Restructuring

It was obvious he’d gone.

Twenty minutes later he emerged;

a year older (and an inch shorter),

for every minute he’d been before the boss.

Never seen a man so reduced.

He stood for an hour and stared at the car park.

Something had left him,

none of us knew what words to offer his shell.

Then Shivali asked if he’d still sort the Lottery

and Dave wondered if an office would be free.

The following week

hushed conversations stopped

whenever he came into the tea-room.

Might as well have rung a bell.

He’d eat alone, untouchable.

Then his desk was empty,

though  his screensaver still showed

a picture from the Christmas do;

dressed as an elf with Leanne on his knee,

he always liked a laugh.

Emails arrived with words like rationalise,

downturn and downsize.

It was like a damp we couldn’t stop from spreading

and it seeped from his department into ours.

Just now HR Jenny smiled at me;

my appointment ‘s Thursday, half-past three.

Neil Elder

At Last

Fairly well remembered

that final game for Stanley.

Boys spread out like

ducks across a floating pitch,

and me, under new rules

trying out my spec-less eyes

for blind spots.

Before kick-off,

the thirties brick changing room

reeked sweetly of

White Horse embrocation

and Fiery Jack

(chilli seeds ground into

rubbing-cream for

the grossly insane).

Today's ref, clogged up in

a starched Polaroid

of football through the years

read FA directive, 8liND,

for specs, I was no

longer allowed to play in.

Lens-less, I launched

myself frailly

like a fight in a blindfold,

a centre forward for once,

with no regard, and ostrich-like morals

as I could see nowt.

Second half we trampled

the over-wide pitch,

I picked up a short cross, Jesus,

and hammered toward goal,

forty yards out I blasted it,

under shock, it smashed the bar,

and jumped over.

almost my best ever goal.

But that final match

all seems a blur now.

Jerry Pike

Hear Harrow's Herga Poets Read Their Own Work.

https://soundcloud.com/tags/herga%20poets

October 9th 2014 WW1 Poetry Special by Herga Poets, at Harrow Arts Centre

Speak Your Mind

THURSDAY 9 OCTOBER 2014 7:30 PM - 10:30 PM 
THE STUDIO
£3.00
BUY TICKETS£1 BOOKING FEE PER TRANSACTION APPLIES

Words of War: Poetry of the First World War and Today

Featuring playwrights, novelists, storytellers, poets and more, HAC’s scratch night showcases the best of local writers and performers. All types of writing and spoken word are welcome, from poetry to rap and novels to plays. This evening is a special edition presented by Herga Poets to commemorate the First World War.

Herga Poets, Harrow's poetry group affiliated with the Poetry Society, has been running since 1992. Members critique each others work, which covers a broad range of styles and subject matter. Our programme on 9 October will combine our own work on the subject of war and peace with famous and not so famous poetry from the period of the First World War.

If you would like to perform at this or future events, contact Cate on 020 8416 8963 orcate.gordon@harrow.gov.uk

Find out more about Herga Poets on their website.  

Like My Daughter Says

If, like my daughter says,
you are now a million particles
orbiting in space,
may you keep on spinning.
Or else as I look out tonight,
I hope you fall like snow
and settle for a while.

Neil Elder

Louisa Bay Café

The blues merge

lose character

as faint-light tinsels

deep as damn 

into dusk-pools.

Day players,

fold salt-wet life back

inside striped canvas bags.

Parading gulls sulk,

their luminous screeches

jump out, brightly voiced

from nightfall's dirge.

A black and orange tug,

wakes by, checking,

dead shore

for the lifeless

and not so.

Sailboarders scoop

a sandpit fireplace,

slotting beach scrap

between tinder flames,

their barbecue group

enthused and vibrant,

patch a pirate's living,

to the fabric they hang on.

Two women's shell-likes,

eavesdrop the seaweed edge,

hearing distant cinema songs,

where the wrecks used to be.

They glaze over, unnoticed,

and the snack bar

crumples into nothing.

Jerry Pike

Betrayal

With your reassuring hum
I never thought you could be
arsonist or assassin.

You kept my food safe,
my drinks cool,
were a familiar friend.

It was only when I heard
how others like you
had caused fire and death

that I came to study you.
You continued humming
but I was no longer fooled.

A man came round
to change the condenser.
No short-circuit now!

We’re friends again.
I’ve almost forgotten
how nearly you killed me.

Jennifer Johnson

Published in Genius Floored: Uncurtained Window edited by Ruth O’Callaghan

Seasons

The procession of our seasons
carries us forward afresh, and
transfigures the dark and the grief.

The unfurling leaves of our spring
encode our own sure transience
in the cycle of creation.

The confidence of summer’s growth
allows a myth of permanence,
fuelling the cycles of our love.

Burnished, we prepare to transmute
this our flourishing, to free us
for the cycle of earth’s renewing.

For the seeming deaths in winter
are truly the transfigured lives -
resilient, transcendent, and ineffable

© Anthony Pinching

Coining It

A late March, along the pier
they group, too thin for weather,
all mod cons in gangs of old,
rubbing coppers the wrong way,
as static gambling drags their
carefree souls to sea level.
It slots you in, greases your palm
with spurious dollars,
a brief windfall energised by salt air
and your head screens guilt trailers.
You dig deep, finding the angry money,
you flick it dangerously with a backward spin.
The penny drops,
the penny pushes
and grips your small dreams tightly,
beside a teenage thump.

Jerry Pike