Back at Cranfield Street by 5
Motorway horridness receding into fumey oblivion
We are just in time for Pointless – words ending in ‘air’
‘debonair’ ? – others, phoned at random, knew that one

Two pounds fifty left on my Oyster card once I’ve put it through the barrier at
the delicate, high-slung, white and black, wooden pedestrian bridge over the
Brockley line
all along the route is densely wooded with lanky elder saplings
dock and nettles, layers of green petticoats below the asphalt belt

Wendy’s raspberries are flourishing in her damp back garden
I only notice the hundreds of orb spiders strung on webs between the bushes
when I come eye to eye with one as I bend to gather fruit

Brockley Market turns two on Saturday: I’ll be there.

travel the best excuse to scavenge: any find might be a clue
to the answer you’ve been seeking

I’ve picked up a copy of Worzel Gummidge
           ‘Do tell us how you came alive?’
           ‘... so far as I can mind, it all started with a itching in the head,
           when the turnip began to sprout.’

Three Oxford Children’s Modern Classic authors
ring bells, from the list inside Worzel’s cover
Rosemary Sutcliff, Philippa Pearce, Astrid Lindgren

I know the TV Gummidge, not the book
or its author, Barbara Euphan Todd
who ‘started writing when she was eight’, the little swot

the written story’s charm eludes me
a grim, mirthless tale of mud, muddle and mayhem

           Why do I love England? And yet I do.

Fed Wendy’s cat, walked to Broadway
Market through London Fields

a month from now these will be
once again names to conjure with

jump on a 236
Newington Green
lured by the memory
of Belle Epoque patisserie
glowing golden in a corner

always misremembered

as Raisin D’Etre

My fellow-travellers clearly
locals despite farflung origins
even on my ninth visit
I’m a day-lily among annuals

When I’m seated at my table
the escargot pastry is perfect
the coffee not

c’est la vie

From Wendy’s bookshelf
I’ve taken Death of a Ghost
Margery Allingham
best-loved Dame of Crime

died a year younger
than my present age

so many books!
beneath an unflattering
photo, her Green Penguin blurb
‘In my family, it would have
seemed strange not to write’

yet I know no other Allingham

my internal satnav (not the Epoque
vendeuse’s doubtful directions) tells me

Church Street is nearby
Abney Park cemetery therefore
in walking distance, a favorite for

the unchecked frivolity
of its riot of nameless
creepers and saplings

gobbling tumbled memorials
rampaging madly on

my lately-penned Will specifies
eco-burial, probably in a polite park

better this rampant decay under
thrusting, immodest new growth
the Victorian way

en route to last things, I detour
via penultimate ones

a light-filled ex-factory
scuffed wooden floors
raised platform at the back
sparse, select items dangling at intervals
and in the wide window

a light-as-air linen swingcoat
faintest oyster blue-grey
made for a small man my size
not too many pounds asked,

enthuse with the attendant
who seems as charmed as I
by the garment, as perhaps she is
leave empty-handed

In the cemetery I peer through a screen of oak leaves
squint at the flat Yuri had, with Teresa the mad landlady
a few years back, overlooking this tangle of rubble
deepest green shade

the passage of years
sickeningly vertiginous
when it’s your childrens’ years
you’re reckoning, let alone
amongst tombstones

outside Epoque earlier,
two girl cyclists hugged goodbye

stalwart in Birkenstocks,
tortoise-shelled by Freitag backpacks
full of calm and poise
grounded as I wasn’t

I thought of my reading at their age
how I longed for each new
Drabble, bound to be bursting
with important

tips for living my modern life

all forgotten

Margaret is coming
to Writers Week, I’m reading
her new books, elderly heroes
all passion spent

Margery’s spectral tale from 1934,
in my backpack, is a painter’s story
Lafcardio, RA
Royal Academician

my ghosts today are clamorous
not unfriendly

banded bumble bees already at work
by 6 am in the rosemary

slaters still hovercrafting over the bathroom floor
not realising the sun’s up

not a shrug of wind in the garden
the surface of the sea
taut-stretched grey marle

yesterday, the pair of sea eagles
flew above the car, keeping pace
for a bit as I drove

an escort of black-and-whites
on your way, ma’am
nothing to see here

a tablescape

drooping roses near death in a jam jar
dull Ian Rankin in a yellow cover lying upside down
Mongolian phrasebook
sample tube of Sensodyne
Cinema ticket: The Great Beauty
opener for the Italian Film Festival
password to Smartygrants
for accessing two hundred applications
business card for Phnom Penh silver and gemstone jeweller
a blue and a black biro
invitation to popup arthouse fundraiser at Goodwood School
receipt for Geranium Leaf Aēsop cleanser
Yuri’s business card at the Apple Store
with the bitten silver apple on gloss white
white enamel teapot with red-rimmed lid
remote control for Smart TV
another Scottish crimemeister, Stuart McBride
Close to the Bone, his back to me
at the far end of the table
notebook
this pen