The positivity of migration

UKIP and others who whine about migrants are tiresome - here's the first draft of a piece about my own, more positive, observations about Polish people ('Polacy') in Southampton

Polacy w Southampton

I

Big man, crew-cut blonde,
baby in a biceps cradle,
gentle gorilla-father;
a second child plants conkers
in a newly tilled municipal flower-bed.

II

Zesty girl on the school bus,
alpha of her Year 8 peers,
climbing rails like they are monkey-bars,
open-mouthed surprise when I ask
‘excuse me please’ –
proszę, przepraszam
in English-accent Polish.

III

One of so many languages
spoken here and mingling in mid-air –
by workmen crowded onto lunchtime public benches,
discussing football, cars, sandwich fillings,
by gaggles of much-preened teens
gossiping between texts,
by students, shop-assistants,
phone-box users sharing news,
by friends and poets,
by people of the city –
multicultural and working,
the opportunity for something new.

Of feathers beneath the moon

When I'm not a poet, I'm an ecologist, and can be found surveying and/or writing about wildlife - usually insects, but sometimes larger creatures. This poem is about working on the Arne Penninsula in Dorset.

Mapping nightjars

Daytime apes
out of time and place,
we walk the dark heather
beyond terse ‘No public access’ signs
on every gate and fifty feet of fence,
skirting regimented blocks of pines,
shuffling through sand and lichen
to listen for the chirr of males,
triangulating with ears and eyes and GPS.
Between calls, we pencil
rough boundaries by torchlight,
scrambling colonialists
interpreting territorial extent
from snapshots and soundbites
of reproductive intent.
A few make flapping silhouettes
against the last glimmer
or perch to survey us in turn
while silent females drop to the ground,
invisible, rising strident when we pass
too near a hidden nest,
wing-flashes circling low overhead
drawing us away from precious eggs.
Our allocated square kilometre complete,
we depart and night reclaims the space.

Inside edge

A short piece about something I occasionally do for a living.

Prison tutor

I sign in,
pass through a security-minded airlock
and am rendered phoneless,
keyless,
cashless,
watchless,
as barred gates clang shut.

I have no need to judge my charges –
others already have,
but I know what some have done,
and from the papers,
how often and who to.

NaPoWriMo days 6 and 7

Day 6. A valedication or, in this case, a farewell of sorts to one of my least favourite of towns, written in draft form on the train journey home after the last time I worked there, finished in order to be posted for NaPoWriMo.

Gulag Basingrad

Trade-estate warehouses
Full of bingo and tarnished golden arches,
Festival Place squatting toad-like
Where a town used to be;
Terrible bars, identikit chainstores,
Serried ranks of insurance corps,
Offices along the tracks,
Clone-suited and commuter-crammed -
Filed under ‘dull’ in the OED,
You have theatres,
And Memorial Park,
But not enough to raise the heads
Of skeletons in sports valenki
- Basingstoke, I will not miss you.

Day 7. Each line is a declarative statement (more-or-less) until the last which asks a question.

Carriage-fellows

Bangle-lady threading beads,
Cement-booted workmen read,
Blowzy grannies off to shop and drink,
Ladies wot lunch, Chanel-pink,
Teenage texters tweet and bleep,
Paper-rustlers, Kindle converts,
Crossword-solvers, Wifi surfers,
Mums with kids and shopping bags,
Some stare blank-eyed at backs of seats,
Or maybe they are meditating,
Others watch Landscape TV,
Fields and trees and clouds and birds,
While two rows from the rear-most door,
A sometimes-poet orders words,
And wonders ‘who will read this?’

NaPoWriMo day 5

One-sixth of the way through NaPoWriMo already! Today's theme/prompt is ‘cinquains’ (five-line poems). Having never heard the term, I looked it up and found a variant called 'cingku' which is 17 syllables in 5 lines (inspired by tanka and haiku), emphasis on careful placing of line breaks. Here's my first five attempt at this form of five...

Cinqku²

Marking assignments
Stops me writing poems,
But cinqku
Are so
Short.

Barry Scott,
Fake shouty man,
Sells on TV -
Bang!
And the cinqku's gone.

Quincunx,
A throw of the die,
One in six chance,
Arranged
One within four.

End of the week,
Tomorrow
I’m farming,
Shovelling dung,
Quiet toil.

Mortgage paid this month,
Some cash to hand,
Hmm, a book sale…
Cash gone,
Books here.

Compliance

To the office, to the shops,
Six days a week, bow 'fore the clock,
Hurry, hurry, don't be late,
They'll take your job,
Exterminate!
You'll miss a bargain,
Push through the queue,
2-for-1,
Though none would do,
Consume or Die,
You need more stuff,
Next-door neighbours'
TV's buff.
Compete! Compare! Strive for more!
Dissatisfaction's clarion-call,
Don't seek free things or freedom, freak,
There might be redundancies next week,
Tug the forelock, fear the Boss,
Know your place and when to nod.

Winterworkwalk

Kind of why I left the Civil Service all those years ago...

Winterworkwalk

Woolly-hatted heads held low,
Barging through the still-air chill,
Gloved hands bunched as pocket-fists,
Shoulders hunched, necks snowflake-kissed.
Lowry figures half-time march,
Shuffling o'er the railway bridge,
Cold wind funnels, apex-arched,
Blows and swirls,
Tugs at scarves,
Freeze the toes and frost the ears,
Chapped the lip and red the nose,
Bite the cold-burned fingertips,
Ugg and Puffa, knitted tights,
Polartec on shirts of white,
Hiding polyester ties,
Eyes spill iced tears.

Breathing Space

As a response to a creative prompt by Jani about air/breath, here's me versifying (not far off doggerel, but hey) about having, it must be said, too much to do at times...

Breathing Space (a busy person's lament)

Phone rings, email chimes,
So many people want my time,
"Knock-knock-knock" upon the door,
Letters asking me for more.

Students call, "Assignment's due,
My laptop broke, what shall I do?"
Essays land upon the mat
(Well, electronically in fact.)

And then in entomology,
Too many want my work for free,
"I found this bug, oh me, oh my,
Please will you identify?"

Charities and NGOs,
"Donate, please act, I don't suppose...?"
The issues matter, I say 'yes', but,
Just once could someone else step up?

Booking work for conservation,
Environmental instigation,
Lobbying politicos,
Biffing fascists on the nose*

I do too much, I know it's true,
But then there is so much to do,
The world won't save itself you see,
Even if I hug a tree.

To work from home is mostly dandy,
(And my library's there, that's handy)
 But if I'm ill or take a day,
'Asks' still come in anyway.

So I have to leave and wander,
In the fields and woods to ponder,
Creativities to come -
Daub the paint and beat the drum.

Fire the smithy, swing the hammer,
See the jeweller wield a camera,
Forging words I tell my tale
And then --- exhale...


* Figuratively of course...

13th Night

Now we're back at work again,
The tinsel and the paper-chains
Seem out of time and place,
So down they come,
Stuffed back into bags and boxes,
Stored another fifty weeks,
But not the strings of cards because
Some of those we think we'll keep,
("Oh look, we didn't send them one")
("That one's not FSC, how come?")
A few are put aside 'til later,
To be reborn as tags on wrapping paper,
And then it's done,
Yuletide's dismantled,
Merry undecoration all,
Except the tree with stars and baubles,
It seems quite happy as it is,
I think we'll leave it 'til tomorrow.