Further April efforts

In that kitchen

a cooker called Radiation

where my dad made the flame

burn green annealing copper

to beat into a bowl

with the polished steel peen

of a planishing hammer.

In that kitchen

the sticky-varnished back door

would open too suddenly

on red-polished brick steps down

to what we called the Shed, home

of the noisy old Morrison Shelter

my dad used for a bench, and the garage,

rented home to better-off people’s cars.

In that kitchen, too

lived the Cabinet with the drop-down

white enamel shelf where mum

rolled pastry. Mind your head

when you come up from rummaging

in the bottom cupboard for shoes

or big saucepans.

Never mind That kitchen

in this kitchen Mount Fuji

somehow looms out of the corner

of my eye as I stand at the sink

swirling limescale flakes

out of the white electric kettle

but has gone when I turn to see it.

Teastains in the sink

have made a sepia sketch

of a ghostly samurai reaching

to point to the future with his sword

beneath the mechanical doughnut sun
of the plughole.

Racing the rain back

from Forde Abbey this afternoon

between hedges unbelievably dotted

with pink, red, blue, mauve, yellow, white

I caught myself saying

what a lovely world we have.

In the living room

A purist from a line of purists, made

worse by a lifetime in a pedantic trade,

I think of writing about the two plums

I know are on the kitchen table.

Are they really, I wonder, navy blue

but the minute I look I know

the word for what they are is indigo –

despised term for a spurious seventh colour

Newton or Goethe (or both for all I knew)

squeezed in, I thought I knew, to the middle

of the perfect and rational spectrum of light.

As bad as calling green a primary hue.

How you will come

When you call for me I’ll notice

how you came,

from which direction:

did you walk

past the ethical food shop

smelling of caraway

and yeast, or drive by

the fitness club with its air

of sweat and desperation?

Are you straight to the nearest gate

from the car park, or do you wrestle

your wheelie bag along the street

peering at door numbers?

Will you be so late I’ll despatch

a friend down

to look out for you

or is your knock going to catch me

still basting the fowl?

SELF-INDULGENCE: an infuriating poem about doorknobs

I’m not even going to look. More books

come in the post every day. You know

how polished brass is the colour of dry straw.

Someone woke the birds.

If I was able to, I’d go far a walk round the village.

(Wouldn’t we all, dear). Not saying

what I have to say, I wonder how long

this weather’s going to last.

If you close the door properly or leave it ajar

it won’t bang.

Just a gabble, with no proper words,

lines that have strayed from other poems.