The Client

I did psychic readings at Sunday markets approx. 1995 to late 2013.


A good, round face,

a smile,

brown hair cropped close

(just beginning to recede),

bright, round eyes,

direct gaze,
frankness,

ready understanding,

tears and laughter when

he speaks of his dead Mum.…

Good things,

but none explains —

nor even all together —

why I like him so much

and trust the liking.

Is it that indefinable, his energy?

Perhaps it’s the warmth,

or his insight,

or the way this kind, brave man
believes himself ordinary.



[Poem #103]

A double posting. This appeared at my Stones for the River blog yesterday. I realised that, with only a little expansion, it could become one of my Verse Portraits (with the same number of words as years of my age: 74 at present). As they are collected here, this has to be here too.

As I Drive Away

As I drive away from the park 

where I've been sitting 

looking at trees, and writing,

I see him squatting 

atop a wooden table 

in the gazebo near the pond.

He wears a hooded jacket;

a small back-pack clings

to his hunched shoulders.

It's only 4:15. Already

the cold hunkers down

and the slow mist comes in.

I wouldn't like to be homeless

tonight, I think, shivering

as I drive away.



[Poem #94]

Shared, years later, in Writers' Pantry #37  at Poets and Storytellers United.

The Man in Malang

(Central Java)

He stepped
from a shop doorway,
stood.

Our eyes held.
Then I was past
in the taxi.

A fair woman,
considered beautiful
there.

And he
lean, dark,
piratical.

Not Indonesian.
Too tall, curly-haired ...
a mystery.

That was all
until, back home,
headline:

These men missing,
believed dead.
He, centre photo.

Portuguese engineers,
East Timor take-over
(1979).

Already escaped
that day?
Or

visiting
and went
back ... ?




[Poem #86]

Sharing this, years later, with Poets and Storytellers United for Friday Writings #149: The Joy of Walking Away. (Not exactly on prompt, which fortunately is not compulsory, but at least it involves leaving.)

Passing Stranger

‘Frankie don’t dance’
his T-shirt says
and I’m sorry
for anyone who so restricts
his own joy,
so afraid of release
he fends it off
before it starts to begin.

‘If I can’t dance
at the revolution,’
Emma Goldman is said
to have said to Lenin,
‘I won’t come.’
Now that I like!

Me, I ain’t got
rhythm, trip over
my feet, and yet
I love to swirl and tap.



[Poem #83]

The Girl from Brazil

(Market Client)

I did psychic readings at Sunday markets approx. 1995 to late 2013. 


Soft, young,
excited by life.
I feel, empathic,
the suppressed fluttering
of breath wanting to surge.

A dentist in Brazil,
here she must study
again another year;
doesn’t complain, enjoys.

She longs for love.
I’m glad to see it coming
though not just yet.
First she will visit home.
'In March,' she agrees.

I see the large, warm family,
her brother’s new baby.
Smiling, she’s love
waiting to happen.




[Poem #82]

The Man at the Next Table

Hardly noticed at first
absorbed in coffee and book
then the phlegmy cough intruded
loud, recurrent, unscreened by hand.
I raised my book higher between us.

Elderly. Weathered.
Baseball cap, t-shirt, work shorts.

Laughter. Interjections.
Was he communicating
with wife or friend at the counter?
Followed his gaze. No-one. But …
ah! someone invisible in the other chair.

Met him walking later.
Not so old after all. Maybe 50.



[Poem #66]

Cross-posted from my poetry blog The Passionate Crone, where it appears as: 2009 April Challenge 6.

Brief Encounter

In the waiting-room
a baby wailed,
held to his mother’s shoulder
as she stood at the counter
her back to the rest of us.

He was bald and pale,
swathed in white.
The huge sound of his distress
shattered the air.

I sent him a beam of love
across the space.
Immediately his cry stopped.
He raised his head,
looked straight at me,
held my gaze and smiled.

Shared with Writers' Pantry #40 at Poets and Storytellers United, 4 Oct. 2020.

[Poem #59]

Milk Baba

I remember Milk Baba.
I saw his face tonight on TV,
but I recall the encounter in Nepal
at his small room opposite the Shiva temple
with the children surrounding him, peeping out.

A simple life. Then we find
he is learned, an acclaimed scholar
of that great scripture the Ramayana,
corresponding with people all over the world.
Thirty years of only milk, he says, made him pure.



[Poem #53]

At the Book Fair

At the book fair
for self-published authors

my table was next to hers.
Happenstance?

We hardly stopped
talking and laughing.

She’d written her own
spiritual adventure

prose shining like poetry
in a hall of atrocious verse.

She was Crone, skinny 81,
wool cap around her ears

a light festoon of grey curls
embroidering her chin.

Age, she understood,
had made her whole.

We were sisters at once,
magickal.



[Poem #51]

Dancing Partner

Looking back I see
a thin, slightly nervous boy.
Then, I saw tall, dark, handsome
and sophisticated. I was 17.

My friend’s party.
He, new in that crowd;
me, home on holiday:
each, to each
a glamorous stranger.

They had Buddy Holly’s
latest record, Rave On,
played it over and over.
We danced. The night was warm.

But Buddy died and I
flew away, back over the sea.



[Poem #50]

Lightnin' Hopkins

Just listening again
to you singing and playing,
hootin’ and hollerin’
on Blowin’ the Fuse
and you know, I’m darn sick
of all this piety I meet,
everyone so sweet and light.

I’m wishing for a nice dirty boy
like you, Sam; suggestive
without saying one bad word.
Just listening to your quiet laugh
your wicked laugh
and your music, I know
you knew all the right moves.



[Poem #32]

Fellow Student

The energy of stillness
beams from you,
sitting in the corner,
white-blonde plaits
contrasting with red
pants and shirt and woollen shawl
wound around your waist like a skirt.

Your big eyes gaze
over striped spectacle frames.
Long fingers prop your chin,
the deep crimson polish and silver ring
strangely like an understatement.

Then you speak. It’s definite, fast,
knowing. You ripple with laughter,
your movements are dance.



[Poem #28]

Mistaken Identity?

I called her name through the crowd.
'It’s me, Rosemary,' I said,
rattling off places and dates.

A soft, uncertain girl
surprisingly steely if pushed

(rebuked my urgent force
after a fit, when I jammed a ruler
hard between her teeth)

she was still plump and pimply
hanging her head.

Finally she lifted her eyes.
'That’s my name, but I don’t know
you or anything you’re talking about.'



[Poem #19]

Old Man Hitching

Rose from the side of the road
exceptionally tall and thin,
sudden scarecrow in the mirror
only better dressed.
Grey suit in a country summer.
Waving his stick for attention,
smiling like a child,
flopping awkwardly towards
the only car.

Might have waited ages.
(We were a bit off track.)
Going to town to shop
five miles; in eighty years
he’d never been further!
Said it proudly, gladly.



[Poem #3]