Talking To Alan Bennett About Penguins

LIGHT FADES

‘Appen an axe may befall me
In ginnel or wintry wood
Should be of rust and oak;
A refined English death such as
The charge of the light brigade
Would not suit my constitution.

Bloomsbury bric-a-brac shrinks
Under an idle twilight,
The Stephen sisters sketched
Sipping tea, seemingly, from
Over the planet’s lip.
Bookshelves creak under passion.

Walls of the vase grow thin
White petals darkened by fetid water.
Above all else
Shit will always grow to surface.

Fussy BBC lady gabbing veganism
All isms, hereism and thereism,
Tediumism will be the
Slogan of my age.
I care little for consumerism.
 
Miss Maybrick at number seventy two
Leaflets street with typewritten postcards -
‘c’ has worn away, so today, we are ‘unts.’
Last week, storm strewn streets delivered
Eulogy to neighbours: ‘lueless fukers.’

The police will arrive no doubt,
But there will not be a siren -
Miss Maybrick yearns to hear sirens
Blaring just for her.
She will offer them
Tidy rows of biscuits.
They will refuse -
Not on duty.

She may aspire to be a critic,
Tina the dog has taken to
Barking at the television.
Soap operas ignite a growl
To be heard over the heath.

Been dreaming of Morecambe Bay
Black and white photographs
Hang from my pillows
And awaken me in a noosed sweat:
Mam folding picnic blanket
Strange sensation of sun on skin
Seagulls lurking as avarice snipers.
My diaries are becoming
Web of shifting sands.

A bucket has been a vessel
For horseshit or mangled mop –
They now talk of a bucket list!
To walk with Rupert along those sands
Once more,
One final artillery of memory mortars.

They are merely they
These folk who populate my pages.
And I?
Well, I am just an ordinary man.

FADE TO BLACK