The One-Armed Bandit
It reminded me of Aunty Con especially.
Her concentration. Handbag on arm,
wearing a white courtelle cardigan,
she fed coins into the full-moon slot,
pulled the handle, let it spring back.
We always hoped for a jackpot row
of oranges, blue plums or bar signs,
but mostly got the one, right hand, cherry
that gave you just 4p to keep you going
after every six or eight goes.
Now, thirty years on I found them, skulking
in the back corner of a Lyme Regis arcade
behind Star Wars Machines, pin-ball tables
and the teetering 10p temptation of the “Penny Falls”
machine with its sign that said “Don’t Bang”.
I meant to spend just loose coppers from my purse,
then changed down silver at a kiosk stacked with coins.
I was buying a feeling – being eight again. Washed
and dressed after tea for a holiday evening out, down
Creek Road, Hayling Island, sunburnt from the beach.
All through my body was a child’s solemnity
as I pulled down the arm. And my mother’s voice –
I couldn’t quite hear it over the din –
was she telling me to pull it down slowly,
or was it to let it go, quick?
May 2001
Puzzle
There is a long afternoon ahead.
You are laying out
the pieces of a puzzle -
Edges on this side, middles on that.
After a while
you begin to suspect
it’s not just one,
but maybe three
different puzzles
bought from Oxfam,
jumbled in a bag.
Probably not all there.
And it seems like
some bits are never
going to fit.
“Perhaps it would be best,”
you think,
“to throw away these ones.
They don’t really go
with the others.
It will make more room
on the table.
I’ll be able to see
what’s what.”
And so you begin
throwing them away.
They get mixed up
with old apple cores,
used tissues,
and the screwed up
abandoned drafts of poems
in the copper waste paper bin
under the table.
The puzzle goes fine
all afternoon. And then
it gets towards evening.
Standing back,
you gradually begin to see
the gaps. And the lack
of pieces to fill them.
As you kneel down
and begin to delve about
in the copper waste paper bin
you can’t help marvelling
that one small puzzle
could fit in so much sky.
July 2001
On the train to Basingstoke
Opposite me, across the gangway, on the red-upholstered seats
sits a youngish man in a blue shirt. His feet are planted
squarely apart at the end of his legs in their navy blue trousers.
His blue tie has lilac and pale blue squares on it.
He wears small, metal-framed glasses.
On his lap he has a very slim lap-top computer and he talks
into a mobile telephone. He talks about door details,
brush details – whether they can be glued to wooden doors because
they’ve always been routed-in before.
He is concerned about the white wall.
I wonder what he does on Sundays. There are creases
across the middle of his well-polished, black, leather shoes
like he crouches down a lot.
The inside pocket of his navy-blue jacket is frayed, showing
some white fabric. His brown hands now hold a pen firmly.
He is making decisive marks on the stapled sheets
he has resting on his diary. The pen is a propelling pencil.
He is called Matt. The train has stopped by a line of oak trees
with the sun shining on them. Another train whistles past.
A child laughs. Somewhere behind me a cellophane wrapper rustles.
Matt shuffles his papers. We are on the move again.
He is called Matt Saunders. The sun is hot.
The train slows to a station. A small row
of old fashioned shops. West Byfleet. Cantilevered
training desks – the client wants to fit cable trays underneath.
He’s phoning to ask the price. They’re 800 wide.
By the track, the leaves are dying from the edges inwards.
One has brown edges, then a part that’s yellow,
before a perfectly green but shrinking centre.
We are miles down the track, stopped again, and again
there are oak trees.
Aug/Sept 2001
(Not Quite) Twenty Blessings
May the loch run deep into your heart.
May the wings of swifts carry your thoughts.
May the fresh smell of grass greet your homecoming.
May the music of the wind soothe your sleeping.
May the smell of pines hang behind your footsteps.
May the refractions of light spread across your smile.
May the many unnamed trees teach you their essence.
May time slow to a curtsey as you pass.
May the day be long enough for all your dreaming.
May the night be wide enough to let you fly.
May the singing fish of winter haunt your sadness.
May the bright and speckled thrush delight your sky.
May the mountain pass kneel down to help you climb it.
May the forests part like water as you walk.
May clouds of rain and sunshine keep you nourished, and
May the day go slowly till we part.
11/6/99
On being a dakini
I am a dakini –
you may not realise –
see only my earth bound body
but could you see my soul
you’d know that I dance in the sky
make my home on the ever-voyaging magic carpet of the universe
and sing out heart-songs on the wind
I dance the myriad rhythms of sun, rain, wind and moon
I rise up through trees
and burst forth in all flowers -
tiny pimpernel and giant hollyhock
I dance on death
and sing the ever-present freedom
I am a whirlwind gathering all in my passionate wake,
spiralling maenad dance of liberation
My hair unkempt
all energy in pursuit of the Lord’s truth
Unceasingly opening myself to the liberation of reality
Burning, burning in the trail behind me
half-truths and unfulfilled intentions
let go in the singing surge of my hearts ascent
I rise up like flames
am phoenix ever reborn
firebird of the wildest imaginings and the
hugest open-sky expanse of freedom
the freedom I rise to sheds all to ascend
unnecessary ballast for the journey
ever upward to the stars.
Again and again I step forth from the earth
into the unknown expanse of limitless blue
Wider and wider ring the circles of my ecstatic dance
ranging round the sun and moon
All consumed is fear.
Gone, hesitation and caution.
I follow the piper of the truth
Through the scourge of the brambles
and the nettles of self-doubt,
doubt and hatred
Lashed with the suffering of reality I seek only to rise
Rise up, rise up in entranced pursuit
Letting fall all worldly garments and attachments
streaming out behind me
abandoned flotsam of an older, earth-bound life.
I would be free
free to consort with stars
and sit for aeons with the smiling moon
to run beside the scorching sun
and swim purified in the rain of a thousand storms.
Reality is the fuel of my limitless energy
drinking the skullcup blood of conditioned impermanence
Fuelled with the terrorful delight of release
I sing out and up
my arms akimbo
I spin upwards to the stars
Free of samsara, burning the roots of dukkha
so that I may rise, rise,
rise on the ecstasy of my own desire for freedom.
A beacon
a thunderous clarion
an unfathomable call
luring the suffering beings of this world to the higher planes beyond
I dance in the mundane places of the world
am always there to be seen, singing and dancing
naked and free
I am an invitation,
an example and a challenge
Follow me if you will!
Let fly the fetters of your mundane lives
Let them be consumed in fires of impermanence,
their heat makes us rise, rise,
rise up to the level of seeing
rise up to the fresh cool air
wherein our hearts may open
and our blessings pour forth for aeons.
Sing, heart, sing
and with my body’s dance
I’ll write sky-messages across the speeding clouds
so all may see.
Song of my body
Dance of my voice
I am free
Rising, ever rising in this brilliant morning air.
September 1998