Match-book Memories

Match-book memories

My granddad kept a large glass bowl of match-books;

He worked and travelled a lot, and liked to remember

Where he’d been, and so there are additions from

America, and Germany, and France, and Austria.

I added a few myself: From Russia, and Poland, and Croatia,

Though they were often snatched from Hotel lobbies,

Rather than bedside tables, which makes me sad.

I remember thinking about these match-books

On the day I went to Auschwitz; not nearly

As cold as everyone says it is. The renovation

Taking place on the prisoner’s quarters in camp

One broke me out of it, and I left feeling informed,

And slightly numb. The tour guide explained to us

A saying in German, meaning, ‘Hiding under the lamp’,

But I can’t remember why.

We soon moved on, and travelled south; enjoying

Summer in Vienna is a wonderful thing, and is

Good for the heart. I fell in love with Budapest,

we saw the palace lit up in midnight reverie. 

We found a water fountain playing classical music 

that stunned us a little.The

From Piltvice lakes, I took a drink straight from the

Stream, and found out what water really tastes like.

But after two weeks, I was thinking about Auschwitz,

And what a funny word it was to me, when I

Found myself shut up in a toilet, and the faces of

The prisoners rushed past me.

I suddenly knew what seven tonnes of hair

looked like; what 43,000 pairs of shoes looked like.

The tour-guide challenged us to find a 

survivor of three years, and none of us could.

When my granddad died, I went through those

Match-books, but I didn't find his memories there.

I wish I'd asked him to tell me 

what these little match-books meant

to him.

Spare Bytes

Spare bytes.

If her computer was a chest, she would have

Had an old collection wrapped in loving folds,

Collecting dust; locked away for good.

Little groups of letters, piles of words, some

Resting slack atop each other, some in comas

Some still clinging to the lid in pseudo-rigor-mortis.

I read them once; they were a pretty thing; they were

A pretty set of honest things, an insecure delight

In dancing feet and rhymes, all set in quatrains.

And just beneath the ink, beneath the paper folds, just past

The cold of envelopes there quivers a pulse.

Each byte still trembles with the impact of the keystrokes.

But no; we lost the key under the ground. The daisies

Cannot pick the lock, and it’s not rage we feel

But loss again. Her words are buried in her dreams.

Hubble

Hubble

A moment, made of colours, lain in front

Of us, can say a thousand words. But then,

Which words were said to us back then, back when

We first laid eyes upon the pillars of creation?

Articulate a formula and take

A breath; within, the truth is built from stones

Drawn from the mind, like love; our mental bones

Are shaking, hardened out against the ache.

To draw the night sky, threaded, through the eye

Of needles; just to sew with our own minds the time-

Line of the stars, OUR stars, to climb

Atop these pillars, gazing out – OUR open nation.

The antonym of Chaos is the Cosmos;

Let it in, let it in, let it in.

City Pocket

City pocket

Fredrich Kunath is running out of

World, but I’m resting from work

For a while, so I find my way to

St. James’ Square and ravel up a

Pinch of tobacco, hands trembling.

Behind me, work goes on, and builders

Grapple with drills: the sounds fall

Down from rooftops on all fours.

The sun is in mid-morning, and I

Leave the London Library (of which

I am a benign member) to walk

Around. I pass the Ritz, and the

Underground, and a tourist stops

Me and asks in broken English

Where the Palace is. His family stands

Behind him, bleary eyed and puzzled;

I point him away, and he walks away,

Brown hand pushing his cap out of

His eyes. The crowds are cold-blooded

Today, walking in the sunlight keeping

Pathways congested for a while.

At 11:55, I give up searching for

Nothing, and settle down at a little bench

In Green Park.  It’s a quiet space, where

London keeps its cars away, keeps the

Shadows of its buildings at bay.

It’s misty in the park today, and

Around me, people clutch their cameras

Taking pictures. I’m in one of those

Moods again; the ones where I get

In my car and drive around, wasting

Petrol on late night drop-ins to the

Mark Eaton Crematorium, to visit
My slate plaques. Will I run out of

World, like him? I stub my cigarette

And leave, swilling out of the park

And walking back to the Library.

They have some famous dead members:

George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, amongst

Others.

Running out of world seems fantastical

To me: I rather think he ran out of

Time.

This is a poem heavily influenced by Frank O'Hara's 'A Step Away From Them', my favourite poem ever written.