Michael Lasky and Dean Parkin
‘Good-morn-ing-mr-park-in’
One of us sing songs like we did back at school when the teacher arrives into the classroom.
We’re off
We’ve got a new student with us, nicknamed Fogel (some connection to Muppets in the 80’s which I’ve missed over time). He has coloured hair and works in Beech House old peoples home – both uncommon things)
Not me
I received a letter today, opened it half distracted
as a check list of the day accumlates in my mind,
‘Your pension had accrued to a substantial value,’
the letter read, ‘It would more than cover the university
education of my 4 sons. Did I want to consider
investing in commodities, considering the current
low interest rates?’ It took what seemed like ages
and another reading entering into the possibility
before I saw at the top
it was not my name
but anothers.
And in that moment of potential possibility –
that I could be one who had paid into a pension
and be a mother of four sons –
that I wondered if all of Brexit
had been sent to the wrong address
and we were still European
But I didn’t think i’d opt for commodities.
(John’s photograph was of him as a pole vaulter, which of course, had us all in stitches with him)
10 word love stories
The dog, leg cocked, said I can multi task: throw stick
Michael: Breaking the chocolate, he gave her the slightly larger piece
Dean: Your towel fell to the floor, but sadly from the radiator.
Herring festival poetry
Klondyke: Klondyking as a term of marketing pelagic (fish feeding of surface water food eg herring and makeral rather than bottom feediing fish) derives from a pre 1939 war practice of packing herring in a mixture of ice and salt in wooden boxes, loading them on coastal merchant vessels (usually foreign) and despatching them as quickly as possible to a Continuental port (usually Hamburg) for sale as fresh herring to the Continental markets. http://www.seafish.org/media/Publications/IR1272.pdf
The Herring Packers
Packed in
Bellies up
Heads to out
Tails to in
Rough salt
New tier
Heads, tails
salt, smell, oil
packed in
Seagulls souls
Packed in
Barrel filled
Seagulls cry
Start again
Because you haven’t praised anything in months
Because you haven’t praised anything in months,
Starved of self perpetuating food
Desirous of your attention
Needing your strong scaffold
to hang my undies on,
I looked out
And saw your harsh east wind critic
and wheeled it in with my tickle and socialist sickle
(Tom – When I am gone, had me in tears)
Coppice
That time of year arrives now
To coppice hazel: the cycle returns
to harvest what has grown up since
you last cut, however many years ago that was.
Remember then, before
the body changes, the friends who walked with you then
gone now, the violent storms, the new genetics
the wars in distant lands
The rough sawn wound around the stool, all healed over now
and fresh stems now wooded up,
the magic of photosynthesis
without you having to do anything
but live your life around it,
The Exchange
As I walked out reluctantly, despondently
smarting from a fresh rejection,
I came to the water seller under the Banyan tree
who i’d passed each day
His face and eyes lit up, anticipating our daily dance
Ake bottle pani, sung to the tune of Pardesi
Looking forward to our daily dance
Perhaps he was short sighted so did not absorb my mirror
because at that moment I felt how fragile and thin skinned
was that deep sadness, that I could caste off that dark cloak
and be another. It was just a moment, to turn that corner
so I danced.
Kalikellett 