VALENTINE

See this blush symbol of Saint Valentine:
Trace the symmetry of two perfect halves
Fused flush into one, evoking Love’s shrine;
It beats out the rhythm of the romance dance
Where trees lean together and branches entwine
Over lovers entranced, taking a chance…

Winter looks over his shoulder, sees sunshine
Waiting to stream forth from the eye of Spring –
Who neither Time nor tide can undermine
As she sets the future growing with hopes
Of fresh new lives - maybe yours, love, and maybe mine,
Deep beneath the heartland, all across the skyline.


(1998)


I wrote this in the last Valentine card I sent to Lise before our wedding later that year.

This posting is a little late and should have gone on last week when the chocolate box from Thorntons was still full and the flowers from Aldi were still fresh.

MEMENTO MORI

Illuminated by the high, hot sun
Of the Algarve, she pauses
At the walled foot of the hill,
Framed by the arched gateway
To the old cathedral town of Faro,
From which she has come.
She holds my eye calmly whilst
Adjusting the cowl of her black robe
With her one good hand,
But not, I think, to hide the leprosy.
Perhaps she has become indifferent
To the appalled expressions
On ordinary faces
Which only distort temporarily.
Then she turns away the ghost
Of what was once, quite clearly,
A handsome, proud face and slowly,
But with a straight back and a clear eye,
She moves over the cobbles,
A ruined hand hanging at her side,
And crosses the busy road
Into the city beyond the old town,
As if from another age,
But looking life full in the face.


* * * *


We have climbed to the top
Of the medieval cathedral,
The sunlight casting abstract
Reflections from the stained glass
On its cold, silent stones,
And we have wandered the walls,
Taking in the estuary views
With our eyes and cameras.
Then, later, on a hill in the city,
We find a plaza with a church
At each end, amidst noisy streets,
Where we stand now in sepia light,
Inside an arched and vaulted room
Across a courtyard in the grander
Of the churches, the Igreja De Carmo.
This is the Bone Chapel,
Its altar, walls and ceiling made entirely –
Save for the mirror above the altar –
From the bones and skulls of ancient monks.
Its barred windows are reflected
Perfectly in brilliant shadows on the ground.
I gaze in the glass and around and around,
With death looking me full in the face.


(2010)

We were on a summer holiday in Albufeira in Portugal and had taken a train to Faro, the ancient capital of the Algarve. Having recently read Victoria Hislop’s novel, ‘The Island’ about the leper colony on the isle of Spinnalonga, just off the coast of Cyprus, I had assumed that terrible disease had been eradicated. The woman we saw in Faro suggested that was not the case.

Lise took the picture of me in the Bone Chapel at my insistence. She didn’t like the place and doesn’t like the picture but it had to be taken and is the obvious image to accompany this poem. So there.

OLD RAY

As a cold and frosty morning
Turns into a sunny afternoon,
Old Ray wanders round old London town
With, as usual, too much on his mind.
Murmuring songs from way back when
His voice was always on the radio,
He hunches his shoulders
And digs his hands deep down
The pockets of an old overcoat.
A bit barmy and battered,
But still a well respected man,
Old Ray rambles the old familiar way,
His forehead growing higher now
Under one of Max Miller’s old hats,
With one of Eric Morecambe’s old ties
Under an untidy scarf half-hiding
That gap-toothed grin on the sardonic face,
Which some passers-by fancy
They half-recognise from the telly long ago.

Young Ray bought a big house in the country
Once, but he soon came back to where he belonged.
He couldn’t get away because it was always
Calling him to come on home,
Back to the river and the big black Smoke.
It may all be cleaner now, but Old Ray
Hurries head down, muttering past
The shining new towers of the City of London,
New songs humming in his old head
With memories of family and friends
And the way love used to be
And the sacred days all scattered to the fields.
But though they’re gone
They’re still with him every single day
And he’s going home, so what does it matter?
Over the bridge and along the Camden canal,
By the old school and dance hall and pubs,
Through the Heath and villages and up the hills
Of Muswell, Parliament and Primrose,
In the blessed, chilly evening light
To sit on a bench and watch the sunset,
Way across the dirty old river.
Flowing into the night


(2011)

This is my first poem of 2011.

I wrote this after watching what struck me as a very eloquent TV documentary about Ray Davies last year (one of the ‘Imagine’ programmes on BBC 1). As I write, Ray is, I think, 66 years old, which in 21st century terms is no longer thought of as ‘old’, but back in the heyday of The Kinks during the last century, it really did seem ancient…

Fans of The Kinks will, of course, detect many bits and pieces from the band’s wonderful back catalogue woven into this poem.

The lovely picture of Ray was taken when he was 50 and, actually, he hasn’t really changed much at all since then. So – not so old.