Skidby Windmill

The burning warmth of bourbon
and a paper and pencil
can fill even the emptiest evening.

Tonight I am thinking of the windmill
that I drive by twice each day,
how we have become like neighbours .

The ones who greet each other
with a passing nod
but who’s talk is always brief, polite
and is nearly always about the weather.

It stands on a hilltop.
An imposing giant chess piece
that - on seeing the ensuing conflict
- refused to fight anymore.

Those steel grey shoulders narrow
into a smooth waist that flare out into curving hips.
The ivory white top could be a great garlic bulb,
or spoon full of thick cream whipped high into single peak.

Some time ago it held it’s breath for me
as I revved through the pressing floodwater.
So many times I pressed it’s four rotating shadows
onto the dusty road on brightly lit mornings.

But as the sun rose today you had turned from me.
I saw you only in profile
as you stared into the spaces above the freshly cut fields.

And later, on my way home, I felt blanked.
Your back was turned,
your attention on something clearly far greater than us.

I will not forget those days when the winds were high.
Too high even to turn the opposing grind-stones in your belly.
And the way you just opened the slat-boards of your white sails,
allowed it all to pass through,
the song you sang as it moved into the distance.

So then shall I.
The next time the hounds of uncertainty
are straining at the harness
and baying wildly in the fog of the night,

I will throw open all of the many doors
in the hallways of my resistance
and allow them to pass through my spaces.

Just as the air passes so easily through yours.

Bullet Proof Suit

Mark today in your diaries.
Ring it on your calendars.
Gather together on a blustery cliff
and mount a plaque
or a erect monument of some kind
if you prefer.

It sounds like something
you would find in a dark corner
of Ian Flemming’s attic.
But today, it was created.

Spare a thought for the tailor,
standing on the cobbled workshop floor,
in the dim light of the fire’s dying embers -
so many years, a single spider,
spinning a web all alone -
His life’s work complete,
save one final task.

He pulls on a grey jacket,
rubs away the chalk lines,
fastens the top button.

After lifting a Smith and Wesson ‘48
from the coffin of the drawer,
he carefully selects a single bullet
and rolls it between his finger and thumb
like a small golden grape.

An empty chamber now full,
he turns the barrel selfwards.
Arms outstretched, palms together
as if in prayer, his thumbs press
the cold trigger.

The shot deafens the street outside.
Rooftop pigeons fly their ledges,
children grasp the mother’s legs.

Inside the clock’s pulse beats,
the kettle cools
and their air is cordite stung.

On the cold, bare floor
the tailor raises the drawbridge of his eyelids,
bringing into focus
the flaking plaster of the ceiling,
the burning pain spreading through his chest.

The Ears

You know the picture.
A pair of friends.
A group shot maybe.

Usually by a famous landmark,
an immense landscape
or on the steps of museum eating lunch.

But when the shutter froze the moment,
like an insect in ice,
the boy smiling - centre frame –
became a stooge, the punch-line of the joke.

The two flexed fingers raised behind his head
present an ass, a jack-rabbit – a jack-ass.

A photograph of friendship
intended to be cherished, now tinted
with the yellow haze of mockery.

And in the back of the scene, in a tree shaded café
rests an empty coffee cup, a stained steel spoon.

Space

Imagine a sunlit Sunday evening,
after a long day of heavy rainstorms.
See all the coloured laundry pegs scattered
on the wet grass beneath the washing line.

I must show you the empty wine bottle,
dangerously peering over the edge.
A climber planning his final descent
from the mantle high above the fireplace.

Look outside my window into the street.
Feel the cool shadows sliding down the walls
of the houses across the road right now.
Watch all those well tended hanging baskets

swaying their colours in the drifting breeze.
In the distance a car door closes shut.
Hosts say their goodbyes to well fed lunch guests,
who express their thanks for food and company.

Then there is the thing that only we share.
The thing only we can see, sense and feel.
The straight blue lines of purest energy,
forking out and bridging the great chasm.

You and I, now strangers no more.