A Kind Of Healing, White Plains (NY)

Strange to think how this king
among the local doctors of the suburb
with his oh-so tailored suits
and suites of clean white rooms
and firm and silver haired receptionist
born and raised in the neighbourhood
in contrast to his strange, foreign name

should once have been

that nervy lanky mad school sophomore
flitting between cuckoo wards
in shoestring public hospitals
befriending patients his own age:
especially the most troubled
especially the girls.

He will not want to remember that now,
not now, in his antiseptic senior years,
All in practice,
his life sorted out with the anaesthetics:
wife, house, grown-up kids.
No need to go back
to tear at the scabs with anxious fingers,
no need now
for him to worry
or the long dead
or their next of kin.

Peter Keeble

Holiday

The family's away.
Hooray] We can play!
Each spider and flea
Feels suddenly free
And becomes acrobatic.
Mice swing from the attic.
Importunate beds
Laugh and stand on their heads.
Yelling pans will beat time,
Slamming doors, clocks that chime
Adding rhythm. In pairs
Waltz Chippendale chairs,
Abandoned, unchecked.
Yet they never suspect

Dorothy Pope

Clouds Are My Weather

Today
the sky is filled with cloud,
not a blanket grey
that hugs the sky close
so the air seems dimmed
by the bruise of it,
but a duvet of down
in tumbling clusters of grey
and walkways of white,
clotting and frothing
like foam, like cream,
a sheet of cotton wool
spread overhead
to mop up the spilled sun,
scrunched from its spun silver
like cold candyfloss.

Here the airs meet,
cold and warm sliding past each other,
shivering the water vapour
into dribs and droplets
like frosted breath.
They are the face of the sky,
crumpled and creased today
but tomorrow they may be
new-blown white,
sailing sheep grazing my skin
with cold feet,
or purple and pink pashminas,
the colour of cocktails
in the evening sun.
Tomorrow they may be gone
leaving a baby-blue sky,
sweet-smelling, bare-skinned
and new-born,
bright with light and promise.

Clouds are my measure
of the bounty of the day.
Clouds are my weather.

© Jane Upchurch

No Bonanza

Past Belle Star’s glazing,
he rides Eastcote
in a High Noon saddle,
his steed steaming off
that long gallop from Northolt.

The tin star gleams obviously
on his fringed shirt.
Dismounting,
he scans bauble filled
display cases
one finger tilting back
that prairie-worn Stetson.

A two pound coin brands hell
into his pocket seam -
he steps in.
Known to all,
The Two Quid Kid
guns this charity shop’s
economy section.
No one dives for cover
or finger-traces their belt.
Only finest cowboy cloth will do.
They disappoint,
‘Sorry Kid, no chaps today.’
Imaginary spurs glint
at the hem of his pinstripes.
Twirling himself and an
invisible six-shooter,
he clicks the ceiling
then high-tails it
back to the trail for another
unrelenting hot-shoe-shuffle
into the Field End sunset.

Jerry Pike

Geriatric Poet

The powers that be at Northwick
Are full of flaws, with few exceptions.
They make their guesses in the dark
And stick to all their misconceptions.
It matters not what tests you passed
Or taks both mental one and pratc-
al. At 91 you must be classed
Asuseless, past it, geriatric.
Yes, that's their mena and nasty tactic
at 90 you are geriatric.

John Waddell

Life Begins At Eighty

Yes, life begins at eighty. It is true.
You get excused all kinds of nasty chores
like washing dishes. As for gardening you
just say you're far too frail, must stay indoors.

You do feel up to telly food and games,
describing how life was between the wars.
Pretending to be deaf or daft are claims
which never tall to silence crashing bores.

Come lunch-time, you can log it to the table
then aver that indigestion gives you pause.
A large postprandial brandy gets you stable
before the most uninhibited of snores.

At half past three, you rouse for tea. You've found
that exercise is best kept to the jaws.
At eighty you're so proud to be around,
you think you're due a big round of applause.

Dorothy Pope

A Winter Birth

Feeble foal spilled into frosty morning
Patient mare melts icicles m they form
Strangely the stables had no warning.
White tipped grass and glinting frost
Sun shines fierce from its blue awning.
Grey church tower lit with ice
Black trees powerless against its burning.
Mare unsurprised, quiet and calm
Foal twists his neck to see her, yearning
For the warm cocoon lost in his borning
As hunger strikes, shaky legs grow firm
With milk he feels his first strength churning.
The mare accepts, then walks on ahead
Unmoved, resigned to a new life's dawning.

Sylvia Goodman

My Blue Car

My blue car
broke down on every cue,
still I loved it.
Then the day of its sale
something strange happened
I burst into tears.
I liked it, but not that much.
Then it struck, four years
I’d owned it and the
three biggest loving influences
of my life, had passed away.
I couldn’t reverse down that motorway,
open a door and let them back in,
they were all now fixed
in the rear view mirror.

Three sudden goodbyes
via casual nod.
All gone in six months.

The church of uproar
sang with hundreds
all three sat high in near by pews
still to print out their vacant spaces
in my stamp book life.
I heard no bell ring
but angel’s wings whispered past.

We four still talk, or I do to them
much inside my new blue car.
So happy memories move on,
new owners, well…
one’s a hundred miles north
with three others
hitching the unmapped road
that careers through heaven.

Jerry Pike

Greeting Or Meeting

Walking down the street
through quiet air
and happening to meet
a neighbour
(when younger I shied
from the formality
of greeting)
we threw each other
a ‘good morning’
and a smile
(the phrases used
seemed conventions
without meaning)
and carried on our way
with contentment.

I didn’t realise back then
that simple words
could act as bowls
to carry blessings.
‘Isn’t the weather awful’
wasn’t an invitation
to complain
about the rain,
but to join in human
solidarity,
to share an experience,
to let another in,
to wrap an arm around
in greeting.

Jane Upchurch
www.janeupchurch.co.uk