Poems and Stories

A new poem: this took months to ferment from an exercise done on a writers' holiday in France back in May. It is written in response to the last of my children leaving home. Now they have their own coats.

Coats
There are seashells in this pocket,
trickling down collected silver
from thirds of pints of morning milk;
and in the other, a lone pineapple
chunk, stuck to the bottom, and sugar
to chase with a licked finger.

Now the gabardine becomes a duffle
stuffed with bus tickets, where the numbers
add to twenty-one, folded into stars;
now a denim bomber with numbers scrawled
on torn-off paper, and balled-up tissues;
now an over-sized overcoat wrapped
around mother and unborn child,
now around mother and baby.

Now she has her own coat.

I'm posting this poem in tribute to the Matalan store, the phoenix from the ashes, that is about to open in Strood. I read this at an open mic in Chatham; when I read the title, a cheer went up from the crowd.

After the Fire at Matalan

Men in uniform lift and lower the tape
for other men in uniform
as the crane rises and circles.
Neighbouring stores close, choked by the acrid plumes,
bank holiday shoppers deprived of DIY and carpets.

And those of us housebound by the flames
walk by late afternoon to view the carcass
of this giant industrial bird, its curved bones
bared like a half-carved turkey,
and inhale charred remains that float,
then settle on the concrete of the retail park,
ochre insulation like discarded nesting.

Close to Christmas,
graffiti-ed hoardings disguise the deconstruction,
apologise for the inconvenience, while skip lorries
rattle the ashes of the pyre through the town.
Viewed through the square link fence,
an open space, a pile of rubble.

And still stray slices of the old bird’s nest
skim the car park, perch on the branches of the winter trees.

July 1969

One small school is gathered for assembly
in the sun-freckled shade of the chestnut tree.
Sister Bernadette, haloed by the sun
like a statue of the Virgin, says Class One,
just like the men who have walked on the moon,
will take their own small steps soon.
They will not return to skewer conkers
from St Joseph’s tree, but, come September,
step up to St Andrew’s or the grammar.
Except Michael Sullivan who will never
grow into his too-big blazer, unworn
in an unopened wardrobe. Picture his step
from behind the ice-cream van, like the boy
in the road safety poster: frozen, poised.

'July 1969' is from Learning to be English, available through this website

John Whitworth, judge of Split the Lark Poetry competition 2007, said:

‘July 1969 is a beautiful and touching little word machine.’

The poem was highly commended in this competition and shortlisted for the Frogmore Poetry Prize 2005. It has also been published in ‘Fourteen’, the magazine of the sonnet.

Raising poems

There is a quickening early in the day.
This is a delicate time with singing
and dancing, or an inability to rise,
and what has arrived can as soon be lost.

It’s ages before you can leave them alone.
You must feed them, even when exhausted.
Partners grow to know that distracted moan,
the paraphernalia beside the bed,
the way you slip from their arms at dawn.
They learn to be second best.

Some of them you cannot live with.
You hide them in drawers
to be discovered, perhaps,
after your death.
Imagine the gasps,
‘How could she?’

Those that survive you must let go.
You regard them from a distance: notice,
too late, that they’re not dressed right.
They are no longer yours.
There is nothing you can do.

Raising poems is from Nothing But, available through this website. It has also been published in 'Equinox' magazine

Missed you on the day it rained

On the first day,
you lashed poles to poles,
vertical and horizontal,

created your own first floor with wooden planks,
filled in the cracks
in the brickwork.

You picked out the flowers and tendrils
on the lintels,
gold on brown,

and now you are painting the pillars
between the windows,
the rounded plinth

a rich chocolate, the column cream,
topped with the curves
of the fleur de lis.

I am learning the exact length and breadth
of the naked patch at the back of your head,
how it shines in the afternoon sun,

the way stray strands arch over
in the breeze
like a field of ripening corn.

If you would only turn round
you could see into my house.

Missed you on the day it rained.

‘Missed you on the day it rained’ is from Nothing But, available through this website

Love

When I came home that evening there was a man sitting on my garden wall, drinking tea from a mug and eating a thick-cut sandwich. His hair was long and matted, and those parts of his flesh that I could see were muddy brown, either through exposure to the elements or a lack of soap and water. He rose a few inches as I walked up the steps to the door, each of us glancing sideways, neither of us looking at each other, then he sat back down to finish his meal. Later, there was the drained mug, the tooth-marked remains of a ham sandwich and a brown stain on the path, which I had no interest in identifying.

The post that morning had brought cards from foreign places. I should have felt pleased for them, those friends who could afford holidays, and glad that they’d remembered me. Instead I buried the cards beneath leftover Weetabix and coffee dregs in the kitchen bin. Postcards to an alien, viewing a life where I no longer belonged – no money and no one to go on holiday with.

There was a folk festival in town, and I decided to go along. The town was full of aliens, so I felt right at home. The day was billed as Ruby Tuesday, and everyone was supposed to wear something red. I found an old red T-shirt and blended in with the other aliens with red streaks in their beards and painted eyebrows. After I’d had my fill of folk music and morris dancing, I came home to this tramp – if we’re allowed to call them that these days. Gentleman of the road, homeless person, whatever he was, I hadn’t seen him around before. You notice them, people from other alien races, when you’re an alien yourself, but they’re invisible to most people –until they sit on your garden wall.

It’s a balancing act between safety and charity. Who knows, Mr Tramp might be a violent sort. But the words of that bible passage filtered through, the one about faith, hope, and the greatest of these is love: not charity, love. Someone had shown this man love and directed him to my garden wall café for his snack. I suspected my neighbour Teresa, a practising Catholic. For me, being a Catholic was like my efforts to learn the violin. I gave up both in my teens. It wasn’t as though you worked hard and arrived at perfection. You had to keep practising – not worth the sacrifice for the returns.

When I went through my charitable phase, my love phase, I volunteered at the Simon Community, a home for the homeless. Some of the men travelled around the country, signing on at different towns, and came to Kent for the summer. It was like a holiday for them. There isn’t much begging now, what with the Big Issue, but in those days they’d stretch out their hands for the price of a cup of a tea. Never went on tea, of course, straight to the off-licence for a can of Special Brew.

I wondered where Mr Tramp thought of as home. I couldn’t ask him; my days of ‘love’ were over. I didn’t know where I belonged anymore than he did. Not in the house where I was raised: I’d said goodbye to that many years ago. Mum was still there, of course, but it had been months since we’d spoken, not since Dad’s funeral when I said I wouldn’t go. There were tears from her, and just three words, ‘How could you?’ That’s what I thought too, how could you put up with that for all those years? Self-love, or a lack of it, that’s what it came down to.

I remembered the parties, when he brought people back from the pub. He would turn up the Dansette, and get Mum to make sandwiches for his cronies. I lay in bed praying for the house to stop whooping and the floorboards to stop shaking. There was always the Dubliners, ‘Seven Drunken Nights’ and ‘the Black Velvet Band’, then the songs about leaving Ireland or going back to that ‘Old Irish home, far across the foam’. If Ireland was that great, why didn’t they go back and live there?

When you’re English, but your family’s Irish, you never know where you belong, where home is. England was where we lived, but Ireland was home, even though us kids had only ever been there on holiday. Maybe that’s why I’ve always felt like an alien.

***

You know how once you’ve noticed someone you see them all the time? Well, Mr Tramp turned up again, sunbathing on the grass verge near Matalan, his carrier bag beneath his head, a can of White Lightning clutched in his fist. I wonder if my dad would have ended up like that if it weren’t for Mum. The word ‘alcoholic’ was never used: not for Dad, not for Kieran my brother. They were just men who liked a drink, good company down the pub, same as the uncles who came over from Ireland to live with us for a while until they got settled. They’d come over happy and full of life, greeting people they met on the street like they would at home. No one replied. Mum told them don’t go round saying hello to everyone; they don’t do it over here. After a while they didn’t smile so much, and the drinking started.

Only once did Mum come close to using the word ‘alcoholic’. ‘It’s like a disease, you know’, she said. She’d got friendly with one of the nuns at the Sacred Heart Convent, where my sister was at school. This nun, Sister Anne, told Mum about Al Anon, a support group for the families of alcoholics. The group met every Friday night in the school hall. Mum wouldn’t go in case the neighbours found out.

***

I never had the urge to travel the way that teenagers do, the way that homeless people do. The summer after A-Levels, I got as far as Cornwall working in a shop that sold seashells and tacky gifts. Thought I’d visit the English holiday world. I’d only ever been ‘home’ for the holidays, to Ireland, plus day trips to the coast, crammed in the back of Uncle Bill’s van with my cousins.

Maybe I’d become a traveller now. I’d heard about the adult gappers, people who sell everything and go round the world. Nothing to keep me here with the kids gone, and me single again. I did some research on the Internet, bought some guidebooks. I fancied New Zealand. It looked good in the Lord of the Rings films. I even had the house valued.

Mr Tramp was gone by the end of the summer, holiday over, back to the grindstone of doing whatever tramps do. My brief flirtation with wanderlust was over, too. I took a bus into town to pick up the Adult Education brochure. It’s what I call my seasonal adjustment, looking for something to do as the nights draw in. There was a Big Issue seller by the bus station. He was wearing a thin jacket, holes in his shoes. It was drizzling and cold. He had his dog with him, tied to the railings, a blanket thrown over it, a plastic tub of water by its head. A woman in an expensive-looking coat was shouting at him, ‘Are you going to keep that dog out all day? And does it have somewhere to sleep at night? I hope you’re feeding it properly.’ It was the week that a whale had got stranded on the banks of the Thames and pages of newsprint were devoted to the tragedy. Meanwhile a new drug for Alzheimer’s had been declared too costly to be dispensed to those that needed it. It struck me that that there wasn’t much love in the world.

I barged in front of the screeching woman. ‘How much for all your copies?’ He quoted a sum. I searched my pockets, gathered up all my notes and change and stuffed them into the young man’s hand. ‘Get yourself home,’ I said.

'Love' is from As long as it takes: a short story collection and work in progress. It was part of a dissertation submitted for an MA in Creative Writing. The examiner, Stewart Brown, said:

‘The stories are sophisticated, the characters well drawn and the world they occupy made vivid for the reader…I can well imagine that these stories might form the basis of a published collection.’

Read another story from As long as it takes on the Tales of the Decongested website

Hear Maria as a columnist on Radio 4's Home Truths