Solemnly and with reverence

Thirty recruits stood
in the empty barrack
sweating into their suits
while the instructing sergeant
delivered a brief overview
of what they could expect
during the next eight weeks
of basic training and that
this was the last chance
to change their minds
and head for the station:
‘Speak now or forever
hold your peace,’
and as a nervous hand
went up somewhere
near the back,
the sergeant continued:
‘Too fucking late son…’


John H Davies

31st III 2011

I Knew Bobby

I spoke to your widow on her mobile
the other day in Homosassa. We’d never met,
but your friend Sonny gave me her number.
She told me you’d been dead for 11 years
and she still thought about you some days.
You come back to me in an old
black and white photo, your profile sipping
tequila, glass in the hand disfigured by a Chinese
bayonet that exited at the elbow before
the rifle discharged and made a mess.

You woke up on a hospital ship and spent
the next few years chasing wetbacks across
the Mexican border until you got bored
and went in search of the same thing
that we all did. I see you breaking the edge
of a jungle clearing, reciting the rules of cricket
in your southern drawl, and despite the brash exterior
and your admiration of my English reserve,
you taught me quiet survival during the long
dark hours of prison nights.

That was what killed you, Linda said,
you took the next 13 years to die. She said
you’d been childhood sweethearts and finally
married her before taking off again. ‘You know Bobby’
she said, and there was a pause at the other end of the line.


John H Davies

30th III 2011

Faces on walls

Faces on walls
Smile from another dimension.
I wonder whether they had
Any intention
Good or bad
By chance or invention
To make me glad
Of their eyeballs?


John H Davies

29th III 2011

Song of the songs - Part I

After the storm
Beyond the blue horizon
Come hither with your zither
Dancing in the moonlight
(Easier said than done)
For you alone
Give me the moonlight
Here in the quiet hills
In the middle of no-where
Joggin’ along the highway
Killing me softly with his song
Like a breath of sunshine
My silent love,
Night and day
Once in a while
Play a simple melody
Queen of hearts
Reach out for me
Save your kisses for me
Till all our dreams come true
Until
Voices from the minaret
Wake the town and tell the people
Xavier
You keep coming back like a song
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah!


John H Davies

28th III 2011

This Side Up

If you wait long enough
you can have your whole life
condensed into a few cardboard boxes.

You’ll have to pack them yourself.

If you work all your life
and pay your taxes and allow
progress to pass you by,
and forget to tick the right part
of the insurance form,
you can sit and watch them
condemn your house;
the house you grew up in,
the house you married
and raised kids in,
despite the perfectly good
shoring timbers (which didn’t
look quite right on the close)
and they’ll relocate you
to a brand new serviced flat
nearby, but it’ll never be the same,
you’ll think, as you sit
in the empty front room
on the last box, with the van full
and ready to go, and ask for
one last minute alone to wonder
with slowly moistening eyes,
how your life became distilled
into this last box marked Fragile
This Side Up. Handle With Care.


John H Davies

27th III 2011

Blackthorn

Although I’d been waiting,

I was still taken by surprise
as we sped between the hedgerows
suddenly to realize
that the blackthorn had exploded
into blossom and all around,
the countryside was brushed with white
like the driven snow, bright
in the spring sunshine
and I knew I had but a short time
to enjoy the cleansing light,
before the florets shed
like spent confetti to be flattened
into memory under wheels and feet,
and I wondered how much
will have changed before
I was caught off guard again
next year.


John H Davies

26th III 2011

People you meet in pubs - III

I didn’t know exactly what was wrong with him,
or right with him, more like. He was standing at the bar
as I entered, smiling openly at me as if we had known
each other for years and he held my elbow as I pretended

to understand what he was saying, and we bought each other
drinks and later I drove him home with the roof down
which he loved as we sped through the warm summer night,
the air thick with a taste of damp meadows and insects.

You came with me next time, and he was there again
and I introduced you, and you made a fuss of him,
and later he took me aside in a low whisper
and said he fancied you, and I didn’t know what to do.


John H Davies

24th II 2011

Hedge Laying

The blackthorn is brittle, and he pulls the branch over
with care, like his ancestors the bowmen. Two or three

deft strokes of the billhook part the bough at its base
as if a predetermined split is programmed within its

DNA leaving only a strand of bark that will channel
next year’s rising sap and shape the ancient patchwork.

Lain over, he weaves the pleaches in and out of hazel
whips, each inclined at cubit intervals, measured from

fingertip to elbow, gathered early from his secret bower.
Stepping back he checks the line and selects the next

to lay, an elder, laced with late honeysuckle, and an old
nest, and while the autumn sun warms his back his mind

occupies several places and one place; rising ewes in
flushing meadows, and ragged rams and spring growth.


John H Davies

24th III 2011

Libya No Fly Zone

Once again our leaders
commit already
overstretched resources
to an impossible task.

We could never hope
to eradicate all the flies
by air strikes alone.

The reality will require
troops on the ground
with swatters, and the
inevitable clean up.


John H Davies

23rd III 2011

Wrekin

A short trip,
a generation’s leap;
new horizons,
or oceans deep,
a point of view;
a time of day
a different face
from any angle.
But always…
the familiar imprint.

Prominent, not
hidden from time
like Mitchell’s Fold
or Bury Ditches;
sharp in profile
familiar to the
sleeping legions
in its shadow.

Not brooding,
but deep rooted
like a terrestrial
iceberg, lone sentinel
shoring borders
from an eastern tide,
while they scrape
its surface without
impression.


John H Davies

22nd III 2011

Any kind of snow

As a boy
he worked as a fireman
on the local branch line,
and in the winter
the driver could judge
exactly the right moment
to apply the brakes
so that the locomotive
would slide down the hill
into Much Wenlock
and come to a stop
right outside
the Station Master’s office.


John H Davies

21st III 2011

Radiogram

Paris Brussels Vienna and Oslo,
Lyons Lahti Lisbon and Tromso,
Reykjavik Hilversum Prague and Athlone,
Luxembourg Kalundborg Strasbourg and Stockholm,

Motala Toulouse Marseilles Northern Ireland,
BBC Europe, Home London Home Midland
BBC Light and Home North and Home West,
The Third programme, Scottish and Welsh and the rest…

Lost in the hiss and crackle of fading static
consigned to the far corner of a cluttered attic
where invisible fingers run up and down the back lit dial
searching in vain the old stations from a forgotten Isle.


John H Davies

20th III 2011

Erosion

The sandstone steps are worn cradle smooth
by the centuries’ tread of the clock winder.

But cobwebs have gathered in the silent
spiralled gloom since he had his stroke

and no-one could be found to take over -
no-one reliable anyway, save a stranger

who studies the new self winding mechanism
with a dubious nod to a small boy at his side

in a starched surplice, yawning a shiver because
there’s no organ to pump, and no rope to pull

since the crack appeared in the tenor bell which
won’t get repaired, because the new-comers

don’t like the din. They see it all as clearly
as a clump of mistletoe that emerges amongst the

high boughs when autumn leaves are shed.
The clock still runs, but the crib is deserted.


John H Davies

19th III 2011

Libya UN Resolution 1973

Couldn’t we resolve
not to get involved,
so we might feel absolved
from attempts to dissolve
something that ought to evolve
without our resolve?


John H Davies

18th III 2011

Blot on the landscape

I saw a blue dog once,
outside a factory in Gujarat.

The factory gate was kept
closed, my host said,

because all the men inside
were blue as well.


John H Davies

17th III 2011

Quantitative Measures

We all have our moments;
whether fuelled by frustration
or filled with good intent,
sometimes ending in elation
but more likely discontent;
we all have our moments.


John H Davies

16th III 2011

Peripheral

I wish I didn’t know
how far it is
to the nearest star,

or that it would take
our fastest craft 50,000 years
to get there.

I wish I hadn’t learnt
that there are 400 billion
stars in our galaxy

and 500 billion
galaxies to date
that we can estimate.

I wish my horizon
was where the land stops
and the sky starts,

for then I might understand
why everything seems
so important -

the way that animals do;
whose only world
is that within their view.

How I wish I didn’t know
how far it is
to the nearest star.


John H Davies

15th III 2011

Friend or faux

When visiting my grandmother
I always hunted for the fox stole
in her wardrobe.
It smelt old fashioned and musty
with a hint of lavender
as I buried my nose deep
in the soft fur.

I never saw her wear it
except in black and white photographs,
and such things were long since
out of fashion, as we slid
into the synthetic age
and complained how cruel it was
farming animals to keep warm,
even though there was an awkward ring
of authenticity we chose to ignore,
(and it was alright to grow animals
to eat of course.)

Until the oil began to run short
and the cry went up
for renewable alternatives
and someone dared to come out
of the musty old closet and suggest
that it hadn’t been such a bad idea
after all.


John H Davies

14th III 2011

Throwing Stones

People sniff
when Colonel Gaddafi
offers $400
to anyone who
supports him.

But those in
glass houses…
Gordon Brown
called them
Tax Credits.


John H Davies

13th III 2011

Waving Goodbye

(with apologies to Hal David & Burt Bacharach)

Trains and boats and planes
and cars and buses
and bikes and bodies
and buildings and bridges
and roads and railways
and fields and fences
and dreams and livelihoods…
swept away under the rising sun
like unwanted toys
in its wake.


John H Davies

12th III 2011

Retrospective

It is a profoundly irritating fact
that life will never seem as bad
as it does right now
when now has passed,
and continued onto then;
from then to on and on, and so on.

For looking back from now to then,
then won’t seem as bad
as it did back then, and as a consequence
we are able to face then again
and that is what makes us carry on
and on and so on.


John H Davies

11th III 2011

Bragging about our Dads (III)

My dad’s a policeman. He’s got a helmet
and truncheon in the attic, and he’ll come
and arrest you if I ask him to. I’ve only
to say the word – but not on a Sunday,

because they’ve cut his overtime and
bonus payments, and he says it isn’t
worth it, what with everything so expensive.

He might as well take the redundancy
and do that world trip he’s been promising
himself before the pension kicks in.
There’s no justice any more.


John H Davies

10th III 2011

Resurrection

The late and unexpected frost
flattened the newly emerging daffodils
as if a helicopter had dropped
into a low hover above the garden.

But by midday they had revived
in the spring sunshine like the risen Christ,
as if they had only been playing dead.


John H Davies

9th III 2011

Gas Explosion IV

This is the girl all tattered and torn,
that was burned by the gas
that came from the pipe
that was fractured by concrete
that was put where it shouldn’t
that exacerbated another problem
that had gone undetected since the 30’s
that ended in the leak
that blew up the house
that Jack (or someone like him) built.


John H Davies

8th III 2011

Rationing

My grandmother would butter
the end of the loaf before
slicing a wafer thin layer
with the greatest of care.

My mother spread great
wodges of margarine on a
white slice from a plastic
packet of identical pieces.

My wife tends to avoid
too much bread and butter
as we suspect we might be
gluten and lactose intolerant.


John H Davies

7th III 2011

Time Warp

Lying in bed enjoying a Saturday morning
view of the Wrekin, we received a text
from a friend who’d just been mugged
in Nairobi. An experienced traveller, he knew
the risks; took all the precautions, but he
wouldn’t be eager to leave the hotel again.

Two minutes later, my daughter phoned
in tears. Her car had been broken into
during the night. It occurred to me
they’d made very good speed to get
all the way to Shrewsbury in so short a time.
Just for a camera, a stereo and some old CDs.


John H Davies

6th III 2011

Obesity Advice

Part of her clinical role
was to advise people of the dangers
of being overweight,
but she wasn’t allowed to call them fat
for fear of hurting their feelings.


John H Davies

5th III 2011

Apart

The moment we’re apart
I’m missing you
Familiar you.

No sooner have you left
I am bereft
And at a loss

It seems there is a cross
That I must bear
And if I dare

To take a breath and wait,
I’ll count my loss
To be a gain

For when I see your eyes
I’ll recognise
Familiar you.


John H Davies

4th III 2011

Signs

It might be a slight movement
at the corner of an eye;
an involuntary twitch of the leg,
or a difference of
two barely discernible shades
of skin tone that betray
or admit,
or silently proclaim -
like a bell without a clapper,
or rebuke -
like the mute strike of a rifle shot
upon its target
before the deafening report.


John H Davies

3rd III 2011

Note To Myself

Just to let you know,
I won’t be answering the phone today.
Nor will I wind the clocks
or check my emails.

I’ll allow another day’s facial growth
and use yesterday’s socks and boxers.
I won’t be cooking a meal,
might boil an egg at best.

The post box won’t get emptied
and I won’t put out the bins.
I won’t brush teeth, shower
or buy the Sunday papers.

The TV will stay on standby.
The hanging baskets will have to wait
till tomorrow. But I will feed the dog,
and the bloody goldfish.

I won’t sort the recycling
or put on a load of washing.
I definitely won’t reconcile bank statements
or think about work tomorrow.

Depressed? Not a bit of it. Today
I am in control of my life, and I
won’t finish this poem to prove it.


John H Davies

2nd III 2011

Viral Transport

From the darkened room,
looking into the scene,
I drifted along
the whirr of the projector
and through the screen
across the void of a hundred miles
onto a grey London pavement
rebounding raindrops
and footfalls of strangers
hurrying across the frame
with umbrellas, avoiding
a passing bus as it ploughed
through a puddle.
And from my cocoon
the image offered
a strange comfort
that would linger within me
like herpes.


John H Davies

1st III 2011