Murray versus Djokovic (Melbourne)

You say he gets too angry.

I call it killer instinct.

Potatoes and tomatoes aside,

the other guy was just better.

John H Davies

31st January 2011 

Brown to Green

I like the brown soil,

the smell and the spoil,

even when it sticks heavy

on my boots. The clay

flecked with flint

and dark like the season,

moulded into the landscape

by an unseen sculptor

who knows his materials,

and holding the germ

that even in winter’s teeth

squeezes out the faintest 

touch of green, as the eye

plays from foreground

to horizon gaining in

pixelated intensity like a

thin gauze, that will fill

and ripen with the year.

And while I sit and wait

and ponder and wonder

when the phone will ring,

and where the next order

is coming from, and how

we’ll cover the next quarter’s

VAT bill, I think

of that brown soil

sticking heavy on my boots.

John H Davies

30th January 2011 

Covert Operation

I detected a vague numbness

I always felt before a confrontation;

the feeling you got just before the whistle blew

until first contact at the scrum,

the voyage towards the unknown

ultimate test.

Not afraid exactly – more fear perhaps

of letting your mates down,

or looking a complete arse

at the critical moment.

The vehicle moved out of cover

and into the gauntlet,

sniper alley,

heart thumping,

committed now, no return,

clear of the doors – Go Go Go!

And like automatons the training kicked in

as we fed the broken pieces of plaster board

into the non-recycling bay, bin- liners and all.

So far so good, but complacency killed the cat

the sergeant major had drilled into us,

and we humped the artificial Christmas tree

into garden waste, complete with box

(and a guilty feeling)

whilst at the end of the compound,

the sinister patrol of highly trained

Municipal Refuse Operators berated an innocent

local for putting old clothing in the wrong bin

and pointing menacingly at a warning sign.

Only the analogue TV to go,

and in a moment of rashness, heightened by the thrill

of the moment, I nonchalantly dropped it

by the container marked ‘Car Batteries’

and gave a relaxed salute to the tabarded

sentries as we drove slowly away

wondering if it would so easy next time.

John H Davies

29th January 2011 

Wordfusion

I sometimes wish that I were me,

that she was her or him was he,

and we could try a stint at us

it seems to me a lot of fuss

to them, alternatively they

can think it through another day.

So what if can was really could

and who says shall is only should,

and was it would that simply will

conveniently fit the bill?

The answer is we’ll never know -

don’t say I never told you so.

John H Davies

28th January 2011 

Criminal Records Bureau

She was asked to apply

for a CRB check today

in order to carry out

some extra agency work

despite the fact

she had a CRB check

recently to help out at

after-school-club and

despite the fact

that she’s been a nurse

for twenty years and

has had a few CRB checks

done for that too.

Apparently not all

CRB checks are the same.

John H Davies

27^th November 2011 

People You Meet in Pubs - Part 1

Rousing early he crossed the car park

from his bungalow and cooked full

English breakfasts for all the residents.

(He was probably more proud of this

than all his considerable achievements)

Then home again to return at two,

just as the lunchtime crowd were leaving,

when he would pour his first whisky

and a little water, and smile at me

in a conspiratorial way, and we passed

the afternoon in a cloud of tobacco

and congenial inanities and profanities.

I didn’t notice the artificial mop

or chunky gold bracelet, and became

attuned to the slightly slurred delivery.

He never got to retire in the Florida Condo,

but I can still see him, whenever I drive past

crossing the car park, with a glint in his eye.

John H Davies

26th January 2011 

H2O 2011

With time on his hands he cracked

the screw top of the plastic bottle

of boutique mineral water and read

the label explaining how rainfall

from five thousand years ago had been

gently filtered through layers of mineral

enriched bedrock and captured for our

pleasure. It concluded with a caution:

USE BY NEXT APRIL

John H Davies

25th January 2011 

Under the Stairs

There was a cupboard
under the stairs
in our house.

The door had a
handle but no
lock and was
just my height
with a sloping top.

In it were kept
all the things
my mother wanted
out of site,
like the Hoover
and an ancient
polishing machine
and a set
of carpet bowls.

There was light
switch if you could
find it behind
all the coats,
and it made a good
hiding place,
although I was
wary of groping
too far towards
the sharp end.

And occasionally
she would empty
everything into the
hall to see what
was there,
before putting it
all back in exactly
the same place.

I guess everybody
has a cupboard
under the stairs.


John H Davies

24th I 2011

Quartet Envoy

Sharp suit hangs comfortably on
lithesome frame and the bronzed and
winning smile that beguiled millions of
gullible housewives beams out more
vacant sentiment with that
familiar,
casual, (but don’t be fooled)
practised delivery with the usual
relaxed demeanour. But not even this
polished passion can camouflage
hollow words. No so called
solid conviction can fill an
empty apology, regardless of how
defiant the regret or how
self-satisfied the decisions. But substitute
gung-ho bravado with
cavalier conspiracy to fully interpret the
lightweight platitudes of one who’s
lone voice is the
only voice he hears playing to the
shell-shocked gallery of
fractured lives.


John H Davies
23rd I 2011

Two of Fifteen

At first glance Print Number 2/15
“The First Snow” might be mistaken
for a child’s daub, but look again
and you will see how each bold
seemingly rash stroke of the brush
has been placed on the parchment
with infinite care, every texture and shade
charged with specific purpose;
drawing you into the scene
almost unaware that you have
become part of the landscape,
and that the child was probably you.


http://www.zennabroomer.com/


John H Davies                                                                                                                                                  

22nd January 2011

Confusion

Away on another front, living out memories
of distorted futures and vacant pasts,
he glided above half familiar roof-tops
making diminishing progress with each stroke
until the air took on the consistency of glue,
not daring to look back, but sensing the destruction
in his mind’s eye; tracking the trajectory
of each projectile on its lazy arc across the low
green hills and conversing with someone
he hadn’t seen in twenty years of yesterdays,
he woke,
and for a brief moment – frozen in eternity –
he was unsure whether he’d passed from
reality to fantasy, or simply opened his eyes.


John H Davies

21st January 2011

Hidden Talent

I can’t dance or ride a horse
although I’ve tried several times
to do both. Someone said I

looked like a sack of potatoes
attempting to do either,
but I can’t make any connection

between the two. So it’s no
surprise when I consider
that I can’t play chess, or

remember which controller works
the gadgets beneath the TV.
I can’t exercise much patience

when attempting to get through
to the Inland Revenue
and I can’t swim the butterfly

particularly well. But I
can detect to within a hair’s breadth
the exact moment when winter

ends and spring begins,
with my eyes closed,
and I think that is quite a skill.


John H Davies

20th I 2011

Bragging about our dads - Part 2

My dad’s a soldier.
He went to Helmand.
Carried a big gun.
Breakfasted on Taleban.
Caught by a roadside bomb.
Woke up in Selly Oak.
Refused to stay too long.
Got to get back soon.
Can’t leave his mates behind.
Mum doesn’t seem to mind.
Says he’s a hero.
That’s what I think too.
My dad’s a soldier.
Et cetera.
Et cetera.
Ad infinitum.


John H Davies

19th January 2011

Old Memories

A memory is like a scar
the nurse replied
as he reached the door

and paused for a moment clamping
his stick between
elbow and torso

trying not to consider which
came first, the scar
or the memory

because both had the habit of
showing themselves
with monotony,

like a jackdaw tapping at its
reflection in
the gable window.


John H Davies

18th I 2011

Recruiting Call

The General looked me up and down and stepped a little closer,
and fixing me with earnest eye delivered this one liner:
‘I wouldn’t join the army now, for all the tea in China.’

John H Davies
17th January 2011

Night Visits

Don’t come to me now, in the small dark hours.
Don’t make me lie here guilty and desperate
to wring you out of the black void echoing
behind my forehead, weighing against eyelids

and jockeying for position amongst the unseen
nocturnal events familiar but anonymous:
a passing car, the settling crack of old timbers
in out of beat accompaniment of digestive tracts

and diaphragms of slumbering souls; an urge to pee,
and pangs of hunger and anxiety and wondering
how the two hundred swans in the field beyond
Langdale Copse will spend such hours as this.

And now I’m floating along the landing descending
and fumbling for a pencil, desperate to capture you.
Don’t come to me now you fleeting words, not now,
for we both know you’ll be gone in the morning.


John H Davies

16th January 2011

Carousel

What goes around
comes around
doesn’t sound
that profound,
until we find
folks less kind
and feel inclined
to run aground…
receive the wound
that we found
left us blind
and ever bound
to compound
the daily grind
of mankind
less refined
and undermined:
An underlined
state of mind
that will confound
and resound
and rebound.
What goes around
comes around -
rewound.


John H Davies

15th January 2011

The Art of Selling (and its relationship to road kill)

I love women.
But after
thirty minutes
with the sales
rep I knew I
would rather
eat a freshly
squashed rabbit
from the tarmac
than purchase
anything she
was selling.


John H Davies

14th January 2011

Harold

Late April is the surest time to find him,

his caravan freshly painted, neat and trim

and bolted down onto a carpet of bluebells

deep pile and double underlayed with bright smells

of sprung spring sinking into the rocky hollow

beside the motorway, umbrella’d by a matriarchal willow.

No gypsy he, though gypsy lust he plied

in grim grey ships until his interest died

and found him setting guns in enfilade

and soothing nervous chargers on Horse Guards Parade.

A spell at the bellows followed until

he lay down his tools and sat so still

on the top perch of his ladder that birds will take

the crumbs from his leathered palm and rabbits make

mischief in the wet grass oblivious

of his past, hidden beneath a beard no less obvious

by dint of a single black and white photograph

that’s dusted off for anyone who beats a path

to his bower.

No guarantee that he’ll be there:

On Monday he collects water if the weather’s fair;

Tuesday rides the bus to the local library

and breakfasts at Morrisons, routine unlikely to vary

much unless he’s in Australia on a shoestring

where he’ll wait until the bees awake and bring

him home to Shropshire on a nostalgic mist

of milk and honey,

foible and fables of dreams lately kissed.

John H Davies

13th I 2011

Birthday Card

His fifty years were
distilled into a
pale blue envelope
containing a card

(and a joke) purchased
at the last minute
and written rather
hastily in the

front seat of the car
and posted in the
hope the afternoon
collection would get

it the twenty miles
by the following
day, despite the fact
he wasn’t at home.


John H Davies

12 I 2011

Distillation

Is it better
to do one hundred
things quite well
or just excel
at only one?

Would I impress
with a thousand
modest gifts or
simply one
hard fought?

Will we recall
peaks and troughs
of shared life
or just triumph
in the whole?


John H Davies

13th I 2011

New Friends

I know I’m not alone in the world,
and feel a satisfied content
when I consider all my friends
from mainly western countries
of the African continent.

In fact I’m temped to start a
local group of Friends Anonymous
with whom to share the burdens
of untimely deaths
and unexpected legacies
and government budget overspends.

It must be hard
to keep such secrets bottled up
and harder still
to find God fearing, blessed
and trustworthy souls like me –
models of reliableness and discreetability

willing to accommodate
a well deserved share
of the $47,000,000 (million)
dollars U.S. risk free
'50% for you and 50% for me'


John H Davies

10th I 2011

Humming

I heard the man

on the next door table

hum a tuneless song,

quiet and lamentable.

We’d both been left

back to back alone,

guarding our patch

until the coffee came.

There was no tune

it seemed to say

no need to speak to me

while I fill this

awkward gap with

inharmonious uncertainty.

It resembled a waiting

hum – like the hum

you hear

in the dentist’s

waiting room.

And I heard it once

in the early

hours of a prison night,

waiting for someone

to stab me.

John H Davies

9th January 2011

Fools Rush In

Perhaps the only way to win
Is not to play
Perhaps we’ll save our powder for
Another day,
And in the cultured gloom
Of empty rooms
The doubters will avoid the chance
To have their say.

And when the vision leaves the tracks
And marks the door,
They’ll claim the failure to predict
The final score,
Inevitable fate
That dissipates
the recollection of a time
When less was more.


John H Davies

8th January 2011

Empty Space

Somebody has dimmed the lights
and turned down the volume
just a notch,
and there’s an empty space
in the air hereabouts;
a large empty space
that somehow dilutes
as it fills.

But the images that repopulate it
stick like glue:
Big hands, big face
big smile, big heart;
(to name a few),
recycling his memory
with every breath.

And sometime soon
on a day much like this
when the light is dim
and the air seems thin,
the space around us
will fill again like oxygen
and we will
know him still.

(In memorandum MW)


John H Davies

7th I 2011

Suffer Little Children

Suffer little children, for they will suffer.
Spare them the odd tantrum, the lapse in manners,
the having all and wanting more.

Ignore the notion that you’re spoiling them,
instead indulge them rotten with only a modicum
of caution and less of guilt, for it won’t always be so.

And with every passing moment their vision will improve,
like the boy with the lazy eye who removes the corrective
patch and sees everything clearly for the first time.

So just for this fleeting moment, give them the gift
you cherish.
Suffer little children, for they will suffer.


John H Davies

4th I 2011 

Bragging about our dads - Part 1

‘My father swears
any gun dog
should be thrashed
to within an inch
of its life
before a shoot,
if it’s to be
any good.’

I wonder if it improved his aim?


John H Davies

5th I 2011

Dilworth

The fountain pen was missing
from his brother’s effects
and a little money,
but he took his ring
and the oil skin coat and had
‘something personal to fight for now.’

He’d only joined so they would
face the Turk together
but Tom caught scarlet fever
in Cairo and was gone
forever, and yes

the padre said
dulce et decorum est,
even though he hadn’t fallen
in battle (he reported to his parents)
adding that if ever he got
into action, poor old Tom’s death

would make his eye clearer
and his aim surer –
Someone shall suffer!
Dilworth didn’t suffer,
the officer wrote the following month.


John H Davies

4th January 2011

Upon You Will The Stars Shine

Upon you will the stars shine,
when the moon had dipped
below the horizon;
when the sun is obscured
by the shadow of the past;
when the fire’s last ember
cools to fatal dust:
Upon you will the stars shine.


John H Davies

3rd I 2011

Bridges

I will cross that bridge
when I get to it,
whether it be a
bridge too far or a
bridge over troubled
waters, I will bridge
the gap not with a
bridging loan or an
abridged version, but
a large bridge building
exercise: A full
span multi arch box
girder cable stayed
cantilever toll
charging suspended
and latticed covered
pontoon bailey bridge.


John H Davies

2nd I 2011