Defining ‘The Big Society’

Seventy percent of us

struggle to understand it

despite the best intentions of

the government to make it fit

reforms in public services

for our long term benefit.

To see the hosts of volunteers

cleaning up Tahrir Square

is probably the closest thing

with which we can compare

the efforts to conjure up

an ideal out of thin air.

I think I’d better leave it there.

John H Davies

19th February 2011 

Inappropriation

The Reverend A R W Bennett

(I’ve changed his name)

was a revolting little man whose

stammer, unlike most, didn’t

endear him to anyone,

and who relished a rather

unorthodox approach to teaching

which usually ended in chaos,

as neither he nor we could control

our juvenile excitement.

I should have smelt a rat

one day when he summoned me

to his flat at breakfast time,

to explain a poem I had written

for an English exam, and wishing

to counter his mockery and justify

my adolescent efforts, I argued

that it was better appreciated

read aloud, and he invited me

to perform my sentimental airs.

Ah bitter chill it was as I waxed

my treble tones over his Darjeeling

and Wilkin & Sons Fine Cut

marmalade, and sensing the

somewhat unconventional environment

felt a gnawing, awkwardness;

I hadn’t seen him before without

a dog collar, undressed, and I was

torn between expressing my

nascent muse or denying his violation

of my misappropriated feelings.

I recited the poem, but it took me

thirty years to write another.

John H Davies

18th February 2011 

The Earnestness of being Important

The clerk examined the paperwork

without looking up.

‘This won’t do’ she said.

You explained it was a

Statement of Motor Insurance

with all the relevant details.

The clerk replied that she required a

Certificate of Motor Insurance.

It wasn’t the same.

John H Davies

17th February 2011 

Private Trip

He wasn’t wearing a flat cap,

and I was sporting an old tin pot helmet,

sat astride a 1929 Model 18 Norton

in a queue of similar machines lined up along

the Ramsey Promenade waiting for my turn

to sprint the eighth of a mile from a 

standing start. The bright sun made it hot

and sticky in old leathers, and anticipation

was turning to boredom as I nursed the engine

in a reluctant idle hoping I wouldn’t oil the plug

before my moment of glory; my concentration

suffocated in a haze of Castrol ‘R’ infused

exhaust fumes. And turning my head to the left,

towards the sea front, I noticed in my peripheral

view, a small figure ambling along the pavement

and drawing my attention until the moment

our eyes met whereupon he tripped. Perfectly.

And passed out of view behind a kiosk.

And in the few moments it took my brain

to recognise the loveable clown,

I missed my green light, in a Pitkinesque vignette,

and forfeited the first run and had to go around again.

But my own very private performance

had been worth more than any Manx laurels,

and I wouldn’t be caring if anyone laughed at me.

John H Davies

16th February 2011 

Private Smile

In company, he had the knack

of making you feel

the centre of his universe.

But once I saw him

driving by

in his battered old car

as I pulled up to a junction,

and he didn’t see me,

because he had a far away look

on his face,

and a smile so serene

I felt I was eavesdropping

on an intensely private moment.

And yet that moment

was a gift worth more

than any smile,

and it will always be mine.

John H Davies

15th February 2011 

I love the way

I love the way

you check under the bed

for spiders, before getting in.

I love the way

you take a sip of water

before turning out the light.

I love the way

you kiss me in the dark

before closing your eyes.

I love the way

you love the way

I love your ways.

John H Davies

14th February 2011 

Long Distance

There was a phone box

just outside the school grounds

that smelt of pee, and although

I didn’t have a two pence piece

to call her, I could dial the

number and listen to the tone

in the receiver and imagine

the phone simultaneously

ringing in our hall at home.

And this tenuous connection

was a crumb of cold comfort,

and after a few visits I learned

that if a phone remained

unanswered for long enough

the equal tones eventually

became one long continuous

tone, like a flat-line

in a hospital death bed scene.

John H Davies

13th February 2011