The Secret Life of Clothes

In restaurants stockings slyly gossip

Delicately whispering as legs uncross

Shamelessly flirting under the tables

With trousers bearing designer labels.

Socks unassuming in everyday life

Madly swop partners when put in drawers

Red with blue, strips with spots

Changing round again after every wash

And though you won’t see them

Swinging from chandeliers they still contrive

In hosiery harlotry to spend their lives.

Zips on the other hand are surprisingly prudish.

Less often up than down, open than shut

Distaining the more mischievous buttons

Coming undone with indecorous pops.

Then there are the skirts – universally loved

Even by the trousers – each leg sniffily

says ‘impractical!’. But they’re just jealous…

And dream twin dreams of swirling

Like dancers round knees and thighs

Caught in continual waltz of motion

Finally beautiful in other clothes eyes.

The Number of the Beast

Background info: 666 is generally accepted as the mystical ‘Number of the beast’ described by John in Revelations.

So it comes to this. A short shot of lead that the mind slows

but not until after the impact. Then it is forever rushing towards you

deflected by a word you don’t know, a decision you can’t make.

I have a dream most nights where the house is on fire, someone lies dying.

I have the phone in my hand but the numbers are unclear,

thumb fumbles the sequence ‘999’

the number of the beast inverted; that locks the beast away,

extinguishes the fire, ceases the flow of blood.

Or I dial but when they answer I am tongue struck

Paralysed, the fire coming nearer, the wound a bloody river.

I wake with a start, check that you are safe.

My breath is returned to me intact, unshattered.

(The cracks on the ceiling reassure me of reality.)

Leaves

Someone’s rubbish

bag is heaved up

onto the dust cart

with casual force,

hitting the side and

spilling gold brown

leaves through the wind

The dustman whistles.

I am still there an hour later

watching the leaves

rise and fall in the air

with every breath,

each one bringing

greater certainty

or uncertainty

That the next one

must be the one

that will bring you

back home.

The Snow

There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.- Louis Macneice

The snow is mute,

breathing white silence.

You lie sprawled by the fire,

Drowsy as a wilted rose,

a red kimono in folds around you ,

arms flung out like petals.

Kisses fall, hot flakes.

There is more than glass between us and the snow.

The Fox

This poem uses the same words in all three verses, just mixed round in different orders:

A fox stops pricks his ears

Paw outstretched pointing sharply

Like a hand-shake.

He turns his head

A fox pricks his ears

Sharply turns, a paw outstretched

Pointing hand–like.

His head shakes. He stops.

A fox pricks his paw,

Sharply stops; Ears shake.

He turns. His pointing head

Stretched out like a hand.