A big story about a small town
What was wrong with HER?
She was reminded of the day
after her son
had been born
sitting up in the bed
sunlight streaming through the window
her baby boy brought for feeding.
Birth and Death
the same consciousness
of heightened existence
the elevated importance
of that precious moment
when someone takes the first breath
when someone takes the last breath.
The familiar view
the tiny town
cupped in a hollow
the remains of the ancient abbey
and thin river
flowing around the edge
of the hill
and through it
straddled by a toy stone bridge.
The baby boy grew up
to be a lanky teenager
with pimples
and a taste for real love.
He dreamed of London
and of life
that mattered,
barely noticing
the oulook of asphalt
broken windows
and graffiti
through the dirty window
of his school bus.
The new cheap estate
with its maze of the concrete
and steel houses,
cracking and warping
swamped by the offsprings
of scroungers,
addicts
and mothers whose children
all been fathered by different men,
the place he met his first love.
Few smoking teenagers
loitering in the defaced bus shelter
daubed with obscenities.
The bus instead of stopping
speeded up,
they threw rocks after it
and laughed,
no school today for them.
"Look at them,"
the bus driver spatted angrily,
"Sitting at their assess and waiting for the council,
District and Parish to clean, repair, maintain
and give and give and give again."
The teenager looked behind
with an ache in his heart
and his balls
on the disappearing group
and the girl of his dreams
among them.
Then he turned back
to meet the eyes
of the disgusted
bus driver
in the rear-view mirror
and he hated,
the sly, quizical look
on his face,
pretending to know
more than others
pretending to be more
than others,
just like his parents,
just like the most inhabitants
of the old town,
they have been passing
right now.
The teenager watched the bus driver's eyes
shining suddenly
with a kind of moral radiance
bumping on its cobbled streets,
along its picturesque houses,
the hanging baskets in the square.
"Very little district's resources reach that poor estate,"
the teenager burst out suddenly.
"What did you say,"
the bus driver shouted back.
"Nothing," he just shook his head
thinking of his father,
boasting that money
signed to improve the estate's dilapidated streets
ended up in his private pocket.
The bus stopped again
to pick up more
privileged children
in the coveted blue and white uniforms.
He acknowledged them
by nodding his head
and gazing out of the window
thought about his parents,
strangers,
clothed,
always
in an invisible layer of decorum
that they never laid aside,
strangers,
connected to him
merely
by chance and proximity.
Silent Spring rain
sprinkled the oval
when he got out
and ran across it
to be
far away from
the St Thomas School
as possible.
Feeling shivery,
ruffled
and tense,
he experienced none
of the satisfaction
that was usually his
when he met his schoolmate
at the far end.
He swore out of the habbit
when his voice broke,
horrified and embarrassed
he turned away
his flushing face
and inhaled the offered smoke,
feeling the power of the drug
radiate out from his lungs,
unwinding and loosening him,
taking him away
from the rain,
the pettiness
and the sameness.
Anogher drag,
it was like having his mind shaken out
like a duvet,
so that it resettled without creases,
everything become suddenly
so smooth, simple, easy and good.
Love and Death,
dying in blazes of speed and glory,
his mind wondered
left to its own devices,
trying to die, risking it.
And music,
he loved music
and HER.
There was a hard chunk of grief
in his throat
and he couldn't shift it,
not even with the power of drugs.
