INSET (In-Service Training)

Let me begin by saying that yes, we will be
finishing early. I am also conscious of time and I

know how busy you all are, I haven’t forgotten what
it’s like to be in the classroom so I’ll make

a start. If at any point you would like to
chip in, please do. This will work much better as

a two-way dialogue, rather than just me talking at
you. And if I repeat myself stop me, turn the

page, grab me from behind and hook a palm over
my mouth. Drag me into a dark alley and

tell me to shut up. I really won’t be offended.
Now if you would like to go off into your

groups to discuss that, I’ll be taking feedback in…
shall we say… five minutes?

“We Got a Runner!”

When the hammer strikes the head of the chisel
I imagine the muffled shot ringing out down the

cellblock. I picture myself squatting, waiting, listening
for the guards’ heavy horizontal footfalls on the steel

gangway just the other side of these vertical bars. And
only when I am certain that the sound has not pierced

the uncertainty of their poker hands do I deliver the
second blow and wonder how to breach the steel laced

deep within this concrete. But the purpose of today is
not to evade the probing searchlights of the towers, or to

defeat the perimeter fence, not to make it to the border
before the dogs taste my scent. Today is simply the day

to remove these tiles, to force this blade, to watch the fractured
shards fall into the tub. Such a day could even be my season

in hell, where each created space is instantly filled by
another, appearing exactly in its place.

Sweaty Yeti

Does the yeti get sweaty
in his thick furry suit
yomping over the tall icy peaks?
But you know it’s no joke
when you long for a soak
and all you can smell is your feet.

And there are so many troubles
in a life without bubbles
when there’s nowhere to shampoo your hair.
When his pits become niffy
and give off a whiffy
he can’t just go’ dry-clean his fur!

So what can he do?
It’s below minus 2!
And he’s starting to feel a bit mucky.
He finds a cold mountain river
sits in it and shivers
and plays with his best rubber ducky.

Wile E. Coyote

The long battered muzzle
sickly yellow eyes
and that unintended toothless sneer
are surely the result
of a lifetime of struggle and defeat.

If it is true that God loves a trier
then what better example than he?
Canine cannons litter the canyon
but on he goes undeterred.

Even as he plummets to the ground
he is thinking of his next big idea
which we all know will end

in a long descending whistle
a dull and distant thud

and of course

a tiny plume

of smoke.

The List Makers

What if I were on your list?
The next slippery rung on your ladder
another silver bead on your chain.

I could be a black bottle of wine
lying on the stone cellar floor beneath your house
wearing a raincoat of dust
laid out like a legion of body bags in a cavernous warehouse .

Or perhaps I am your next bullet point.
You in the heavy boots, jeans and black T-shirt.
Those dark green - watching from behind the shutters
of an elevated window - eyes fixing me in the crosshairs.

But here…let me save you some time.
A well place mine on the twelfth fairway
or a man-trap in the sand-trap by the ninth green
would seem a far simpler modus operandi.

And there is the roll call of all those who just vanished
like the frost on a sunlit field.
Those who allowed the tide to take them
or left in the normality of the moment and never returned.

Leaving not even a chalk silhouette
in the hallway, face down
just a few feet from the door.

The Flip-Side of the Coin

Sundays evenings at home
can be like the dentists
waiting room,

listening to the shrill shrieking
of the drill
upstairs.

It is on these nights
that eight hours sleep
passes too quickly.

The turning of a page.
A vase falling,
striking the floor.

Dark mornings
moan in my veins
like smoke.

But not right now.

Now is the time to let
the beads of silver
slip down the beer bottle।

A time to recline deeper
in this chair
and doze

through a movie
where I really haven’t a clue
what’s going on.

Ice Breaker

The simple garden at the back of the house
with it’s playhouse standing in the corner
and the empty bird feeder swinging from the fence
faces dead north.

Which means, if I am correct, that the road
beneath this misted window travels east.
And if the morning weather report is to be believed,
then somewhere miles beyond the end of this street,

out over the rolling slate waves of an icy sea,
is gathering a sandstorm of snow.
A vast swarm of bees,
spiralling in on itself again and again.

A biblical plague of white flies which,
whilst you and I have been playing out the introductions,
has swept silently through this place,
like a deserted spectral train

that screams through an empty platform,
its tattered drapes flapping wildly
through a thousand glassless windows.