Lucky Dip

Shy like a bright whisper she rearranges her mind in neatness
And humbles herself in oblivion,
Sliding her questions like a knife round her children
Who spark up and hasten,
Called to the door
And the meddle of her hands as she stops them,
Just so,
All bright-faced and spoony, ready for the world.

I spy my little smile out of the window
And watch them troop to the beam of their house and the dark warmth within,
Easy souls in recline, the clatter of pots,
Heavy snores, a sewing machine's chatter,
As wriggles and noise threaten to peep around the doors,
Three generations living in chaos ..

Whilst out on the streets young girls call in mock whispers and giggles,
Scampering down dark alleyways,
Wrestling with their minds as trikes and bikes crash and carumba! and a wind blows,
Fitfully stirring up dust
To a tune of bricks and cars and a Ho! shouted by a Dad, calling in his minions,
Who scarper in a flurry of garden-ready hidings whilst disconsolate, hands on hips,
He stares his road-end glares
Before returning to the dodgy gang swarthily chewing on a scrap-heap carcase;

And in the park where nobody sings
A few slouch slack-jaws peck at the swings with matches
And easy masturbation, conflagration in the ruin of seats
And the empty shells of buildings boarded up,
No-eyes, no brains, no speech,
Just the deadly dull destruction of a wanton clique ..

Meanwhile, a few soft streets away,
Hovering brides-to-be rehearse their splendours, eyes on neighbours,
Shimmering rectitude trying out their looks, miss-Perfections training for the world ..


As the shopkeeper in his magic palace
Clicks to the cling of a bell with a look-up
And a 'Yes sir!' that weighs in a glance but says nowt,
Paused in a fraction for a possibility that isn't,
His stilled hands held in a moment of enduring expectation
As he blinks his eyes in a fidget and stares crossly through air and grime to the grim road
Whose shoulder intrudes into the breath of his shop
With noise and clacks and the dumb wail of a car winding down
And deposits travellers - like myself - all freshed-up and excited,
Mussed up and cussed, looking for ha'pence worth of gewgaws
In this treasure-island of mysterious darkness
Whose fresh odours of burnt spice, cumin, cinnamon and ginger
Weave a spell of desire through the grand flowering of the produce
Stashed and stacked and uppity-racked in staggering cradles of cornucopia
Overflowing with variation in a sweet smell of cardboard boxes, melons, scattered rice,
Bananas, tropical islands and Asian fruited summers..

Later, as dark draws down the heat,
Sinister feelings thread their way through Nervous Street,
Where easy-strollers shoot laughs, toss and curse - we do not meet -
On their way to Jack-a-knave gatherings, crushed glass, boots, a light,
Weak features sketched by amateur hands, with dog-howl eyes, fast breath, thin teeth,
Crazies twitching their crimes away in sheer disbelief, all wrapped up in hyperbole,
What glee!

They part their separate ways,
Drifting in twos and threes on fag-end patrol,
With mutters, stamped feet,
A slipped something,
The adult greetings of a band of thieving Toms viciously strong
In juxtaposed splendour as their weak see-nothing Mums
And half-crooked Dads with shag-a-long smiles box in their thoughts
Behind a façade of T.V,
Pretending ignorance of that knock on the door,
No fault theirs their son is wrong
As a helicopter clatters overhead
And a distant wail brings in the police,
Joining in a song of destruction...

And yet –
At school next day this world is forgotten
As Mums in cliques
Raise shrieks
Tap hands on cheeks,
Or mutter darkly in twos or threes
On yesterday´s gossip
As the bored caretaker looks on,
Waiting for a streaming line of children
To emerge expectant, wide-eyed, tired,
Bad-tempered to a frazzle, over-hot,
Ready to flop,
Swept into their mother's arms and the chaos of the milling, spilling, giggling
Swirl of bumping, demanding, squashed-kid thumping bodies on the homeward turn
That pours out of the gates and past the ice-cream van
And dissipates into the streets of Tipley:

And this is where I live , with the motorway thundering by,
A park that nobody uses,
Litter on the streets,
Kids, noise, grime and pollution,
Roads jumbled together,
Shops that struggle to stay open,
Chatter and neighbour-gossip,
Dumb doings and the doings of the dumb,
Crime, filth, love and complications,
Telephone assignations,
The lives of the needy, the speedy, the greedy
Breaking, taking, making,
A confusion of turmoil,
Interaction, isolation,
Organic organisation,
Life in all its muddle, meddle, muddling on -
Home.