The Anti-Social Conscience

Fear of flying
In the Erica Jong sense
Is not wrong – even for hardcore feminists
We are all intimidated sometimes
When faced with the prospect
Of successful seduction
In an post-AIDS era.

Fear of flying
Bugs with the power to infect
The next generation with long-term consequences
Is a logical response to a natural phenomenon
So we avoid the tropics, where possible
And wear trousers, long-sleeves
And poisoned perfume.

Fear of flying
To exotic climes
With local customs
Hostile to strangers
Would appear an acceptable
Response to the xenophobic
Fury of others – so unlike our own.

Fear of flying
Seems perfectly reasonable –
A socially acceptable phobia for a reduced carbon footprint
Unless, of course the sufferer happens to be
The passenger in the next seat (adjacent to me)
Quaking in their Birkenstocks,
Passing gas, and sweating cobs.

Hidden Agenda

Well-versed in deflection
Adept sleight-of-eye
We swallow confection
No hint of a lie

With no information
To pad out the cues
We’re sunk in deflation
That borders abuse

And used to the stories
So rarely explained
We vote for HisTories
And nothing is gained

Consistent imprudence
Of well-feathered nest
Career jurisprudence
You-know-who knows best

We’re damned by inaction
To more of the same
A knee-jerk reaction
And someone to blame

Perambulation

Surrounded by pushchairs, spoilt kids
Deep in nappy valley, Wandsworth village
Trendy boutiques flipping lids
For middle class to loot and pillage

The claustrophobia of pastel painted
Clamouring conversation-piece tainted
Opticians’ windows with ELC tat
To lure proud parents, “Daddy, buy me that!”

Averting eyes from tweenaged princess
Hide my face in coffee cup
My urge to flee a growing promise
(Get me out or I’ll throw up)

What happened to the intellect
Of parents’ educated class?
Did brain cells down aboard the jet
To twilight zone – kids’ yoga pass

For under fives and boring housewives
Mum’s career stuck in a loop
Of folic acid, UTIs
Her sex life reproductive – Super!

Men and women on the ladder
Treading upward, soon to seek
A loan for Jasper darling’s madder
School fees make them want to weep

And what’s it for, this quest for more
Advantage for their offspring’s start
In life upon a path so sure
No thinking needed, play the part

As you pass on to generation
All the same things you have been
Your name, possessions, worldly station
Nothing heard, nor said, nor seen

Stream of barely-consciousness

Looking back with the benefit of nostalgia, it is easy to forget the homesickness, the loneliness of that year. I do not look upon it as a wasted opportunity, but rather one I chose to endure in my own fashion. Others partied, northern-style, staying out late, growing up disgracefully. I took a more sober approach. I enjoyed being an enigma to my fellows, and, in a way, I enjoyed wallowing in my own self-pity, overworking myself, setting challenges I would lose sleep needlessly to fulfil. I looked for the real, the genuine experience, rather than living in my own little Erasmus-island. I was there to embrace the local culture, warts and all, and so I did. Suppressing my instinctive withdrawal from any harsh reality I might encounter, I soldiered on, exploring in foreign territory. Craving a wholemeal cheddar-cheese and Dijon-mustard sandwich for nearly ten months. Learning instead to thrive on a diet of crackers, coffee, plain chocolate and oranges. I inserted myself into that world, that time-zone, that lifestyle. I even went to church.

Then, when my time was up, I was expelled from my brave new-found world. Released from the institution. And now I find myself aching to return there. A part of me is missing. I noticed it when I first returned. I craved pizza rather than toast. I pined for the colourful shop-window-displays, bursting with pride and elegance, and found no solace in the unfeeling, haphazard piles to be found gracing the grubby glass fronts of Regent Street.

What can have happened to provoke this shift in personal geography? I no longer belong here, or there, or, in fact, anywhere. I am a displaced person. Having abandoned what passed for ‘my own’ culture to embrace another for so long, I find on returning, that I have lost it. I no longer fit. The world around me jars each time I open my eyes to it, and yet I cannot exist in a bubble. My time there is fast fading, and yet the world here is hardly in focus, but fuzzy, as if viewed through a smudged lens.

Homecoming is never easy. It is in the nature of time, being of a linear persuasion, to march onward, letting those things one drops fall by the wayside. Somewhere along the road, I seem to have lost myself amid the dust and general confusion of growing up. My rock of ages slipped its moorings and drifted out to sea, taking the rest of the Armada along for the ride.

So what do I do now? Try to find out who I really am? Or just choose an identity to borrow? I could so easily become the perfect girlfriend, then wife, and daughter-in-law, even mother. Or do I continue to drift, hoping to bump into something or someone significant enough to run me aground and show me how I am no longer so out of my depth?

My mind is filled with problem-solving paraphernalia, yet no solution fits my puzzle. Logic is overthrown and I dawdle along the path of least resistance, dragging my feet in the mire and snaring my clothing and hair on brambles. I gaze longingly towards the past, using the eyes in the back of my head, ever fixed to the rear, but I refuse to turn. What good would it do to return there? To dwell, to swallow the pill I keep toying with – swirling my tongue around it, and capturing it securely in my teeth before spitting it out again for further inspection…

I am myself, and yet who I used to be is already long-gone. Old friends no longer know me, and I have little use for what new acquaintances I gather, as I now expect them to be transitory, changeable, fleeting.

I work because I must. Not to do so would outrage me, pushing my fragile sense of stability further toward ‘off-balance and out-of-kilter’. I long for time to think, time to sit and wallow, to pinpoint my position, work out how in hell I got here, and where to go next… No time is forthcoming, however, so my questions remain unanswered, although the answers must be within reach. Somewhere in this vast confusion, there is one with my name on it.

Nauseous with nostalgia

Why on earth is it that even years after the event, I still cannot let you go?  Your lopsided smile and ugly, grinning, gurning face plague me from hour to hour.  I cannot sit in a room without smiling at some returning memory, and as warmth returns to my frozen heart, I take stock.  Weighing all of my options carefully, I balance from foot to foot, leaning this way, then that.  I am a pendulum, wavering, uncertain whether or whither to swing.  I am a clock, stopped still the day you left me, and only now beginning to find my rhythm once more.  As the shallow tick-tock of life creeps up my spine and tickles my veins into action, so the thaw begins.  I must be wary, lest my wintry organs melt to a spring flood of love, and I, swept along by my own strong current, am drowned by it.  Suffocated, helpless.  A fisher, tangled and caught in my own nets and snared by traps of my own devising, struggling to break free.  Wary indeed.  As my love for you had become a mantra – words of comfort to be spoken before sleep and upon waking; My ‘I love you’s with their reedy echo in the damp morning air, somehow growing to a rope with which to hang myself – and swing I did, groaning in pain and tormenting myself minutely with your voice, your face, your scorn, derision, pity.  Tearing myself down, piece by piece, until I had ceased to be.  Where once I stood, proud and strong, shining brightly for all to see – lay a stone.  My rougher edges smoothed to a bland pebble.  My glittering core dulled by your swell and smashed on rocks of my own choosing.  Broken and without pattern, without hope of re-making, mending, rebirth.  I lie here, and I am troubled.  That I still harbour feelings for you does not pain me or even shame me to action.  Nothing I could do to myself or to others could change that fact.  That these feelings grow stronger despite our mutual distance frightens and excites me.  I thought I had no more tears, and now I often don’t know whether to laugh or cry.  I can feel again.  What I thought had to have gone forever has returned to me.  Now I find myself at a crossroads with a choice.  Do I go onward?  Or do I turn back?

Starstruck at Capo d’Anno

I look to the future and what do I see?
My year-ful of past gazing fondly at me.
I turn on my toes and do an about face,
To find myself staring back at my first place.
But try as I might, twist and turn all my days,
The future will greet me, my mind is a maze.
I see now how vain was my endless display,
To seek out my present and past with one eye.
Yet trained in star-gazing and picking up jokes,
Not learning the nature of time, nor her yokes,
I still on occasion, though valiant my fight,
To catch my own tail, pirouette in the light.