Mrs Sheringham's Bike

Enclosed: Mrs Sheringham's bike - but Mrs Sheringham's bike is no longer with Mrs Sheringham. The old witch locks away the seat but I've keys to The Rehabilitation Workshop and am sure I can make a seat from the remnants of old sofas the interns are given to make presents from.

A bicycle, a pin in the map... Almost ready Heather

Goaded Earth

Dear Heather

Such trust I'm almost in disgust:

Alone in the kitchen in my net (hair

in ringlets now, and beard)

with glass jars, plastic bowls and knives.

I'm looking at others' lives on the net:

the famous and the named like old Mrs. Sheringham.

I spend days out but stay in

looking into your living room.

Such a goaded earth

I've stuck a virtual thumb tack

in your back. 

I'll be in touch, very soon.

On postcards

Heather!


You crushed me: your looks,
Your words, your muscles


***


You had so many other lovers.
I do understand because I was
Another’s milkman


***


Of course I ponder how you
Cut me to the quick?


***


You can tuck five pence pieces in your frowns -
A fat old penny in my arse

Fire Works

Dear Heather


There could have been such fireworks.


You said “Light the green touch paper!”
Silly you, it’s blue - blue touch paper.


Although I’m blue
I’ll fill a few more tubes
And twist a round of tapers.

Lucky Key, Lucky Me

Dear Heather


I have been given licence
These years hence
And am travelling light
To be with you.


I’ve packed my travel
Cutlery and vacuum bag,
My lucky charm, my disguise,
your pink hair slide (I
Still remember where
You dropped it) and, of course,
The Key.


Light the Bunsen, My Darling

Embers

Dear Heather


These rolling, cajoling waves of despair - despair.


I remember the dancing, prancing wave
Of your body and your hair over the splot-art
Of our lives - a chariot not a bone cart.


Thou art Art! Can this beehive brain be solid again?
You and me seeking butterfly embers
In our favourite photographs
Curling in the fire.


I left myself in you and you stole me away
On a dancing, prancing wave...

Our Holiday

Dear Heather


Do you remember that holiday?


You always threw a six,
I always threw a one.


My back against the wall,
I’ve kept our treasured memories
Under lock and key.


Have done well on the programme, Dear,
And may have thrown a three.


Not long now.
I think I know where you live.
I’ll bring those treasures back My Darling
To remind you of You and Me.

Sack Prison

Heather


I could have been a bull in bully-heaven
Under the Shady Tree at seven.


Thought something was going to happen,
Even a stampede inside.


Just my luck to end up in Sack Prison.

Cold Calling

Heather

Thought it was you
But just a relative wondering if I were dead

I do understand your silence
Near thirty years of it

But litmus test tells me your tail is still up for it

They didn't call me Bunsen for nothing ("you old burner")

Tops of my thighs are chapped from the chase

I'll be rubbing wood for an ember this Winter

I won't answer the phone
in fear relatives call wondering my death

You know where I am (turn right at the Snowman)

Maltster's Thumbs

Yes, me

"connunundraamumumum," kikakagoooo," "bl-bla-bl-bla-bl-bla-bl" and "eeee-ee-e-e."

Remember?

The first two mouthed with stroking fingers, the second two mouthed with spider-fingers.

And after, how I remember your Maltster's thumbs on the airlock and
The twist of your sole on eggshells (oh what finings).

Yes, I've another 400 days "indoors."
They've moved in another one of those fellows.
It's worse than the cloisters.
He wants his own drawer - and his own drawers!

That one sight of you, walking up Elm Hill...
I'm sorry I slashed so many soft toys.

Heather, save a tongue-dip of Rosehip for me.
I'll never forget that first time in bed together:

"bl-bla-bl-bla-bl-bla-bl..."

I felt so alive!

"eeeee-eee-ee-e-EH!"

"OH - JESUS CHRIST!"

HEATHER, CONTACT ME

Heather, please, please contact me. Phone me on my mobile or send a text - or, if you still have the key, drop off a message in our locker (from bottom left, 3 up, then 2 to the right) - or leave a letter in a plastic bag under Mrs. Sheringham's small angel garden statue (the one without wings)...

Failing all, please phone the Missing Persons Hotline (it worked for me - and is where I found myself - and staff know me well but don't mention me by name).

Darling, call 'home.'

The Carp Baiters' Shed

Dear Heather

I believe this hammer and saw, these nails and hooks, are yours,
Left behind in the Carp Baiters’ Shed,
Which I attend occasionally,
Courtesy of Mrs. Sheringham’s Z-bed
And know where the carpers leave the key.

What shall we make together?

I have staples, masking tape and gaffer.
We could make celebrity (now that
Janet Street Porter is entirely Janet), if not fame
Or a little pin money.

Shall we build a castle?
Shall we build a shit resistant canoe?
Shall we build an effigy of your mother and set her free
On a raft of old fish bait cartons?

Or could you please help me make
Efficient nose-pegs for my nights spent
In the stench of this shed (patent yours, of course)?

Mrs. Sheringham's Open Window

My Dear Sausage

I hope you are well and less circumnavigated than normal.

Heather, I understand I must use this term of address
As an endearment to highlight your social position
And the true nature of our relationship
As evidenced on a Radio Four sitcom
I heard through Mrs. Sheringham’s open window
As I crawled beneath it.

I could have used

My Dear Hock
My Dear Boiled Bacon
My Dear Little Cygnet
My Dear Goose Mouth

What do you think?

Oh Heather, My Sausage, I have the Blairs coming on
And am dizzy. Even the jugs of Doom Chaser
I down don’t lift me. Only you can

My Little Turtle Dove
My Parakeet
My Mum Magnet
My Tease Tom Boy
My Bury St Edmunds of Love

What Was That?

Heather

Could eat you, Sausage…

Vegetarianism now holds me back in this blood
Soup of love and warfare. I want to wear a veil
And live secretly in a tent in Mrs. Sheringham’s vast
Shrubbery, where I’ll fake furniture and the
Trappings of the Good Life as I trap rabbits
Just to get by.

Why won’t you reply?

All right, so the barbecue charcoal
Is cold tar and in my accommodation
With history I’m man enough
To leave you there, My Sausage.

I knew it would end like this: nothing
Shopping nothing
Sex nothing
Talking nothing
Your last text:

It is midnight and it is gently snowing nothing
But there is a hole in the clouds revealing nothing
And there’s a hole in the sky revealing nothing.

I dream of seeing the sparkling plough again.
I will be your ox and you can drive me hither
And thither, thither and hither into nothing.

Your ox or even your boar for the mincing.

My Little Sausage.

What was that?

Nothing.

Whatever Happened?

Dear Heather

Whatever happened to Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?
Whatever happened to the water?
Whatever happened to Walter?
Whatever happened to greengrocer's grass?
Did football steal it?
Whatever happened to those old jumpers?
Did Chelsea burn them?
Whatever happened to crazy golf?
Is it straightened out?
Whatever happened to skipping ropes?
Whatever happened to girdles?
Is it straightened out?
Whatever happened to what happened?

A strange thing happened to me on my way to the Post Office a few years ago: out of nowhere, Walter thrust a specimen of water into my hand.

Whatever's happened to the water? quizzed Walter.

It tastes of lemons. Delicious, I said.

But that is to disguise what has actually happened to the water, said Walter.

And I must say, there is a really strange after-taste to this poem.

Whatever happened to poems?
Is it straightened out?