A ghost of dust as the door opens.
Battalions of books in line abreast,
spines straight as ramrods,
tight and bright as a drummer’s cordings.
they gleam with polished leather and gold leaf
all noble , each one touts their title.
“Foreword “ they call to your eager ears and you will follow.
Wait.
Their turn will soon be gone.
Smell the ink, and glue, damp paper,
book dust coating every surface.
Explore the stacks for books
with broken backs,
the ones with scribbles in the margin,
edgeworn, scuffed and limp,
tea stained , missing pages,
dust jackets torn or ripped away.
All casualties of culture.
I taught myself to. read when I was five years old. I was in hospital at the time, recovering from an ear operation. In those days- sixty years ago-it was quite a major procedure, which meant that I was in a single room, with no-one to talk to. Even my parents weren’t allowed in the room. They had to stand outside and wave through the window.
After a couple of days the nurse came in with a pile of “Beano” comics.
“That should keep you busy,” she said.
Now I knew the letters of the alphabet, and I knew the sounds most of them made, but I hadn’t yet mastered the skill of putting them into words. But now, in the hospital room, I had the chance. I taught myself to read. By the time I came home I had worked my way through “Dandy” ” Beano” and a couple of Ladybird books. I was hooked.
After I’d ripped through Enid Blyton, I went on to “Biggles”- unlikely tales set in the First World War – I was beginning to get a feeling for structure now – how these simple stories were put together. I loved the way that stories can lift you out of yourself, open up a whole world, which might be real or a creation of the author.
When I was eleven I bought my first grown up book – it was ” The Ides of March” – a modern version of the murder of Julius Caesar, by Thornton Wilder -and that led me to Shakespeare ( my father had a big influence there) and then Dickens and then…and then..and I’m still going strong…
Except things are changing.
The first computer I ever bought was that chunky, solid little thing with a minute screen. I loved it – you could send email ( whatever happened to just mail ?) you could be in contact with everything everywhere. A great door on the world had swung wide open, and that other secret pleasure – adventures in your head- was less attractive than before.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that everyone put their books down as soon as the screen lit up. I’m saying that, although we have the world in our iPads, we have backed away from the magic which happens in that magic space between the page and the eye.
Let me know what you think….there maybe more to this than you might think…
Shifting light
luminous opaque
everything provisional-
the hills tentative
the valley bottoms
indistinct uncertain
still settling into shape
Then,immersed in sunlight,
the day develops,
fixes the eye.
Stone walls grow
a coat of green velvet;
purple moors shake themselves
into a quilt, and in the village
a church spire’s shadow points
the way to sunset and the west.
Over the seabass with capers and lemon (which is delicious). we talk about dying, and women.
“I’ll go in an instant,” he says, “Just like a snuffed candle. The doc says I’ve got a bad heart so the chances are good.”
“I shall die like a king,” I reply, with family round and a priest to say prayers. Death’s just a rumour. “ We’ll go on for years.”
And nobody mentions pain.
The waitress brings coffee- she’s slender and Polish with summer sky eyes and a devilish smile. He wants his strong, and I want mine stronger. We bicker like schoolboy and try to impress her. We’re clever, we’re witty. We’ve got bags of style.
First the nurse sends you to the GP who sends you to the consultant who sends you to the scanner technician who sends the picture to the consultant who calls you in to tell you
The day I met Mick Jagger
Yeh- I met him.Years ago now.
I was working at a motorway caff
and the lads come in -
Mick and Charlie, Ron and Bill
All gasping for a cuppa and a sarnie -
and we were really busy - run off our feet.
Nobody seemed to pay them no notice.
In the end I brought them a pile of butties
and mugs of char.
“ Brill !” said Mick, “At last !
I been watching the teas go by
and I’m parched !”
4 haiku
On the sullen lake
A single swan cups dawn
within its rustling wings
Schoolboy-smart, a fox
tastes the air, looks left, then right,
steps out across the road..
Robin hops, flashing
his bloody chest, cracks the air
with his morning song.
Egret
Like pages thrown away
Flickering in the reeds
white wings spread in sunlight
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