Maria

But when I go to pay the fine

surprise, surprise, there’s no waiting game.

Someone picks up straight away.

The voice is chirpy like a canary.

It’s like a change swept through the place

I tell the lady.

I tell Maria.

She even has a name.

People always quick to take your money, I say.

She even chuckles.

I don’t know if it’s put on or genuine

You take what you can get.

The lines to the other sections I say, the ones

asking for extensions, leniency,

were always clogged with callers

And when you finally got through

a graveyard voice answered. like Lurch from ‘The Adams Family’.

She chuckles again.

She brings out my inner stand-up.

But your line, I say,  lit up like a Xmas tree.

She glows,  gives me the receipt number.

She’s still chirpy, wishing me a good weekend.

I feel light as a glider. The fine is off my chest.

 

 

wash yr mind out with soap

I like to comb my hair before I go to bed in case I meet my Maker.

I put on clean underwear before I go out in case I get hit by a truck or tram and end up in hospital. You want to look yr best.

Mum taught me these things.

Always repent to God yr sins before you go to sleep. Whiteness of soul is as important as whiteness of underwear.

An idle mind is the devil’s workshop, mum emphasised. She needn’t have worried. My mind was always busy.

But if she knew what I was thinking she would have washed my dirty little teenage mind out with soap.

 

 

A Petulance of Poets*

Not a flock of seagulls

Nor a murder of crows

But a petulance of poets

Gathered in the conference room

Of the public library

Each champing at the bit

For their turn to read

Not really listening

to others

But when their turn comes,

Oh the words, the words,

Such melody, such sweetness, such wit.

Was ever anything ….

Barely noticing that many who had already read

Had gone home or hit the bar

down the street.

They rattle on regardless.

Where’s the stage manager when you need him?

 

 

* ‘They never listened to one another; they were preoccupied with waiting for their turn’ [Jean Stafford: ‘An Influx of Poets’]