Infection Control

In our doctor’s

surgery you

have to

push a pad

to open

the automatic

front door,

and in the

lobby

there is a

screen

you touch

to confirm

your arrival.

But all the

magazines

have been

removed

from the

waiting room

due to

risk of 

infection.

John H Davies

12th February 2011 

People you meet in pubs - 2

He wouldn’t strike you as a ladies’ man,

though he carried himself with a blitheness

that belied his twenty stones, and his tongue

was light as a feather and equally bold

especially after the third or fourth pint

which he swallowed like a medicine,

holding court to the willing on-listeners.

He was proud of the fact that on the only

occasion he decided to risk infidelity

during his marriage and cheat on his wife,

he had gone to great lengths to choose the most

unlikely place on earth to avoid detection.

‘Have a guess,’ he offered, (and we shrugged)

‘The Nolfolk Poultry Club Autumn Show.’

Arm in arm, they wandered along rows of

Bantams, Frizzles and Faverolles and looking

ahead in romantic anticipation saw the familiar

figures of his wife and mother-in-law walking

straight towards them. ‘That took some explaining’

he confided, feigning convincing hurt at the

injustice of it, but he didn’t bother again.

John H Davies

11th February 2011 

The Pyramid Builders

See the crowds in Tahrir Square

forcing democratic change

upon their rulers.

See how one thousand years

of democracy has bred

such complacency

that no-one cares to crowd

our squares to change

our wayward rulers.

John H Davies

10th February 2011 

Joe

Joe made friends with a bold innocence

and Gallic charm that both disarmed

you and endeared him. He never once

raised his voice and went to such lengths

to make you welcome it disguised

a layer of self preservation that survived

an Algerian war and two wives,

an itinerant life and a complicated son

whom he loved from an oil platform off the

West African coast until he retired and

returned to Provence and stopped smiling.

And when we saw him for the last time,

we thought someone else had occupied his

body, until after he died and his boy cried

that the selfish bastard had contracted AIDS

and never told him until the last moment.

John H Davies

9th February 2011 

Angels

There’s an angel at the top of our stairs,

scattering seeds amongst a flock of

white doves by the light of a candle

held aloft like the statue of liberty.

I don’t believe in angels, not this type

anyway and besides, I thought they were

male, and seem to have missed the moment

they underwent gender re-assignment.

My angels aren’t bathed in white raiment

and fixed in a celestial hover, instead

they stare out from fading photographic

paper, no less vigilant by their absence,

and marking my every move, judging

each decision, sharing the pain

and the joy in equal measure, tamping

the ground ahead and lighting the way.

John H Davies

8th February 2011 

Light and Shadow

He didn’t need a watch,

and gauged the passing

of time and season

by the shadow cast

by the single oak

as it processed across

the conservatory floor.

She doesn’t need a watch,

because her shadow

cast by the tree

is born of his light;

bright and constant,

as it processes across

the conservatory floor.

John H Davies

7th February 2011 

Air Miles

I decided I would bring you flowers

every week,

and did for a while.

And though they made you smile

it seemed a crime

that only days before

they’d been cut

from under a Naivasha sky

and flown across

ocean and continent

to feed my unseasonable

sentimentality.

So instead I chose to wait

for the first

daffodils of spring.

John H Davies

6th February 2011