On wastes of wishful thought

Your memory, the flower that I tend,
my insubstantial relic of desire,
grows pale despite the time of mind I spend
to bring alive a remnant of your fire.
A second’s thought, a minute or an hour,
an age of recall: you are absent still.
Too much of this has made my mind run sour
and no philosophy can cure my ill
for I am lost in wastes of wishful thought.
Without a prayer to mend a withered rose
the heavy weight of learning comes to naught;
the world is wearier than I supposed.
Of glorious Creation who can boast
it brings us love? It kills what we love most.

                            

                  Graphiti


The mistress of the mini-masterpiece

was fixed upon her project of renewal,

her garden of Japan, her plot of peace,

her little gem set in a royal jewel.

We saw her tending plants that day at Kew.

‘We should remember this’, I think I said.

So there among my foxgloves and bamboo

I drew her in acrylics on the shed.

Now she is just a memory of you

she gardens on when all the flowers are dead.

I see her toiling there the winter through.

It’s not a fertile spot but some flowers grow.

She talks to them perhaps. Would it were so.

                        I miss that room

I miss that room where favourite poems hung,

the sweetest bed, the best of furniture…

The last song of the skylark has been sung

and shadows show where things familiar were.

Foolish it is to think that any art

of paint or words can fill the empty space

that once possessed us, heart and loving heart,

returning us a moment to that place.

Eternities of emptiness are worse

than empty where they once held you

with all the happy memories I nurse

now underwritten with  a last adieu.

‘Don’t die before me’, once I heard you say.

I have been faithful to you then, in that hard way.

More songs

            Ships Pass in the Night

I want to sing when love comes to my heart

but songs of sorrow linger in me still.
We are at sea on passages apart,
night-passing once, bathed in a mutual thrill:
the swell, the wash of wakes, ships’ lights ablaze,
the song of sirens, tables laid for two...…

Our ships continue on their different ways;

beyond the rim of sea and sky are you.

The ocean’s vast, erratic face is bare.

The albatross in his incessant flight

 alone can see our kisses floating there,

where ocean liners lingered in the night

the roses and the wine flung on the waste,f

a momentary splash, a fleeting taste.

                        Castaway

I found your love was stronger than I thought.
Upon the brink and hesitant to leap
I dipped a toe and by the current caught
I tumbled headlong in a rushing deep.

I learned to float and drift through pleasant dales
where willows overhung their images
and listened to the river telling tales
of castles high and lowly villages.

I little thought of where a river goes,
in slow meanders, jagged cataracts
or over booming falls in torrents flows
or dies of thirst in dusty, desert tracts

but over mud and estuary to sea
which swallows rivers great and small we passed.
I lost you there, the river ceased to be.
upon a lonely seashore I was cast.

            Bird song

In the wind the tree top swings,

there the storm-cock sits and sings.

Of their troubles and their joys

few can make a better noise.

When there is no more to say

then the singer flies away.

Music is not meant to last

soon as sounded it has passed.

Now the circling bat takes flight

through the scented shades of night.

Fades the pink on shades of blue

night will hatch us something new.

The spinning earth renews the day.

What's to happen none can say.

The blackbird's sweeter than the wren.

The thrush is better yet again;

long ago his song began:

let me love you while I can

Every morning paints the rose

fresh with colours no one knows.

Change is what the lover fears,

first the laughter then the tears.

Time and chance are hand-in-glove.

What is life unless we love?

            April Cherry

When snakes of snow went shivering like eels

down frozen ways, wind-twisted, whisked and whirled

I thought of you and how the springtime feels

when we have left the winter underworld,

when countless petals, plenitudes of pink,

dance overhead in the uplifting breeze

and shake their pom-poms. Up and down they jink,

in can-can capers, kicking up their knees.

My favourite dress you wear, as well you know.

You've made your face up, put your lipstick on.

O cherry tree, do not accuse me so;

tell me no more my lust for you has gone,

that beauty passes briefer than a rhyme.

I'll love you in your green of summertime.

            Christmas Parties 

Did I ever tell you I'm frightened of parties,
of all those bright people and heavyweight hearties?
Well I am. Now it's Christmas, I'm trying to find
how to go to these functions and keep peace of mind;
to wake up clear-headed and free of disgrace
for something I did or I said out of place.
I shall try to come late; I shall tarry an hour
go straight to the hostess and give her a flower
and say she looks lovely; her party's the best;
the buffet delicious; I love every guest;
I've been here for ages; that's what I shall say
I am having such fun. Then I'll leave straightaway.
Or perhaps I'll come early and drink all the punch;
snog somebody sexy and bring up my lunch.
I'll drink upside down on my hands in the hall
and eat twelve mince pies using no hands at all
I'll break into song then I'll ski down the stairs;
stunt roll from a window till everyone stares
and says 'did that happen? ' or 'is this a dream? '
then I'll lick off the hostess, well covered in cream.

Mother Care

Mother Care

          There was a Spartan youth who complained to his mother that his sword was too short.

          'You can lengthen it by taking a step towards the enemy' she retorted.

          That could have been my mother speaking though I think she was really quite fond of me. On my sixteenth birthday she decided it was time I learned more about the outside world. I needed to toughen up. Mother had influence with the right sort of people; among her relatives was a ship-owning uncle. She made arrangements.  One day towards the end of Trinity Term my housemaster summoned me to his study.

          'David, I have a letter from your mother.'  His eyebrows were raised.  'Did you know you were going to sea?'

          'To sea, Sir!'

          'Yes, my boy!  For a week or two! To sea!'

          'A cruise on a boat I expect.'

          I knew a thing or two about boats having spent much time on the river with the school rowing club.

          'You don't cruise on a boat.  It's called a ship.'

          My housemaster was ex-Royal Navy.  He glanced again at mother's handwriting.

          'From what it says in this letter it won't be a pleasure cruise exactly.'  He looked at me questioningly but I had no idea what he was talking about.

          'It's a fishing trip',  he said.

          For a moment I saw a happy image of myself with a rod and line but the vision quickly faded.

          'What sort of fishing?'  I asked.  He gave a chuckle and continued.

          'Deep sea fishing! You are to report to the M.V. Lady Julian at Lowestoft next Monday at 0500 hours.'

          'M.V., Sir?'

          'Motor vessel!  She'll be a trawler I expect.  A little ship!'

          'How little?'

          'It depends.  Perhaps a hundred and thirty foot long, more or less.'

          He suddenly looked wistful. 'I commanded a trawler once. An armed trawler!'

          Then he paused thoughtfully.

          'If you go you will lose a few days of school at the end of term but, on the condition you write me an essay, entitled Life on a Fishing Trawler, to be on my desk the very first day of Summer Term, I shall recommend to the Headmaster that you be allowed to go early.'

          'Thank you, Sir!' I said without meaning it.  I had had plans for the coming week: rugby plans, cricketing plans… but I was going to be a sailor on a ship. There might be some kudos in this.

          'OK',  he said 'You can go.  Would you like some advice?'

          'Please.'

          'Keep smiling!'

          Next Monday mother drove her posh car straight onto the dock among fishmonger vans, chandlers' carts and tradesmen's vehicles of all sorts. There were lots of people on bicycles. She summoned assistance by waving a bank note of large denomination at a man wearing a dirty white apron who immediately pointed out the Lady Julian.

          'That's it all right', said mother, screwing her eyes to pick out the lettering 'GY1359!  You have your train ticket?'  She had a tendency to think of everything.

          'I shall wait here until I see you go aboard.  Don't forget your kit.'

          It was warm in the car.  Clutching the bag of sea-going gear (courtesy of Great-Uncle) I was halfway out when the East wind, howling round a corner of the wharf, snatched the heavy door wide open and sent in a blast of cold North Sea air.  Mother became solicitous.

          'There's a windproof in your luggage', she said.

          I gave her the start-of-term kiss and made my way to what at first sight appeared to be a vessel fit only for the breaker's yard.  The deck was a wet tangle of ropes, steel cables, wooden boards, buckets, floats, wheels and strange machinery that looked ready to hurt you horribly.  Something like mole traps on a bigger scale. A big, rubber mat plus nets and scraps of chain hung from one short mast. A wooden ladder, multicoloured by paint spills, was propped against the other.  What appeared to be barn doors, much battered, hung on steel gallows mounted fore and aft.  The Lady Julian appeared to be a rusty, worn out thing, washed up by the sea and left to rot.

          There was a man on deck mending a net.  He wore a cap comforter through which protruded a lock of black hair.  Plimsolls, canvas trousers and a dirty pullover completed his gear.  He smoked a pipe.

          'Excuse me!',  I ventured, 'Is the Captain available?'

          'Thet he hint',  said the sailor.

          This was the first intimation of a potential language problem.  I took the phrase to be a negative.

          'He hint here?'  I said, 'But I have to report to him.'

          He gave me a searching look.

          'He's acrorst the rud.  Dew yew come alonga me.'

          Once I get the rhythm, I pick up languages fast.  From that moment on only the technical phrases gave me any bother.

          'I'm Eli Murrin, bos'n,' he said as he escorted me across the road, 'Are you the new deck-hand?'

          'David Jones. I don't think I'm a deck hand.'

          'You don't look like one.'

          His face was stubbled and deeply creased.

          'Have you got a middle name?'

          'John!'

          'Call yourself Johnny Jones,' he said, 'Davy Jones is an unlucky name on a ship.'

          Evidently sailors were superstitious.  I decided to adopt the alias.  Half an hour in Lowestoft and already I was speaking in a foreign tongue under a pseudonym.  It was not to be my last change of moniker on that trip either.

          'Eli Murrin-Bosun is an unusual name', I remember thinking as he led me round numerous tubs of fish to a shed busy with buyers, sellers and men in white coats.  I little knew then what a mother to the ship Bos'n Murrin was.  He ushered me into an office ringing with the sound of typewriters. Matrons smiled at me.  A short wait and the Skipper appeared, a strong-looking man dressed in a suit with a white shirt and tie.  He could have been a headmaster. I got another searching look. He had a nascent smile on his face which never quite materialised.

          'You must be David Jones', he said.

          'Yes, sir, but they call me Johnny.'

          I was duly enrolled as Johnny Jones, cabin boy, and told to report to Billy Belcher, cook.

          A day later we were at sea and I had learned a lot about scrubbing things clean: chiefly pots and pans.  The crew were a salty bunch, most of them veterans of Hitler's War.  Billy Belcher even claimed to have sailed in his extreme youth against the Kaiser.  There was a new deck hand, young Jim Foster, who had a wide grin on his face under all circumstances.  We remained friends until he took a berth on a Hull trawler in 1968 which went down off Iceland with all hands.

          Somewhere between Norway and Bear Island was our destination. By the time we got there I saw our ship in a very different light.  Though her steel plates were, I thought, far too thin a separation from the hostile sea she rode the waves with an infectious confidence.  There was little by way of comfort aboard her and space was short but the crew were a business-like bunch who knew what they were doing and got on with it.  No hornpipes were danced and no sea shanties were sung.  The last trip of the Lady Julian had been a poor one.  Her side-winder trawl had a gape big enough to swallow a London bus but it had remained empty of fish.  That meant a loss for the owners and no pay for the crew. Morale was not good.

          We reached our fishing ground at night. Eli had made sure that everything to be oiled was oiled, nets were mended, the trawl had been made ready, the fish-hold was clean, there was plenty of crushed ice. It was a dark night with a rolling sea. There were sheets of rain. I heard the Skipper and Fred Barley, the Mate, having a bit of an argument over it but it was decided to shoot the trawl there and then. The big lights were switched on and lit her up for'ards like Christmas. The ship was stopped. Two hands manned the winches. There were five more heaving the net overboard, cod-end, belly and wings, followed by two great wooden paddles, the otter doors, to hold the net open as the long, steel warps dragged it all through the sea.  The warps took the strain and the trawl sank into the darkness.

          Me and the Cook were watching.

          'It's a very rough night for fishing',  I suggested.

          'Calm weather is the worst weather for a sidewinder',  said Billy  'In calm weather the trawl hangs to the side of the ship and it's hard work pulling the net aboard.  When you are rolling about like this the net goes slack with the next wave and you can pull it in easy.'

          'What do we do next?'

          'What we do, you and me, is get back to the galley and dish out cups of kai all round. It will be an hour and a half at least before we stop towing and pull in.'

          Kai was a drink Billy made with blocks of chocolate and a dash of condensed milk dropped into a mug of boiling water. He claimed it gave you energy. Not all the crew liked it but on a night like this they needed the boost. I had hardly got the big kettle on the boil when there was a shout from Eli Murrin to the bridge.

          'The warps are touching!'

          If the warps pulled together parallel it meant either the trawl was snagged on something or the net was full of fish.  The ship was stopped again.  A wave came right over the rails.  Down from the bridge came Fred Barley.  He was one of the Lowestoft lifeboat skippers and something of a hero.

          'The trawl ain't gone down all the way', explained Billy 'so it can't be a snag.  Night time you trawl mid-water.  The cod rise from the bottom at night you see.'

          'Loose off the towing block', ordered Fred after a brief confab with the Skipper. 'Pull her in.'

          The winch men got to work. Up came the otter boards and the net rose like a submarine, stuffed with fish from the wings to the cod end.

          Billy gave it one look and declared, 'There'll be no time to turn in tonight I reckon'.

          The crew heaved as much of the net aboard as they could.  They put a turn of rope round the cod end, winched it up and swung it aboard.  In the glaring light, Eli's yellow waterproof and sou'wester shone out like wet and shiny beacons.  He dodged under the cod end, reached for a special slip knot and gave it a pull. Three thousand pounds of prime cod fell about him.  The belly of the trawl was still in the water and it was still full of fish.  He roped the cod end shut and it was hoisted overboard again.  The ship went half ahead to wash fish down from the belly to the cod end which was again hoisted aboard.  Another avalanche of fish fell about Eli's shoulders. All this had to be repeated five times before the trawl was empty.

          While the deck crew started to gut and clean the fish Eli inspected the trawl and declared it undamaged. The order came to shoot again. We must have been over a shoal of millions.  In no time the trawl was again stuffed to bursting point.  No skate nor haddock, just cod of the best sort!

          It was a weary crew who came in for breakfast.  Weary but happy!  No sooner had they had their scoff and a dose of kai than they went out and shot the trawl again.  There was no time to kip.  This time the trawl went to the bottom but it came up just as quick, full of cod, haddocks and some big halibut.

          'A night's sleep lost is nothing when you're making money', said Eli to the Cook that morning when he came into the galley for a drink.

          'I've seen three dawns come up before now without a wink of sleep', said Billy, 'On the old 'Olympia GY1080 that was.'

          Then he gave me a strange, sideways look, 'But it's a pity we ain't had a nice big lady skate for the boy.'

          Eli gulped his drink without a word and went back to the fish pens to do some more gutting.

          So the trip went on; every time the trawl was shot the warps closed up in no time and we had another silvery deluge of prize fish.  There was never a tear in the nets.  I don't know who said it first, or when, but they began to call me 'Johnny Cod'.  I was taken to be a lucky shipmate, a charm, an anti-Jonah.  Chancy the sea is and perilous. To live on it you need more than strength and skill: you need luck.  So seamen have their superstitions and their rituals.

            'That lot alone will pay for this trip', said the Chief Engineer with a nod towards another top-prize haul in the pen.  He rarely came up on deck.

          'I think the Old Man will be wanting to get back to port again soon', said the Mate cheerfully.

            'Aye!  And we'll be millionaires for a day again', said the Chief, quoting an old saying among trawlermen.

            I shall be disappointed if we aren't.  Even for a day', they both laughed.

            'And we shall all be disappointed if Johnny don't get a lady skate', broke in Billy.

            This was mysterious.  I did not entirely trust Billy, he told too many yarns.  So I broached the subject with Jim Foster.  It was the only time Jim was ever shifty with me.

            'You've heard of mermaids?'  asked Jim  'Well, the lady skate is the true mermaid of the sea.  They have faces like ours you know.  A big skate is as big as a woman and they make love the same way.'

            It was to be some years before I had attended sufficient anatomy lessons to ascertain the truth of this statement.

            'You have to make love to a mermaid to be a real sea-going fisherman',  Jim continued,  'and if a good-luck shipmate like you gets to make love to a mermaid you can never be short neither of money nor of  breath.  You can never be drowned.'

            'What!  Kiss a fish?'

            'Kiss it? No! You really have to make love to it.'  His grin returned

 'Some of those big lady skate are very good looking.'

            'You'll never catch me doing that.'  To me at that time a woman was no less mysterious than a sea-skate.

            'The luck of the ship depends on it.  Our luck could change you know.'

            'Bugger the ship!  Anyway we haven't caught a skate.'

             I began to pray that we never would catch one. But we did. When the Skipper had already decided to make the very last trawl. As soon as the cod end surfaced it was clearly going to be another bonanza. Then a great shout went up: 'Skate! A big one! She's a beauty.'  The mermaid had arrived.

            The ship was already stopped, rolling gently under a blue sky. The winches fell silent. The engineers appeared from below. The Skipper came down from the bridge. No condemned man ever felt more horror on catching sight of the gallows than I felt on seeing that cursed fish, mounted.  Mounted, I might say, in what the deck hands considered the most alluring position.  All faces turned towards me, implacable as a condemning jury.  I discovered that youth, vigour and past good fortune were no defence against despair.  I grasped the ship's rail with one hand in preparation for the vault over the bulwark that would plunge me forever into the sea.  What saved me then was a twinkle in the Skipper's eyes.

            'Keep smiling', my housemaster had said. I came to my senses.

            'You bastards!'  I choked out.  It was all I could say.

            This was followed by a rousing cheer, great roars of laughter and a handshake from every man.  I have had honours since but never so great.

            We lashed the doors off the deck and chained down the expensive bits of the trawl.  We checked the fish rooms and made sure all was right down there.  The scupper doors were lashed back on their chains; the galley doors were locked.  Nobody was allowed on deck.  We were going home, fast.

            I rang mother as soon as we were back in port.

            'What hev yew bin doin now, my mawther?' I enquired.

            'Are you in England, David?

            'Yes!'

            'Then speak to me in English, dear.'

Indian Antique for Sale

            St. Giles is a street in Norwich on a rise which, in Norfolk, could be called a hill. It is a gentle walk up from the flinty Guild Hall, past the ancient church fringed with wisteria to the great Roman Catholic cathedral from whose upper works can be seen the sea. Or so they say; I have never been up there so I cannot confirm this. I can confirm that halfway up St. Giles there are substantial Victorian buildings one of which was once an antique shop owned by a Mr. Tatling. It had been owned by the Tatlings and used for the same purpose for a generation or two. I had heard there were cellars there, full of inestimable antiques.

            Mr. Tatling was a middle-aged man of impeccable character, sober habits and a sound constitution or so I thought. He often had Chinese or Japanese things for sale at honest prices. I had found the occasional netsuke there to add to my collection and a nice pair of Ming vases. So I went in there hopefully one day to see what was new or rather what was newly arrived, old, Eastern and attractive.

            Norfolk folk are not excitable as a rule so I was surprised to find Mr. Tatling in an animated, almost bouncy mood with a large smile on his face. Before I could greet him with the usual enquiries he started telling me about his latest acquisition. I had to listen patiently for some time.

            That very morning, an hour ago, he had taken possession of what he described as an Indian statue, an Eastern, god-like thing. It was almost life-sized and very heavy. Two strong men were required to lift it into the premises. It was jointed so the limbs could move. It was partly enamelled, partly gilded or possibly, his expert eye told him, it was of gold. The most remarkable thing about it, he told me, was its condition: perfectly undamaged. This was indeed surprising, considering the rest of his account.

            He described how someone he had never met before, a local farmer, had come in a day earlier and asked if he ever bought Indian statues.

            'I'll buy anything that's a genuine piece,' Tatling replied 'Why don't you bring it in and show it me?'

            'It weighs a lot, ' said the farmer 'I would have to bring two of my chaps and a trolley to move it from the car.'

            'You can unload from the road outside so long as you are quick.'

            'You would want to see it first I suppose?'

            'Oh yes.'

            You could come out to my place and see it?'

            'When?'

            'Tonight?'

            Tatling shook his head 'Not tonight I can't.'

            'I've got to come into town tomorrow. If I bring it with me could you come over and look at it?' He mentioned a car park several hundred yards away.

            'Yes, I can shut the shop for ten minutes and come over. Give me a call when you are ready.'

            The reason for the farmer's visit next day was to pick up his new car, a Rover of the type some famers can carry pigs in. He had two men with him plus the Indian antique in his immaculate new vehicle when he got to the car park. His phone battery was flat so he had to walk the three hundred yards to St. Giles.

            'I locked the front door and we went out the back way to see it' said Tatling 'And when we got to the car park there was a crowd round this brand new Rover. A truck had run into it. The truck driver had gone through the windshield with fatal consequences. Naturally the farmer was anxious about his boys. Luckily they were not in the Rover when the truck veered into the park.'

            Having found there was no more to be done than arrange a breakdown truck to carry the Rover back to where he had collected it that morning the farmer surprised Tatling by wrenching open a twisted door and signalling him to come and take a look inside.

            I thought it was a bit odd,' said Tatling 'Most people would have forgotten about antique dealing in the midst of such a mess. He was so anxious for me to see what it was like; whether I wanted it. Anyway there it was! I had a chance to examine it closely and…'

            'Something else was odd?'

            'There was not a scratch on it.'

            'That is strange,' I said.

            'He asked me what it was worth and I said I didn't know.'

            'Of course.'

            'Well I didn't..'

            'Naturally.'

            'So he said ''Make me an offer'' and I did. A very small one.'

            'Of course.

            'And he grabbed i.'

            'No bargaining?'

            'No!'

            'Unusual for a Norfolk farmer.'

            'You are right there.'

            'Although they are rich.'

            'Mostly! So we shook hands on it. Then do you know what he said to me?'

            'No?'

            'He said ''If you had offered me a fiver I would have taken it''. So I had paid out a lot more cash there and then than I needed to.'

            I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with this story but Tatling wanted me to hear the whole of it.

            'That damn thing,' said the farmer according to Tatling 'Has cut a swathe of destruction through my family. It has gone through a long trail of relations starting with the most distant cousins.'

            By nature Tatling was always more of a listener than a talker.

            'For us the story started in the Second World War. One of my mother's remote relations was serving in the army as a major general. Out in India. Somehow he acquired, ''liberated' was the appropriate expression at the time, this ancient relic and decided to have it boxed up and shipped home. On the way the ship was torpedoed and sunk with great loss of life but the crated idol somehow survived.'

            'Odd,' said Tatling.

            'Quite so,' said the farmer 'To cut a long story short, it eventually came to me or rather to my wife who, it seems, had somehow become the unfortunate heir to the estate of somebody she hadn't seen for years.'

            'It happens.'

            'Quite so! The day that idol crossed our threshold the disasters began. Foot and mouth wiped out the cattle herd, fowl pest got the chickens and my wife slipped over in the kitchen and broke her thigh.'

            'And now your new Rover!' suggested Tatling.

            'Quite so!'

            'And the poor truck driver!'

            'Yes but he was only one of many. My wife was lying in hospital the night before last and she began to think. She put two and two together and wrote it all down. She traced that idol through a string of relations with dates and everything…'

            Clever woman!'

            'She is. And the moment I came to her bed in visiting hours she said ''Simon! Get rid of that wicked idol immediately if not sooner'' and I went to see you the next day.'

            'Well I never!'

            'She had the family history and the doings of that damned idol all worked out. Every arrival of it presaged death and disaster.'

            When Tatling finished this account I looked about the shop, its polished counter, its carefully arranged antiques, its works of art and curios, with a feeling of foreboding.

            'Would you like to see it?' Tatling asked but I had read Rudyard Kipling's yarns about artefacts from India and declined as politely as I could with a glance at my watch.

            'No! Thank you. I have things I should be doing. Aren’t you a bit scared of something like that?'

            'Scared? Not me!' he said confidantly 'I buy and sell all sorts of things.'

            'What will you do with it?'

            'Oh I've already sold it, he said 'For a good price too.'

            That sounded more like the Tatling I knew.

            I said goodbye and left. I remember wondering at the whiteness of my knuckles as they gripped and turned the big brass knob on the door that led into St. Giles.

            For the next week I was out of town but before I left I had related this yarn to a friend in Norwich who was also an acquaintance of Tatling's. A week and a few days had passed when I met my friend again.

            'You remember that story you told me about Tatling?' he asked meaningfully.

            'I certainly do,' I said with a laugh.

            'He died last week.'

            'Died! Of what?'

            'Dunno! He just dropped dead it seems.'

            Coincidence of course! A few months later I noticed an article in a legal column of The Times newspaper concerning a dispute over a venerable work of art allegedly stolen from a temple in a remote corner of India. Its sale in a London auction house was put on hold. I never heard any more of it.