A change of scenery

I went to stay in sunny Italy for a year
Living in a town world famous
For haute cuisine, truffles, fancy ham and pecorino
The very foodiest of destinations
I did a lot of cooking
(Well, it was to be expected)
Navigating new ingredients by taste and smell
Before I learned their names
Only poisoned myself once – not bad on the whole
Made some new friends,
Lost touch with some older ones
Painted, wrote, sewed
Hung around market stalls
Trying to find my own rhythm
In a land of foreign charms.
Rode trains, went to the beach
Burned my pale, freckled skin to a
Delicate shade of lobster
Learned some new swear words
From the Pharmacist
Whose prickly, heated suggestions
Soothed more with their familiarity
Than any packaged pills and creams.
I sang with a choir
My immodest soprano soaring over
Earthier tones of local talent
Evaded a would-be stalker
By placing myself out of reach
To sing with a different choir
With a better grasp of syncopation
On the other side of town.
Flew home for a funeral
Then back again before I lost myself
This new me, forcing down my feelings
Keeping family at arms’ length
Hoping to hold on to that
Hard-earned accent
Avoid de-tuning my ear
With old quarrels and new grudges.
Felt a bit lost. Dropped some weight.
Photographed forgotten corners
Wandered streets teeming with lost souls
Gazing at Architecture – with a capital A
Treading dusty marble in heat and snow
Watching my pockets for stray fingers
Trying out new meanings for ‘home’.
I treated myself to the cinema
A foreign-object-lesson
Surrounded by pitying groups
Sporting sunglasses, crisp shirts
Smooth skin and sleek, shiny hair
Putting my bushy auburn curls,
Ill-fitting jeans and t-shirt,
My lack of entourage or escort to shame.
I signed up for a course
Taught by a woman
Whose intimate knowledge of
Ancient sarcophagi and killer heels
Screamed bride of Boris Karloff
Just like the Fulgor cinema
With its dusty portico and
Timeless playbill.
I squeezed into the third row
Of a crypt, asking questions
With a confidence I did not feel
Alabaster windows, gold mosaic tiles
Dressed to impress as best I could
With my mismatched wardrobe,
My evolving makeup collection –
Dark brows, red lips, sunglasses
Bright headscarf to set off
My noir-inspired look
Blending in by standing out
Pale anglicisms dwarfed by design.
My fellow strangers seemed
Unmoved by most of it
Buildings of such rich decoration
Crammed with foreign students
Rubbing elbows with the natives
Who rarely looked up
At the painted ceilings
Youth wasted on the young
History forgotten by those entranced by
More modern pursuits, fashion, technology
I learned to exist in a different landscape
Blended in as a natural oddity –
Imperfect scenery, but unremarkable.
Yet, all this wealth of experience
Failed to move me from my mundanity
And I returned to rainy Manchester
Salivating at the thought of a cheddar cheese sandwich
On wholemeal sliced
A slick of marge, all the way to the edges
Maybe with a dab of Marmite to top it off
And a mug of supermarket-own-brand
Red-label tea to wash it down
Brewed strong enough to stand the spoon
With a splash of milk
As comforting to me as rain in August,
Grey skies and green fields.

Weather Woman

I am a whirlwind, a whisk of storm
Bustling hustler, shucking pain
I, tornado, brave and warm
Quite immune to storm and strain
 
Problems scatter at my touch
Tossed aside on threads of steel
Fly to cloudy puffing, such
We pay no mind and bring to heel
 
Arms outstretched, ten fingertips
Sweep through the tactile charged air
Perched for flight the moment strips
All concern from simple care
 
I am the calm in the storm’s grey eye
Twister turns a tidy groove
And dancing miles across the sky
No one sees my fleet feet move

Ex-Albania

“I like your face.”
The stranger smiled
A friendly eye
In a hostile world
Not to be ignored
At the end of a week
Whose gentle slide
From bad to cess –
Pitiable
Until she could feel
Herself yawning
Over the abyss
Clutching at nothing
More than the last
Frayed threads of temper.
Clearing consciousness
Not minding this overture
To a careful discussion of
Meteorologic insignificance
And closing with
Best wishes for
The weekend’s rest,
“Thank you” she said
And meant it.

Winter’s War

The season has brought with her
Blustery blows
To trail leaves and scatter
Wherever she goes

The sky with her cloak
Is soon clouded and grey
As drips thunder downward
We run while we may

With twisting and turning
She tears limbs from trees
As forestry’s mistress
Will do as she’s pleased

Humanity’s dwelling
Is breeched by a beech
With windows that splinter
As roofs start to pitch

And foam less sweet-smelling
Is blown toward the beach
For nothing we know
Is held out of her reach

While Winter enjoys herself
Cosy and warm
We huddle in blankets
And hide from the storm

Our shelters may topple
As Nature holds sway
The Earth, baked and brittle
Returned to damp clay

She turns to her Captain
Proud Weather in pride
The borders of Britain
Have started to slide

With rivers that spread themselves
Stretch their banks wide
The water soon rises
Full moon and fell tide

This world we call small
Soon unmanned and unknown
What land we had conquered
Returned to her throne

Jerusalem Nativity

Blackened cloud, torrential rain
A flood of cheerful dripping splashed
To irrigate our thirsty plain
And water lawns where drought had lashed

To prickly desert once again
Verboten hosepipe, coiled and dry
Now stretch the root and drink it down
This manna falling from the sky

So all may see how Fortune vaults
And stamps her foot at those who’d planned
To sell this Earth, the very salt
That makes our verdant, pleasant land

Aspire, respire, perspire

Searching for beauty
In the crumbling pavements
The chickweed shoots
Bringing colour to each crack

Fishing for rainbows
In gutters pooled with oil
The water slick and dirty
As an inner-city fast-track

Squinting in sunlight
Huddled in a cheap coat
Thin layers for protection
Against the chill of springtime

Doze in back of buses
To dream up something better
Than another year of hardship
And a terminal decline

A graceful corner

The wind that wafts the cypress trees
That sway as dancers, to and fro
Within this place of make-believe
To tickle fancies, fast and slow

Brings little joy to residents
Nor tourists struck by wanderlust
Who hurry onward, business-bent
And grit their teeth against the dust

These quiet passages bear marks
That whisper other sides to life
Some ooze what passes after dark
The noisome remnants of our strife

And yet my mind is pausing here
A pleasant hour to pass. I wait
Enclosed by those with much to fear
Without this sanctuary gate

159

Gentle sway and vicious jerk
As shared expressions ebb and flow
Upon the crowded upper deck
We, homeward bound, together plough
Toward what goals to us remain
Each counting landmarks, old and new
And lulled to dullness by the rain
Take comfort in familiar view

A kind parting

What summers I spend in the depths of your gaze
While the half hours tick past with a sigh
How cool is the breeze, yet how warm is this haze
As I watch my life, lonely, drift by

There I sit and I bask in the glow of your sun
In the chill of your evening mocks
And I love you with all of my heart every morn’
So I suffer your slights and your shocks

‘Tis in vain and I know it, your heart is aflame
With the gas-lit by some other spark
And I see nothing here for me but future pain
As I talk to myself in the dark

Try to speak me some sense to this dull wit of mine
I will do what I must to survive
For to keep up my status through your frosty clime
One can barely call ‘being alive’.

So my mind is made up – without heed of my heart
And the tears join my smile on the floor
I must put them both back, though it may not be smart
For I’ll not hurt my love,
My one precious love
This only true love?
As I slip out the door.

Chatting in miniature

It’s not so much small talk, as chatting in miniature.
People skim over the dangerous depths.
Shallowness gives us a far brighter outlook
Thus we pass the time without causing regrets.
So listen, my dears, not to what I am saying
But rather the tone of my voice as I speak
Exclaiming with interest at gloomy weather
For only the seventeenth time this week.