selections from the portfolio

Möbius strip

We’re having some friends around for tea
I’m not sure whose friends she means
(Their certainly not mine)
But I’m handed a vacuum cleaner and duster
And bustled off upstairs like a naught schoolboy
With instructions clear the stairs and put
A new toilet roll under the toilet roll cosy
So our guests will be impressed

The house is home with the smell of roast
Filling the air as it wafts in from the kitchen
And I notice she’s making angel delight
Perhaps it’s intended to be ironic
Some kind of nostalgia trip for our guests
But looking down at the pink fluffy mixture
That has set to a level in the best Pyrex dishes
I find myself thinking back to a distant

Summer, when the ambulance was waiting
When I got home late from school
And I had to go and stay with our neighbour
Who let me watch anything I liked on TV.
That summer Dad had to do all the cooking
And we had angel delight for tea almost every
Night, and sometimes he’d be too tired,
And I’d be sent next door for casserole

Or pie and peas; It was all the same to me.
Finally one evening Gran came to stay,
Dad was away from home most nights it seemed,
And this old woman was brought to look after me,
But she didn’t know anything about little boys
And I kept wishing mum would come home
From that place, and although I enjoyed the presents,
I knew something was wrong by the way Dad

Would sometimes just sit and watch me eat
While his own plate remained empty.

PCW 2005

Breakfast Therapy

Saturday mornings were always the best
Fried egg sandwiches, bacon and black pudding
Sometimes a fried slice and beans on the side
Better than Prozac on those cold winter mornings

With the prospect of football that kept you clinging
To the sheets pleading for that extra ten minutes
A cure-all for hangovers, break ups and make ups
It seems everyone you meet has their preferences

For me it all comes down to the ketchup
The cheap stuff just won’t cut it in my book
And I don’t go in for brown unless I’m feeling exotic
Or I’ve been to the shops and forgot it

And even though you can now buy it in a can
Complete with little squares of soggy hash brown
Nothing can quite compare to the smell and the
Sound of bacon spitting and egg whites flapping

In the pan, or the simple pleasure of mopping up
The gravy with gluttonous, buttery love
The soul purpose for the thick end of the loaf
Nothing can touch you, nothing can invade this

Space of breakfast therapy, you even remembered
The recipe for once and managed to get the bacon
Just right and didn’t burn the beans, or burn yourself
And now, fat and happy you look across to the sink

Knowing it’s Saturday and the washing will keep
Until tomorrow when the milkman won’t wake you
And the children are sleeping sound in their beds
Dreaming of Frosties and chocolate spread sandwiches.

PCW 2005