On Becoming Gregorz Harluk

On Becoming Gregorz Harluk

Hot chocolate, drinking chocolate
hot chocolate, drinking chocolate
chanted Gregorz, in Russian
from that inner advertising space
reserved for catchy commercials.
It felt good, no question
as my new persona
swept into minus five
icing hair, casting me back.
to those Western Siberian days.
Not sure Wembley was ideal
for new life, but I felt younger,
despite forgetting my DOB.
The expected mug shot, not required,
I could be anyone,
I gleamed with tomorrow’s whirled imagination.
A doll’s nest of new choices, each more exciting
I could do, I could try, I could be, but mainly
this dodgy leisure centre card
would give us an extra squash court
for those tricky nights
when your breath freezes
to the walls.

Jerry Pike

Recorder Scales: C major

Recorder Scales: C major

Confident, I take up the recorder again,
discover the smooth plastic on tongue and lips
evokes once more that dusty, sunlit classroom;
five of us struggling in a clumsy finger war,
getting them, contorted, into twitching place.
As I recall we never knew if we were right,
being asked to play songs from a century before.

Becoming interested, I hunt down the book ,
and open it, study the patterns on staves,
gather instinctive old muscle memories
forgotten like the dots that jump about the page.
Every note of me concentrates until quite soon,
dimly, I see how I’ll never get the thing right,
caring now more about the memory than the tune.


Peter Keeble

My Violin

My Violin

My Fiddle may not be a Strad
but still its tone is not too bad
It’s not too coarse, nor yet too thin,
the music of my violin.

My father for a modest fee
purchased the instrument for me,
with hopes his evenings would begin
with music on my violin.

Its former owner practiced till
he knew it was beyond its skill,
no hours of practising would win
sweet music from the violin.

No, really? Must you go so soon?
Please wait until I play a tune
That’s sad and suitable to fin-
ish up with on my violin.

John Waddell

In Hiding

In Hiding

In our waking
we saw the sun
through cracks and slits
in our days
we smelled sour dust
and waste
and misered out
our scraps of food.
And all the while
the hunger gnawed
and the fear clenched.

In our sleep
we heard the crunch
of boots on gravel
in our dreams
they searched for bicycles
and babies
for anything or anyone
that could be hiding
And all the while
the hunger gnawed
and the fear clenched.

We woke each day
and found our sleep
was waking
and our dreams
reality.

Sylvia Goodman