Such Stuff

 

Such Stuff

 

Sometimes there’s a flurry of interest

in an older verse

I wrote, when the universe

was less than half its present size

and such wisdom I was gifted was not wise.

These words – wrote for bad luck – named 96

10 years ago, when I was sick,

and, as such, more a McFlurry of a poem

rather than a stiff breeze

raking her insubstantial hands through leaves

to pour over what can be read

in such skeletons littered there.

Such stuff – it’s hard to scan –

some younger self buried there

interred in murky caverns where

the only touch is the feeling fingers of despair

scoping mossy walls.

Ah – we’re scarcely there at all,

they’d offered parting presents, a speech

from his own to each –

‘Here’s a record voucher, take it to Pete’s.’

And, you did – redeemed it:

there were no words but blank slates

that waxed lyrical and £20,000, give or take.

So, you can see, any words from then

are tainted like a sailor’s tar–dyed nails,

scarred autumn brown; when I sailed

I left a mess behind, well, you do,

when it’s sprung like a trap – it’s true

she said she’d wait, but I don’t blame her:

I did, you understand? It burnt,

tormented that coiled within until unlearnt,

rubbed sea salt into the rashes made it sting,

flesh abraded, rubbed raw, delighted in singing

dirges – yo-heave-ho – something Siberian.

Leave it at that –

ten years after the fact, these words

were mulch, a sediment forked

after all that was said and more that was thought –

such stuff

as blossomed windfall apples.

Like As the Blackbird

 

Like As the Blackbird

 

 

Like as the blackbird uproots the sparrow

who offers temerity as occupied space,

so do you, one unsown day, stride the narrow

Cornish quiet lanes, strewn like straw – make haste

while the sun burns golden fields fallow.

On the right flood tides have swollen Truro River,

placid she lies, satisfied, hardly a contraction –

‘Push,’ you think, ‘Let’s see action,’

for nothing so deep can ever be empty,

scoped troughs disclose her horn of plenty

where Lady Mary Killigrew’s ghost mans sentry.

So, now, here’s a dog – a real beast – carnivore

that snaps your leash between his jaws,

not one of your crawling mops – arrow straight,

he leaps out to symphonies, a dreadnought,

an iron spine, a bulwark cutting barely a wake,

who yields at last to his master’s voice.

Rounding the bend – as if there ever was choice –

come across at last those squat dwellings

that bed themselves into rocks, hang off cliffs

like a crooked mouth full of milk-teeth

in need of dentist, tooth fairy or both maybe,

rest awhile, sip beer, look to see that same blackbird

harrying near, ‘Release! Let slip! Take flight!’

It’s but a fancy – but even as the day becomes night,

let Robert Culliford push open floodgates and write.

String Beings

 

String Beings

 

 

Let’s talk leads, the cheap nylon sort,

dyed, red, green, blue; an eye for a hook,

just one notch up from baler string - look,

they’re sprouting like runner beans supported

by cack-handed, fist planted bamboo cane,

hanging off bent nails in budget petshops.

You know, leads presuppose guidance,

direction, the firm hand of a flight lieutenant,

chocks away – they’re off. Here’s a couple

with a fistful of dogs, small - burnt crumpets

on four legs with barks like toy trumpets -

your Mini-Milks scraped off the bottom

of the Poundland ice cream freezer

bargain basement acquisitions, less Caesar

more seized, hung bags of shit from trees

comes extra. They’re tripping the Gay Gordons

in a Gordian knot of cat’s cradles, cordoning

off safe passage, choking thoroughfares,

any protests made falling on deaf ears –

like: ‘Hey, walking here, I’m walking here!’

too late – dog’s seen the rabbit, he’s off,

owners phone scrolling, vaping or moths

to any gossip candle, hers on hers and hers,

in words tossed out so fast they’re blurred,

sheep in wolves’ clothing tugging herds.

‘Well, did you hear, did you hear, no, well -’

if words were mince there’d be pies enough,

shepherds a-plenty would have their fill,

most of them on pills, ill defined diseases,

dragging their dolly-dogs just as they please –

‘You can’t bring that bloody thing in here,

she says to me, there’s produce to flog.’

Strange – you don’t see guide dogs

as much anymore, negotiating safe routes -

who knows, maybe they’ve been crowded out.

You’d like to remonstrate with them, shout,

but no such luck -        

ah, you’d envy the life of a root vegetable

just before it’s plucked.

The Sunken Kingdom of Lyonesse

 

The Sunken Kingdom of Lyonesse

 

 

‘Will all Great Neptune –‘ Trevillion cries,

on horseback mounted; bound for St Michael’s:

between a trot and canter, abandoning lance,

raising his visor, skimming his hevva dance

on top of black churning backwash.

Did not the sea lick hooves, lap fetlocks,

advance on her pastern? As the land dropped,

Admiral Benbow himself stirred his ghost

to walk Chapel Street from post to post,

summoned Baines – ‘Cease your spinning,

there are greater yarns than these to be told.’

For it has come to this – that gold scimitar

bending Marazion into Mousehole far

as soft Devonian bounded by granite blocks,

owes dues to her serpentine and schist rocks –

is invaded, has fallen. Dogs, choked by string

do strut and fret, yap at the smallest thing

that stirs within oceans deep, trip the unwary,

lift legs to leave their mustard marks.

Baying hollowed hordes bellow nothings

to scroll and ring across the retreating bay –

there is nothing left they did not nothing say.

And that once great Kingdom of Lyonesse

sucked reefs - fled to sink itself within distress.

Things I Gotta Do

 

Things I Gotta Do

 

 

It’s easy to grasp when you reach back pages,

the climax passed or you’re racing

towards it fast – antique thumbprints

and rickety fingers turning down corners,

reluctant to put it aside, turn off the light

there goes another day, here comes the night.

Assuming you read, crack codes - some still do,

but I wouldn’t blame you –

an underrated pastime by an overrated mass,

but mostly let’s just let it pass.

Last night, my Grandson, pushing grub

around his plate gave me a surreptitious nudge –

‘Put it on here, son,’ I hissed, tapping my plate,

but later accidentally let it slip, game’s up –

so after tea, we’re off down the park,

shooting hoops, hoofing football, laughed -

You see? Things we gotta do

that don’t apply to me and you.

I’m not sure you’re a fan of the beautiful game,

you took up guitar, put it down again,

music brings on rashes, writing’s a chore –

but fair play, I can’t stick rugby, fucking boring,

and no way I’m pounding streets to keep fit.

There, you see, that’s an end to it,

really, don’t you think? Nothing personal, rude –

it’s philosophy, how we see things, in the end

I won’t expect you and don’t expect me to bend

or overlay your charts onto my maps -

we're goalkeepers with nothing left to defend,

backing into nets when games end.

Stepping Stones

 

Stepping Stones

 

 

She says: ‘Is this it for me?’

You returned from overseas,

a longish stint, nothing comes easy –

with war chucked in for good measure,

triggered for the pleasure

of those wired enough to plunge detonators.

 

But, she doesn’t want any rows,

talking New Zealand, couple of years from now –

fourth or fifth trip, who’s counting?

 

You’ve refused to go, but will foot the bill,

way past a dubious thrill

of seeing mountains behind more mountains

and with two brothers coming here anyway

to rubber boot your holiday,

you’re thinking ‘Here it goes again.’

 

Is that a slight rash,

left side, where your balls chafe your leg?

You walk a lot, note it all down most days,

then sit solo upstairs, writing as the records play,

grateful distractions have upped and fled

churning sour milk into butter.

 

Let’s think on retirement.

It’s fanciful – maybe an allotment,

try your hand at cultivating produce,

healthy, you know?

But looks like that aren’t made, they’re born.

 

Settled in front of the television, yawns –

‘And what do you know of such things.’

It’s ‘Little House on the Prairie’ and he’s fixing stuff

bellyaching there’s not enough

money in his pocket, food on the table:

unhitches the team and plough from the stable.

 

You’re asking whether she’s gone blind, yet,

and, met with a double negative,

point out 5 years ago you were playing air

until someone planted a guitar there;

think of the band – she thinks, she groans.

 

Later, you tell him ‘Let’s go!’

to where weeks of heat has made the river low,

spot fishes by banks, gaze at it flow

and practise laughing on the stepping stones.

Ruby, Woah

 

Ruby, Woah

 

 

Does the past exist in black and white?

I’ve seen the pictures - grimaces in grim sepia tones,

couples that bleed together looking alone,

dustbowl smiles that failed to cultivate

prairies of salted paper prints – three by three inch -

and possessed of thick, forbidding borders.

 

Today, we’ve a pre-season friendly,

nothing of consequence, but we arrive early -

mighty Truro to be toasted - flash-roasted

by your hubristic Exeter City who – with maximum fuss,

swaggered off the bus and lost.

 

Hard to put fingers on how. Their number 15 blazed

resplendent red trails, raised fire-streaks on green baize,

but we’ve our very own indigo Harry Kane

mighty in mid-field, steals a penalty,

lashes it home between the milk-white frame

and the onion bag bulges.

 

Post match, he’s on his phone, though –

‘Grandad, hurry, we’ve got to go,’

and he’s tackling the viridian verges,

sprinting ahead, square on square, a paintbox splurge,

hurtling crossroads, hurdling kerbs

and I’m sweating to match him under buttercup sun.

 

‘What’s the hurry, son?’

He’s tight lipped, has to get to the gym, pre-closing,

pump his upper-body, grind his traps -

points to the car-park where his mother’s waiting

to pick me, dashes inside – an iridescent flash.

 

‘Ah, that’ll be Ruby, his friend.’ she clarifies,

and I speculate, but, ‘No, she’s 18.’

But I remembered how Mary Wilson made me putty

in the upper sixth, how lucky

I felt just to scent her auburn tresses, her swishing dresses,

how I soared when she let me take her hand.

 

Even to this day, my pulse still can race, take first place,

mount podiums for dazzling medals -

I ragged him later, a little, scanned his face –

he denied it with a crimson blush that bloomed, flourished,

looked back on this match. It didn’t matter;

 

we’d queued for beer, Coke for him, heard the clatter

of expectant cheers, prism crews, mosaics all limbering up,

asked a fellah behind us – if we pose, take a shot

for remembrance - I grin gawky from over his shoulder,

looking back at him getting older –

how his past detonates forever colours.