her from South Korea

the Chinese suffered under the yoke of Mongul rule

it says Dorothy’s lived here for forty years

near the Catholic church this is heavy

it’s heavier than yours isn’t it yours

is an android fancy posing like that

look at that just imagine living there

in one of those so they used sticky

rice in the mortar what’s that

oh it’s just him boom booming next door

can we establish what order we’re using the bathroom?

Echoes in the rain

of a long lost prayer

resonate around a silent room.

Iced feathers, as from Angels’s drift

Engulf my soul, my heart, my world

With blessings of love renewed.

Death’s true calling
was music: he built
a piano, with keys
of blanched bones;
strung it with sinews
and tuned it with
secrets, from the grave,
exhumed and stolen.

From it, he wrung
symphonies of emotion,
the elusive spectrum,
and let the searing melody
surround him –
empty spectator,
dancing on the
other side of the veil.

Snatches of different languages. I look up

the steps of the Sydney Opera House.

Scattered pockets of tourists climb and run up.

There’s a universal bravado about it all.

Birds of paradise bordering a concrete vaulting,

blown trash whipping at the chain-link fence.

The flora is lush, random and leggy,

limbs smooth as butter-cream stride on by.

Flip-flops slop maintaining a momentum

which travels up the body. Slight girls

in tight skirts drag wedge heels behind

their rucksacks hobbling the posture.

A scene of transience, paradise bordering.

Blown trash whipping at the chain-link fence.

Plaited Patricia sits gawky and awkward:

long legs, short dress, tight bodice, puffed sleeves.

She clasps shiny knees with rough red hands,

swollen fingers catching in fancy laced linen.

Pin-striped legs tucked under his chair,

with bony knees so carefully aligned,

grandfather Crampton’s copper plate fingers

clasp a bone china handle. He lowers his lips

to a porcelain rim. Such Edwardian restraint.

An elegant gesture accomplished with ease.

She cannot do likewise, plaited Patricia,

her fingers scramble to find any purchase

on willow pattern handles. Her efforts slip slop

spooling hot tea over misaligned knees,

down purple calves to her leather tongued shoes.

Fumbling and scrabbling in her dress pocket

miscellaneous crumbs join tea trails and

fine crocheted doilies are caught in the snag.

A tumble down teatime descends to the lawn.

Those pin-striped knees engineer a small turn

and a genteel white head with a weak wan smile

responds to this mishap, with scarcely a nod.