BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE WHIRLOWDALE

for JA

Peter's son is an eminent eye surgeon
who drives an Aston Martin. Peter is dead
and his house is for sale. I have only ever seen
the Aston Martin once. A taxi is parked
outside Peter's house. Gypsies have taken
lampstands and stud partition walls
out of Peter's house. Decent curtains
have gone up. Douglas says, looks like
we are getting more of our coloured brethren.
The woman from next door but two
who is older than she dresses;
I don't know how young she is,
trundles down, any news? Big Toj has reckoned
there must be a large family. Next door says,
as long as they don't play drums or build
an extension. They go back to their newspaper.
Last week we ate a disappointing Duchy Original
chicken and tarragon soup. Prince Charles.

THE NEW PLACE

for TH

The new place is still an unpacked pile
of boxes, crockery lying in wait
wrapped in newspaper, a brown file
of tenancy agreements and contracts
that are signed and dated. The white
walls are uncluttered by jam-sticky hands
or crayons that count the kids' heights
in months, January — March — December.
The year opens like a front door
to a garden of blossoming flowers,
the roses uncurling like cats,
blown dandelion clocks exploding the air,
filling the bedrooms with fairies.
Nell, bouncing on bedsprings, captures a wish.

THE OLD PLACE

for RM

I walked by the old place today
but couldn't see much from the front
past the overgrown privet that swamped
the bowed gate. Round the back
that Flymo we left in the outhouse
was buggered, the blade crusted with rust,
and those Qualcast hedge-trimmers
were entombed in cobwebs. That tree,
that threatened to pull down the wall
of the office that squared the back yard,
had withstood the knocks of the council
environmental department and flourished.
The lawn was a wild meadow of dandelions,
thrusting out cracked pots. The greenhouse
had collapsed to a pile of bent metal
and shattered glass. That wooden chair
was still sat where it sat before
and the fleece that got caught out
in the rain and was ruined still hung
across its shoulders. Not everything remained.
The neighbours had changed more than once,
judging by the addressees of debt notices
dumped in recycling bins. Placing back
pizza leaflets a child spooked me
staring through the letterbox. Two brown eyes
that watched me scarper down the jinnel.
A fat, haired hand in an upstairs window
let a curtain fall back shut.

SPACE INVADERS

for SM

The docile turds that curl from under skirting boards

at night, then labour round the carpets and laminate

like ponderous, fecal figure skaters, are pernicious,

though they seem dumb. I catch them by the fridge,

investigating seals with probing stalk-eyes, hunting

weaknesses in pizza boxes left in slime's reach.
Aliens, that come from Mars to drain the juices

of your fruit and veg, may slither by your genitals

as you sleep. You will know they've been by morning,

when a semen slick is pooled around your thigh

Their vapour trails that start and end at nothing are a threat:

you never saw me coming and will never see me leave.