Why Birds Fly

Ah, that old philosophical conundrum –

do birds fly because they have hollow bones,

or do they have hollow bones because they fly?

 

On such matters, ask a biologist

seems a better bet than ask a philosopher.

 

I don’t know what the details of their answer

would be, but somewhere in the unfamiliar

landscape of scientific terms which they employ,

you’d see the word evolution stretched across the sky,

the clouds, the tops of trees and hills and mountains.

 

Just recently, as I was walking at the edge

of yet another field on my morning stroll,

I saw the local crow collective scattered

around the brown, uneven surface of the land.

 

There were so many of them that I paused

my walk. I stood and watched them as they went

about their birdy morning ritual:

take-off, ascension, glide and swoop

and swoop and glide, descend and land,

all taking turns according to the crow flight roster

which they had spent the previous night working out.

And as I watched their mesmerising movements,

I heard them laugh at all the world’s

philosophers and scientists,

whose ignorance of why birds fly

amused them greatly.

 

‘We fly,’ their whole demeanour said,

not because of any bone-related sophistry.

We fly because we want to.’

 

And all of this has left me wondering:

do so-called poets write because they have

a pencil and a notebook stuffed with paper,

or do they have a pencil and a notebook

because they write?

 

It doesn’t matter. None of us can fly

like birds, and very few, if any, of our poems

will swoop or glide, but sometimes when

we’re lucky, one or two might land.

All Day

I have just reached the conclusion

that time is as relative

for a pub landlord or landlady

as it was for Einstein.

 

Last week, I drove past Tewkesbury’s oldest pub,

whose gloriously higgledy-piggledy

Tudor architecture could entice

even the most hardened teetotaller

to abandon their life of sober deprivation

and nip in for a swift pint,

 

swift pints, as any ale-bibber will tell you,

being absolutely the best type of pint.

 

On the pavement outside of the pub,

a black sandwich board proclaims

in its chalky voice

that this centuries old drinking den

now has Food Served All Day!

an impressive dedication, I think,

to their insomniac punters.

 

Who among us, during the

drunkenly misspent years of our long-vanished youth

did not entertain the notion

that what was really needed, right now,

was a slap-up pub meal

to soak up some of the self-inflicted poison?

 

Even when ‘right now’ roughly translated as

‘about three I the morning’.

 

But underneath the hyperbolic exclamation,

the sandwich board sheepishly adds,

‘Between 9-12pm.’

 

I wish I’d known that entire days

only existed between the hours

of midday and nine in the evening.

 

Perhaps I would have used my time on Earth

more wisely had I been taught that days

were fifteen hours shorter

than my maths teachers had me believe.

 

Instead, I have wasted my months and years on poetry

‘twenty-four seven’, as the saying goes.

 

As the son of a former pub landlord,

I should probably add:

that’s twenty-four hours a month,

seven months of the year.

Grand Plan Man

We all know that Elon Musk

has plans to colonise Mars.

Quite how the red planet’s rocks,

valleys, mountains and hills

will react to this coming event

is anybody’s guess,

but it probably won’t end well for them.

The best they can hope for

is a wildly dysfunctional democracy

and perhaps the introduction

of some Victorian sport to divert their attention

from the planet’s plundering.

 

We all know that Elon Musk

wants to colonise Mars.

What most people don’t know

is that what he is planning on establishing –

   is an ant colony.

He’s a man with big ideas,

the biggest of which being,

‘Can I convince people

that everything techy was my idea?’

His second biggest idea,

and his first and only original one,

is the dream of setting up an ant colony.

On Mars.

His epiphany arrived while he was listening to

a cover version of Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’,

by, of all people, Adam and the Ants.

 

But I guess that’s just how genius works, eh?

Strewth!

Getting up too close to the mirror of poetry,

all you see are reflected egos

and stories which never happened.

White Noise

Take the writing from the page

and put it in the material world.

 

What was white, blank,

‘waste of space/paper’

is now silence.

Sun

Eyes closed, I stand and face

the unexpected autumn sun,

my skin taking delight

in the warmth of the rays.

 

The sun has been, and doubtless still is,

a goddess or god,

and it seems unlikely that people would worship

an entity which they didn’t believe

had divine consciousness.

 

With this in mind, I raise my arms

and proclaim a spontaneous

prayer of thanks.

 

Although the raising of the arms

was poetic licence,

and the proclamation was in my head.

 

There’s enough to contend with

on crowded railway platforms as it is.

New Restrictions

   after Dean Young

 

I don’t care…

 

if you have

learnt all of the ‘popular’

bits of Shakespeare in order to appear

more roundedly intellectual

than you actually are

 

or if you once saw a cloud

that looked like a bucket of gladioli

 

or you’re ambidextrous,

but only in one hand,

 

or how tall you are

 

or whether you prefer

the burnt orange bedspread

 

or you have too many pairs

of cheap reading glasses

 

or whatever tiddlywinks team

you claim to support

 

or if very blue

is your favourite colour

 

or if you really did meet

Alan Watts on the road to Damascus

 

or if you escaped from Alcatraz

for your summer holiday

 

or which wretched school you went to

or if you can’t watch a sunset

without running for cover

 

or anything that you could

possibly think of…

 

You can’t park here.

Eight Lines on a Page

 

It was quite the relief, arriving at a short poem – a mere

two quatrains long. So much silence on the page,

but just enough noise to take notice.

And then, of course, another unrealistic poet idea.

 

Why not write an entire collection’s worth

of poems with two quatrains only?

Why not? Oh, dear. I thought we were done with these obsessions.

Not to worry, though; it’ll probably never happen.

Page

 

What? Have you no words?

the blank page asks.

There must be millions of them

lining the bookshelves of this room.

It’s a positive shrine to words!

Why don’t you just get one of them?

I explain to blank page

that this is not how poetry works.

You must surely realise that your

prosodic explanations

flew straight over my head.

I am, after all, just a blank page.

But I don’t bother with a reply,

as I see that blank page

has now been replaced by

slightly defaced/scribbled upon page.

Oh, very observant!

Slightly defaced/scribbled upon/sarcastic page.

Giant Inflatable Cat

If you work hard all your life,

so the saying goes,

through school, career, and whatnot,

then, towards the end of it all,

you may find that you have enough

disposable income

to afford

a Giant Inflatable Cat.

This is the Ultimate Carrot

which dangles in front of each new

desperate generation:

the potential acquisition of

a Giant Inflatable Cat.

 

Originally introduced as a social experiment

which got ‘slightly out of hand’,

it sought to determine if people could respond positively

to setting themselves truly pointless life goals,

to wit – the ultimate pointless life goal

(arguably)

being the eventual acquisition of

a Giant Inflatable Cat.

Of course, other, lesser material goals,

can also be realised on the way,

as a spur, an encouragement.

That outboard motor for your harpsichord.

The modern house,

constructed out of anti-soundproof materials,

and misplaced hope.

The holidays in Spain.

Your next-door neighbour’s life.

But no

Giant Inflatable Cat.

No mortgage, no loan, no matter how

disreputable,

can be used to secure yourself

the funds for a

Giant Inflatable Cat.

You have to have cash

and evidence of retirement.

The greatest sadness in life

is when a fellow traveller

is knocked down too soon

by Death’s inescapable scythe,

for now they would never have the chance to own a

Giant Inflatable Cat.

 

They were a plague, these

Giant Inflatable Cats.

Appearing on crisp packets,

advertising hoardings, private journals,

funerals, ice-cream vans, skyscrapers, the Royal Insignia –

   everywhere!

And inserted into every online space

imaginable.

Yes, even there.

Quite what you do with your

Giant Inflatable Cat

once you get it,

is completely unknown.

Although admit it –

some of you kinda now want

a Giant Inflatable Cat.

Not a Poem about What's in My Garden

 

I could write a poem about what’s in my garden,

but, while it’s a perfectly nice garden –

   think small, walled courtyard,

   with climbing Malvern roses on one wall,

   the heads of the poet’s wife roses

   popping out to say hello

   from behind the recently cleaned

   old, wooden bench,

   itself a couple of feet away

   from the washing line whirligig

   and sun-lounger,

   both canopied by a navy-blue sail,

   diagonally opposite the round glass table

   and its matching plastic rattan chairs,

   behind which is the green gate

   for entrance and exit –

well, it’s really not worth describing

in a poem,

is it?

Stupid Questions

This week, I am into asking stupid questions.

What is the sum total of all humanity?

Is it right for a poor person to eat a millionaire’s shortcake?

Where can I get one of those?

 

Depends. What do you mean by ‘those’?

Your answer, ‘One of those as opposed to one of these’

had me pitying those tragically misguided souls

who claim, ‘Oh, there’s no such thing

as a stupid question!’

 

They really need to up the ante

with regard to the scope of their imagination,

such as it is, don’t they? Or is that

another stupid question?

 

And what of question the verb?

I question the existence of any chairs.

And don’t come all quantum physics with me,

because we both know that

our understanding of such matters can be measured

in Planck lengths.

 

Do you think that this poem should have ended

at line thirteen?

Now, that seems like

a valid question.

(The answer’s no, though, obviously;

isn’t it?)

 

Perfectly Useless

Everything, ultimately, ends up in
The Wastepaper Basket of History.
 
The vanishing of paperweights
from newly air-conditioned offices, for example.
 
No antediluvian fans in the vicinity
and obsolescence beckoned
for the heavy little bastards.
 
But you can’t put them in
The Wastepaper Basket of etc., anymore,
because history is now paperless –
 
although nobody knows,
as memos are no longer a thing.
 
Just like paperweights
and wastepaper baskets.
 
See that basket?
It’s a wastepaperless basket now.
 
Check it out to see if it’s full
of paperweights instead.
 
Check to see if it’s now a
paperweightwaste basket.
 
Or just another contrived attempt to coin
the perfectly useless neologism.
 
 
 
 

Smoked

I wish I was a curl of smoke,

Ascending to the autumn sky.

I wouldn’t have to speak to folk,

If I was but a curl of smoke,

(The product of a shifty toke,

Substantial as a weary sigh).

One day I’ll be a curl of smoke,

Ascending to a star-filled sky.

What Moves?

The surface of the lake is not so still.

A sailboat and its pilot catch the wind.

They glide across the surface with no effort.

 

The question of what moves the boat arises.

The wind says, ‘It is I who does this work.’

The sail replies, ‘Without me, you are worthless.’

 

In truth, it is the mind which moves the boat,

an answer which should need no explanation.

I sit here feeling Zen, but somewhat smug.

 

‘But what is it that moves the mind?’ says Myles.

The poem takes an unexpected turn.

If you have sons, be grateful when they’re wise.

 

  

Me

There I was, happily

SHOUTING obscenities

at the benighted television,

in between mouthfuls of popcorn

and fistfuls of thoughtlessness,

when the television

retaliated by SHOUTING

at the benighted viewer.

We cannot calm our thoughts

with diesel generators,

I though, all faux profound,

when the sofa ordered me

to stop fidgeting like a squirrel.

‘Why squirrel?’ I asked

as the curtains exploded with a raucous,

‘This is my favourite bit!’

which only showed a lunatic on the screen –

a man with an Adam’s apple

bigger than my fist,

which, according to

comparethefist.com,

everyone’s favourite fist comparison website,

is small by fist standards,

but mahoosive for an Adam’s apple

(according to comparetheAdamsapple.com).

In the midst of all this,

I half expected

the fireplace, hearth rug,

and lighting dimmer switch

to join in.

But, I thought,

now you’re just being,

you’re just being too…

you.

Letting

Let misery be your guide.

Let happiness be only something

which happens to other people.

Let suffering be welcomed

like a wayward son

who finally got his shit together

and now wears a suit.

Let mental anguish thrive

in ways even your mother would approve of.

Herald unfairness, injustice,

and a run of bad luck so improbable

and implausible

that it reads like a bad plot-hole

in a Hollywood film;

herald all that with trumpets,

fife, and drum machines.

You can’t put any of these

things back in their box.

Maybe have your wallet stolen.

Let insincerity flourish and thrive

like an unnecessary pop star.

Let people push in front of you

to the head of the queue.

Let the pull of nihilism

steer you towards despair.

Let headaches be the norm,

except for weekends, when you can’t

even get out of bed.

Only when you’ve done all that

can you appreciate peace of mind.

Uninspired

Today, I woke up in the south of France,

and struggled with the writing of at least

five poems, each new effort meeting failure

just like the previous one. None of it clicked.

Idea. Lines. Abandonment. Repeat.

 

It’s better to have tried and failed, I think,

than never to have tried at all. There is

a saying – Inspiration has to find

you working. What it doesn’t add is that

it sometimes doesn’t find you, even if

 

you get the bunting out, illuminate

your working space with neon tubes which read,

‘I am now working, working, working… find me!’

while saying, ‘Wow! I’m working really hard.

Hooray for work and inspiration. Hint, hint.’

 

Today scored low on the achievement scale.

decided that frustration was his new

best mate, and made too many cups of tea.

He read a lot of other people’s poems

and contemplated nothing worth the writing.

 

And on that line, this poem should have ended:

a bleak, depressing, nihilistic thought;

but inspiration came. It wasn’t much

(to wit – this poem), but it did arrive,

all bleary-eyed and sleepy though it was.

 

 

 

Timeless

   For James Green

There’s no such thing as time, if we believe

the mystics, for time is just

the measurement of objects relative

to space. A day is only such from our

perspective, here on little planet Earth.

There is no time, they say, there’s only now

and only ever has been now.

 

And that was what was on my mind before

I fell asleep last night, a night which may

be seen as little more than an illusion,

depending on your mystical perspective.

 

Mystics be damned! I like the measurement

of time. It’s useful if you have a train

to catch, or a wife whose birthday needs

remembering. I wonder how I would

arrange to meet my old friend Jon if time

could not be measured. Here I am in France,

not far from where he lives. ‘When shall we visit?’

he’d asked. A simple ‘Be here now’ would not have worked.

 

Thinking of time, I calculated that,

in just two years, we will have known each other

for forty years, which isn’t bad as friendships go.

Next month, I meet with Pasc, another old friend.

Continuing my time-related thoughts,

I realised our friendship was now forty-one.

And then, a glorious epiphany –

this month I’ve known James Green for fifty years!

I wondered what it was that he was doing with

his non-existent time while I was starting

to feel a bit old. Maybe he’s unconsciously

tapping a rhythm on the nearest surface,

a habit every drummer seems to have.

Perhaps he’s tutoring some reluctant child,

I thought, or getting ready for a walk

with Bex, or talking to his cat, or writing

a song… which brought me back to Pasc and Jon.

 

Pascal, as he then was, had been recruited

to play the bass in my first band.

At our first gig, he’d had to play unplugged

because we’d left his lead behind and didn’t have

the time to get back to the house and pick it up;

a better way of making friends I do not know.

And Jon and I had spent our sixth-form years

strumming guitars and talking music

and searching, always searching, for a bloody plectrum.

 

We could have been a four-piece band, I think,

and picture us rehearsing never-written songs:

Pasc with his unplugged bass, Jon looking in van

for that elusive pick, me singing

my dreadful adolescent lyrics,

and, always in the background somewhere, James

keeping the non-existent time on his drums.

Tomatopear

The tomato who wanted to grow up a pear,

   Said, ‘I’ve got the right shape but my colour is red.

Oh, daddy, why can’t I be green? It’s not fair!

   And with that he stormed off with his red face to bed,

   Where he dreamt what it would be to be green instead.

But it didn’t much matter at all, for you see…

…We ate that poor pear-shaped tomato for tea.