Tim Gardiner
The Cold WarThe flippant practitioner said to me
‘Bipolar disorder is terribly trendy.’ ‘That’s wonderful news old chum, I’m having a whale of a time!’ Depression is the must have disease More mood stabilisers doctor, please. Destroyer of marriages and families Tainting every single day’s activities. Inappropriate behaviour and language Suicidal thoughts; the clock was my gauge. Seconds seem like hours, days like years Unable to shift up the mental gears. Walking ten miles in an evening storm Writing a book in weeks is the norm. Burning out while you feel so high You know this can’t last, the fall is nigh. Lacking the energy to pull myself together Moods change daily with the weather. Head over heels in love at first sight Before the Wall is erected pre-flight. Growing more distant day by day Hiding aching body and soul away. To prevent the Cold War’s rejection Safety is in the loneliest isolation. But manic depression does have virtue Without it, I wouldn’t have written to you. Fields of the Moon
Hurrying along the field edge path
Well-trodden by laughing lovers, Feet hardly touching the driest dirt. Hand in hand they run to the bridge, Of a Roman road now fallen wild For over one thousand years. Silhouettes against the climaxing corn Rush from the wrath of a coming storm. Waves lick the stagnant pond’s summer sorrow Tucked away, a secret in the corner of Foxburrow, Where the furious dust storm upwards grows As the gathering gale furiously fumes and blows. Returning alone, is a meandering male figure Guided by the dulled light of the silver ear. Waving goodnight in the gentlest of breezes Water drips from tussocks of the rankest grasses. From the enclosed lane comes the evocative call Familiar to country types, the ‘hooo’ of a tawny owl. Enhanced night vision allows greater depth of insight For the boy cannot avoid a spider’s carefully constructed web, Or squashing snails brought to earth by the recent rain He’s distracted by the Pleiades and the hunter, Orion. Observers to the mortals’ saddest step fall by the river Hundreds of light years away from the tiny ants’ affair. Window Shopping
The boy stood face pressed against glass decorated by signs
Admiring the bric-a-brac and garbled menagerie of things. Rows of cheap tacky plates gleam in dulled light ‘I love Yarmouth, it’s Great,’ is their hollow epithet. Beneath them painted ships lay bow to stern on a sloping shelf Beside a stack of feathered hats and miniature cricket bats. Toy rifles betray a youthful zeal and false aggression Soldiers in shorts march from the door in joyous procession. Affairs overseen by duty-bound adults due to circumstance Sepia photos with curling edges the only remembrance. A year later he spies a lonely scene, closed 45 Regent Road A Kodak film lies on the fetid carpet, no camera to load. Cobwebs stretch over obscure corners and a grey, raised ceiling Behind the cash-strapped till, pastel paint is partially peeling. A cold easterly wind whips the boy’s knocking knees Reddening leaves fall in uneven arcs from autumn trees. The emptiest shop is brim full of seemingly endless sorrow For Death called and snatched away tomorrow. The unmerciful sea against a twinkling pier rages Witness to the distant loss which never ages. April Fools
One day removed from an unwise date
Naïve lovers took youth’s bittersweet bait. Celandines wreathed the lime’s way Horse and carriage gave beauty away. Sun percolates through stained glass On Christ’s humble requiem mass. The parochial clock struck 11 a.m. As a gentle breeze swept you in. Hand in hand at the false altar Before metamorphosis, lives alter. Now look at the sorrowful scene A blanket of white covers green. Buds yet to burst once more Outside the locked church door. The dead still asleep in their tombs Love and loathing lost in earth’s womb. A bird sings a lonely hymn from a rose Who will come today, nobody knows?
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Cricket by the CastleA snatched peak at the castle
between waving willow and alder, shows the imposing backdrop for duelling batsman and bowler. Bowling the gentlest off spin on a sun-soaked summer strip, rewinds the reel eighty years to those halcyon pre-war days. When students and Sir made hay on pitch and field, today privileged college lads hare around a lush outfield. In the searing afternoon sun so many shades of green, the twenty-two yard canvas for a fading pastoral scene. After tea, a stroll beside the mere where mint and yellow iris glisten, and lazy cattle soon disappear in the shimmering sedge fen. Ascending clover-clad slopes, a restricted view of the game gained beneath tall turrets, trees masking a bowler’s hopes. Loafing lovers carelessly laugh at the foot of the angular towers, overlooking faraway Gothic spires and the first eleven’s funnelling fires. Distant cheers signal a crucial wicket, a miniature matchstick batsman trudges slowly back to the pavilion bearing the ashes of village cricket. The Wreck
Resting on your rotting spine
A timber skeleton in the mud, Seaweed wraps your fragile bones Like a dripping funeral shroud. Hostage to the eternal tide No sanctuary in this backwater, Under the brightest harvest moon A decaying wreck cannot hide. Hope flows into your gut twice a day Lifeblood soon cruelly ebbs away. Teeming with elvers for a moment Strangers to your silent torment. For this ship will never again sail Or hear purposeful feet on deck, A ghost of the depressed slipway Enduring decades of lonely neglect. Lying in the marsh’s graveyard Over which barn owls hunt at dusk, Slowly your remains are swallowed By succulent samphire and purslane Until just a few sad splinters remain. Pin Mill Pirates
Peace at last near Pin Mill
The clock ceased ticking, We observe our future From the summit of the hill. For you take the sadness Out of this idyllic place, Hope radiates so clear From your beaming face. The only froth and spit From froghoppers comes Lacing unkempt horehound And exotic laburnums. Leaping over rustic stiles Nothing impedes our progress, Putting up eyed peacocks On rough paths for miles. The biggest burdock leaves Grow by browning foxtails, And exquisite equisetums To country folk, horsetails. A boy, probably a deck hand Hoisted to the mast’s pinnacle, 'Here I can see all of England' He exclaims with spirit invincible. Sitting on the slippery dock Long known to smugglers, Knees first stung by nettles Are carefully rubbed with dock. Cooling down shingle cut feet In the quick strolling stream, Swinging on the oak’s tyre By a cottage garden dream. Blue, red and white boats Leaning on a tired fence, Hit by the errant football A great shot, no defence. Winding a tired way up the lane To where I parked the car, In the shade of the canopy Didn’t realise it was this far! |
