Incident on a Holiday

The cat between the tables is not worth attention,
But the most of us is closed in plastic now,
Magnetic so we stick to their powerful fingers.
I have to swipe to be a citizen.
I have to stand still while they target me.

Though one night on a coast of this vast and
Increasing inattention, a disco selling
Illusions to themselves for a sizable profit
Goes up in flames in the small hours
- A blaze of interest on the coast opposite.

In this hinterland, however, no one explains it,
Not even the backstreet barber, the big
Conspiracy theorist, who avoids my eyes
In his pocked mirror; or the extrovert licensee
Working faster but very quietly, mopping his bar;

Not even the check-out girl taking one by one
The grapefruit rolled down in a ritual
To break the boredom of her dreadful day
And start her chatting – she doesn’t as much as smile
When I ask her, ‘Who would trash a lovely disco?’

- And claim the insurance on all the pretty dreams?
What sort of destructive decency? There was
No cc-tv watching, no bar code beeped
When some unpoliced fingers scratched the match into flame.
And now there is a gap in the esplanade…

Though otherwise things go on pretty much the same:
The barber thanks me and tells me to Take Care,
The licensee puts my drink down – ‘There you go!’ -
The waters eject our pollution onto our shores,
And the cat, without e-mail, susses the customers

In the Sea Caf

From his Childhood

Rain, said Nanny, Rain is to test our courage,
Dirt is to test our cleanliness,
Hunger our patience,
And night is to test our fear of darkness.
But rain is to test our courage.

That was because it rained all the time very hard
where we lived as children,
In the house with the nineteen rooms of forbidden books
(To test how we could conquer the thirst to read)
And a few permitted books in the sitting rooms,
But Nanny in a book-lined room we might never enter,
In a turret above the lawn where the croquet hoops
Were feet deep in water for very much of the time.

But Courage, said Nanny, wellingtons on,
Backs up, chins up, and best foot forward
In a long line, holding tightly on to each other
- Out!

So the small but courageous band of us
Paddled hand-in-hand onwards,
Nanny first, me second,
Then the third and fourth, diminishing in size
To the very smallest who came infallibly last,
Head just above water.

And as we sadly struggled, the small cold hand
Of my youngest brother
Slipped out of the grasp of the one next above him in age.
And when that next one tired, her hand
Released the fingers of the sibling senior to her,
And the line fell gradually apart,
Leaving me
Waving frantically after Nanny, who was far ahead
And had almost disappeared.

But Courage!

The call of Nanny rang distantly over
The widening waters in the dark,
And returned in echoes from the other shore.
The waterfowl answered in imitation and unison
To comfort each other

And Nanny’s cry merged into theirs,
Growing fainter and fainter in the rain until
It became at last an everyday sound you hear
And think little about for very much of the time.

From ‘The Automatic Days’

The music stops in mid-bar on the PA,
So all the customers realise there was music
And wonder what comes now. ‘Will Mrs Gurnard
Come to the Manager’s ofice, will Mrs Gurnard
Come to the Manager’s office. Thank you.’ Click,
And the music starts again. Therefore she swivels
Round to tell Tamsin to stay with the cashdesk,
And strides off smiling down a glade of coats
To do the thing for which she has been thanked.
The customers themselves feel thanked for suffering
A remission of the music which they hardly
Knew they were hearing. Tomorrow is the Sale.

She smiles at the girl on the cosmetics,
Penned in among the scents and paints and creams,
Who returns her a tanned and haggard look
Expensively reproaching anyone
Who passes, and will not be beautiful.
She smiles through the cafeteria swing doors,
And she smiles at Trevor with his agreements,
Imprisoned by some thrity capering screens.
At any second, somewhere in the world,
You can push flat a square button and get the sound
Of an audience screaming with happiness.
She pushes the bell for the Manager’s happy smile.

Next day she wears a square blue disc which says:
MARY GURNARD
ASSISTANT MANAGERESS
A few inquisitive customers contrive
To read it, then look up and fit the name
To the face, or vice versa. More customers
Interrupt what she’s doing with enquires;
It must be the disc, or something in the way
She stands, or gives instructions to younger people,
Or just seems older…Beverley’s little disc
Says only BEVERLEY, Tamsin’s TAMSIN.
Mrs Gurnard now walks faster everywhere,
Effect of being promoted to be old.

From now on she is one of eleven ‘A.M.s’,
Men and women; and nearly all the time
The shop is in focus for her. But customers
Are a problem, or watching them is; one of
Her big responsibilities the moment
She enters. Being a customer herself
Does not feel natural any more, you go
To other shops, and watch; or wonder who
Is customer and who Security.
Some of the staff are Sucurity as well.
Beverley has a dream that, except for her,
All customers and staff are Security.