Locksmith lock-in

Prison bars

Graham and I have just been released from 5 hours of prison! We were about to take our pre-lunch constitutional walk today – and found the front door wouldn’t open! And we don’t have a back door…

The shop manager next door tried to open it with keys passed through the window but no luck. So we’ve been waiting all day for the emergency locksmith.

In the end he managed to fix it – but only after squeezing through our neighbours’ small stair window and pirouetting onto our balcony to gain access. The poor guy was a man after my own appetite and not the sveltest locksmith in Sussex – or probably even in the street – so I think he’ll have a few stories to tell his kids at Burger King. Which is where he tells me he and his family were about to go before our emergency call…

Ne me dis pas

Extinguished candle

 
 
Ne me dis pas que je t’aurais aimé.
Ne me dis pas que j’aurais pu te retrouver.
Jure qu’entre nous ça n’aurait jamais pu se transformer
En un amour qui durerait plus que le temps d’une pensée d’été.
 
 
 
Cache à moi les maux que je t’aurais infligés.
Fais comme si mes attentions manquantes jamais ne te manqueraient.
Invente un monde où l’invention servirait
À séparer un rêve enfantin d’une réalité de banalités.

Recommence à vivre à toute allure
Une vie d’espoir dépourvue des engelures
Qu’apporte seul un baiser froid de brûlante nature
Qui ne se différencie guère d’une vive morsure.

Avant qu’on ne se connaisse dans toutes nos faiblesses,
Au lieu de commencer mieux vaut qu’on cesse.
Sans même croiser nos regards au-dessus de notre défunte jeunesse
Permets que nos mains se touchent, se saisissent, se laissent.
 

A magical knot

Knotted band

Once, when I was around 13 or 14, I came across something wondrous and magical. And, as tends to be the case for most of us, but perhaps particularly for a blasé young teenager, I almost, but not quite, failed to recognise its significance.

I was idly playing with an elastic band on the fingers of my hand, performing a cat’s cradle. I was close to my grandmother growing up and so had a raft of skills beloved of the average Georgian schoolgirl. As the band snapped off my fingers I noticed something rather odd. It had formed a simple knot – the simplest form of knot that you might tie in any piece of string – along one side of the band. Continue reading

So Long, My Love

Free bird

So long, my love. The world can’t wait to meet you.
Love tires, enough, and they all so want to complete you.
I knew you then when all was well in our ken.
And I see now how it was time not our love that was broken.
 
 
Take care, of you. As I did when you were sleeping.
Please just slip through. My grip is weak when I’m weeping.
In a state of alarm I did harm keeping you safe in my arms.
You should have flown alone and painted the sky with your charms.

Now go, my dear. I have no right to hold you.
Be strong, don’t fear, it’s all just as I’ve told you.
You thought me kind, mind, all I said was to blind.
Now please fly free, see, I am there close behind. 

Under the duvet

Under the duvet
When the world is too much
And your drive has been driven,
When you’ve tired of the rush
And no more damns can be given,
When your snowman is slush
And Santa’s sleigh has been ridden,
There’s just one place that you stay,
Hidden under the duvet.

Its fabric is warm
And its crevasses dark.
You won’t hear the storm
Nor the song of a lark.
There’s no need to perform,
No feat to bench-mark.
There’s no wrong thing that you say,
Hidden under the duvet.

So grab a torch and a teddy-bear
And a well-thumbed book.
Block the door with a chair,
Take the phone off the hook.
Leave your cares elsewhere,
Thumb your nose, cock a snook.
Draw a veil over to-day
With me under the duvet.
 

The house that Jack built

The house that Jack built

Jack spied some land overgrown and squalid
On a road of rich houses high and solid.
‘Twas the garden of a cottage squat and horrid.
The house that Jack built.

To the elderly owner he did proffer
A few measly pounds to take the land off her.
Else someone would trip and sue, and try to rip off her.
The house that Jack built.
  Continue reading

Bring it on!

Graham – Would you like one?
Me (tired, hot, and distracted) – Go on then, you’ve brought it now.
Graham – I think you’ll find you mean “bought”.
Me – Pfffffft…

I have taught him too well!!