In Camera

 

In Camera

 

There is usually a queue,

So you take a number, and wait,

Pass the time of day -

There’s always something to say -

Talk about the weather; stew;

Count the cost, and hesitate ...

 

The line shuffles forward,

Though one appears no nearer.

Some try to push in front;

A few wonder, What’s the point?

Others linger over every word,

Yet the meaning is no clearer.

 

And when your time arrives,

Everything seems to fall away,

As if the you as a notion

Has always been in question;

And what of you survives

Will barely have a say.

Learning to swim

M and Me Swimming

Learning to Swim

 

I take you into the shallows,

back into the loose

embrace

of water,

and

release you;

 

Year after year.

 

Time is the treading of water,

the dancing of limbs:

that sculling of hands,

that scissoring of feet

to the rhythm of trust and faith

(a mimicry of drowning,

of prayer);

a simple belief in buoyancy

that keeps you afloat,

and waiting for the right wave

to carry you forward,

and just

out of

reach.

 

But the water always gets deeper

as you get further from the shore,

and the gap never closes

on the distant horizon

(about three miles of eternity -

enough to last a lifetime).

 

Still, you step into the water’s mouth

and allow it to swallow you whole.

And I release you

(Or is it that you struggle free,

welcoming the current?)

and you drift away;

 

then with strong,

clean

strokes

you begin to swim.

 

Your feet will never touch bottom again.

Click here to read about the artist Michael Andrews and his picture 'Melanie and Me Swimming'

Click here to read about Graham Swift's story collection "Learning to Swim".

Departure

 

Departure

 

She’s travelling on the back of a borrowed waggon,

Pulled by tired horses, being jolted along

A rutted but unbeaten track, into the hinterland

She had never imagined mapping,

But the landscape has become rugged,

Jagged and unchanging.

 

Her belongings are spilling

out of the boxes, are tumbling

over the tailgate, falling

by the wayside, into

the dirt, into

the ditches.

 

She no longer acknowledges the driver,

Just turns her head away, pulling

A blanket around herself and huddling

Into a corner, away from the dank air,

From the creeping fog of early morning,

Wrapping herself in the shrinking

World of herself, in the warm fug of herself,

Taking a desolate comfort

 

In arrival.

Engineers

Engineers

Their life together has been spent

Like the digging of the Fréjus Tunnel:

Two separate countries boring into a mountain,

Removing rubble, to meet in the middle -

Their wholes perfectly matched.

Blood, sweet with tears, spilt;

Hard labour, planning and years funnelled

Through an ill-lit half-darkness to maintain

A vision -both troubled and riddled -

The holes selectively patched.

Imagine the joy;

The detritus.

Refraction and Reflection

Refraction

A thought resolves itself – surprising and cruel -

Into something clear and hard and perfect:

This is it; this is all there is: you are a fool.

Hold the image for a moment – hope for defects –

Turn it over, study its sintered clarity,

Its sharp-edged and brutal simplicity.

But light is refracted and the truth held this way

Or that takes on other colours, other shapes,

Something added, something taken away.

The mirror in which we live our escapes

Is haunted, like the ghosting on a TV set:

We watch ourselves as ourselves … yet …

Deeper feelings happen quietly; they seep.

It’s the petty emotions that busy and fuss

Our lives. So, like children surrendering to sleep,

We give in to a darkness to which our eyes adjust,

Wake to a past gone stale and a future skimmed,

                   (While you feel the light is sharp, the light is focussed ...)

Our shadows paler, and our substance thinned.

                           (You sense the light has bent, the light has dimmed.)

This Life

This Life, Dear

This is a small thing - this life -

That fits into the palm of the hand,

That we turn over, poke with a stick,

And then parse with a dull knife

So that we can think we can understand

What it is that makes us tick;

                                                 But,

Listen carefully, dear, for this is all I’ve got:

Though you hear the heart still beating,

It’s a stopped clock.

Silence and Spillage, a poem

A Libation ... A Toast

To

This silence that has settled

Upon him like dust ...

To

This silence that has corroded

The skin of him like rust ...

This silence isn’t praying,

Though the hands mimic

A slow applause, or the paying

Out of rope –

Enough to hang himself –

A trick, a gimmick,

A sawing in half,

A laugh a minute,

A grope in the dark.

Mind the gap.

His voice a slur,

As he draws on a cigarette,

Sips a wine turned sour.

It’s a question begged

Of the lees, the dregs,

Not formed, not spoken yet;

He has his own way of betraying

What is bait in a trap.

This silence isn’t praying;

The hands don’t grasp or flap.

He takes another gulp, another drag.

The smoke from his mouth

Is kissed heavenward, a moue,

A whisper scented half grape, half-truth

That drifts like mist, misheard

Amongst the cavilling and gainsaying

Of the delusions he has peopled.

This silence isn’t praying,

Though the hands are steepled,

Though the hands are a crucible for tears.

This silence isn’t praying;

There’s nothing left worth saying:

The hands cup an empty glass.

Cheers ...