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 

Concert Party

There was to be a magician, two dancing girls

and a singer, and ‘A’ Company had eagerly awaited

the day to brighten up the sober Belfast November.

As duty Subaltern, it was my job to collect them

from the airfield in an armoured car, and feeling

important as we entered our world, up the Falls Road

and into a fortress of corrugated iron, the cookhouse

for a dressing room, and an improvised stage in the

dining area with plastic chairs arranged in rows

and we piled in, still operational, restless and armed

to the teeth and ready for anything. Except the girls,

who weren’t up to much, and didn’t get up to much,

and the boys didn’t hide their disappointment as I sunk

deeper into my seat on the front row as the magician

sawed one of them in half, to a tremendous cheer

(for the wrong reasons) and I realised that this wasn’t

exactly going to plan. And then the singer walked on,

guitar in hand, and the room fell silent: ‘Alright lads?’

he said in a friendly scouser accent, and the ice was broken

by one or two intermittent baboon impersonations and

for a moment my faith in the English Tommy, for whom

I would have taken a bullet without a thought,

and they for me, was shattered into a thousand shameless

shards. But the singer wasn’t phased, almost as if he

anticipated this welcome, welcomed the anticipation,

and began to strum with a knowing smile, as if playing

to an empty room and proceeded to deliver his killer punch:

‘I am sailing, I am sailing, home again, cross the sea…’

And one hundred of Her Majesty’s pumped and primed

testosterone fuelled military machines fell into a reverie,

one hundred pairs of eyes, wells of stormy waters,

bold hearts trapped in a snare of sentimentality, that seemed

to capture the pity of the place, the role and the reason

and the final chords were lost in the thunderous cheer and

thumping of rifle buts against the linoleum floor and the

helicopter was late returning to the mainland that night.

John H Davies

5th February 2011 

Fractured Limb

It struck the bough half way along its length

at the moment I chanced to be looking out

across the field towards the old oak.

Rather a forlorn tree, not the majestic

symmetrical shape you see in books

and standing alone at the head of a ragged hedge.

And yet it framed the window perfectly,

and it seemed unfair that it should be singled out

for such a ferocious, random attack. The lightening 

felled the branch with a fizzing crack, and it

maintained a horizontal attitude as it fell

to the ground in slow motion, as the rain

hammered against the glass pane, the whole event

seeming oddly detached from reality,

and I searched for some divine meaning

but found none; a random act of nature;

and returned to my work, looking up some

half hour later to see the tree slowly burning

from its base, the flames eventually dying

to a pyre of smoke, doused by the still

teeming rain, and realizing I had witnessed

a random act of nature defying nature.

The tree lives on, still rather forlorn,

but every inch a king.

John H Davies

4th February 2011 

Alternative Advent

I’m just letting you know

they appeared today,

a little late this year,

but no less welcome.

Because someone special

used to ring you and share

their advent wherever

you happened to be.

And although he’s not around,

you both made sure

the notion of him

would remain,

and proliferate

and recur in us -

like the snowdrops

that appeared today.

John H Davies

3rd February 2011 

Further Distillation

Is it better to accept

who we are,

rather than

who we would

want to be…

how we are,

rather than

how we would

yearn to be…

…where we are,

rather than

where we would

hope to be…

…what we are,

rather than

what we would

aspire to be…

…when we are,

rather than

when we would

wish to have been?

John H Davies

2nd February 2011

Don Arturo Alpizar Vargas

It’s hard to imagine

a chest large enough to

carry it. But he carried

it with ease, on his sleeve.

He knew no boundaries

except those for crossing,

and he bore me over

frontiers on his bravado.

I may never learn how

or why I qualified for

his attention; there were

no flags or medals

for playing our game, and

he played it with such an

intensity it was as though

the lives of his family

depended on it, and all for

the chance perhaps one day

to clasp my shoulders again,

and call me brother.

John H Davies

1st February 2011 

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 January 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

23^rd January 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 January 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

18^th January 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