Material out of contract I can show you :
My poem 'What Might Be' was published last year in the Asnuntuck Community College, Connecticut, USA, 2023 issue, page 73
What
Might Be
We kept pebbles from that
hour:
when the world opened on
the chill beach,
and salt wind swirled seagulls’
cries.
You found one with patterned
cuts
half-hidden among the
shingling tide,
and pronounced it a
fossil.
No. It’s crystal, I explained,
a false fossil, minerals
in rock
whittled by the wind’s
wet knives.
To you it was a
fossil
because you believed. You asked if I
felt the signals from its
time.
My choice was a hard round
stone.
I asked you if a sphere so
perfect
protects something else inside.
Trust it, you said. Don’t
break in.
We can’t know beauty and
its secret.
Later, we swapped them,
surprised
at their warmth from our
pockets.
I keep yours next to my faithful
clock.
Sometimes, when the
angle’s right,
I see what we have given
each other: something that
lives beyond
my shelf, this room, our
time.
Stuart Larner
~~~~~new poems:
When I was young I had a make-believe brother. It was him who was responsible for drinking too much half-fermented ginger beer. Not me.
this is my latest poem in 'Deepoverstock' magazine.
New poem:
The Change Has Already
Begun
I dream
of danger, wake up in danger.
I
smile, though I know I should frown.
Strange
red clouds are patrolling the sky
And the
sun will no longer lie down.
Café
customers have taken first sips
of a
brew that’s becoming too strong.
The
morning trains are jammed to the doors,
and
the journeys are taking too long.
Children
in schools open books up anew,
but
all teaching has long since been done.
A
new kind of sports day is coming our way –
where
the race has already been won.
Media
swear truth on their bulletin hour,
yet
the news on the web has been spun.
I
look for a sign that something's to start,
but
the change has already begun.
Stuart Larner
First published by DODO modern poets.
For a video of me reading this go to:
https://dodovidpoets.blogspot.com/2022/06/virtual-dodo-9.html
I am the seventh entry on the July 2022 list, in edition DODO NINE
Allowed to dream
My mind a seed inside dark earth
I didn’t know was allowed to dream,
told none my dreams, so did not grow.
No self-belief. Wrong was my song.
When chanced to tell, my dreams came true
because I heard the truth in me.
I listened slow, not fast, to hear
of all the ways I was to grow.
Hope held my hand, drew me to rise.
Each day I dreamt I could grow more.
I found I’d cope through drought and flood,
if I just thought how much I’d gained.
And now I want to sprout and shout,
tell all flowers that we are free.
I dreamt of growth, and found in light
the world awaits, and dreams with me.
Stuart Larner
‘Allowed to dream’ was written after receiving inspiration from several sources. My ideas came from the Update on the Society’s ‘From poverty to flourishing’ campaign in the October 2020 Psychologist; the original article by Albert Bandura in Psychological Review 1977; the Martin Luther King Speech ‘I have a dream’ 1963; and Maya Angelou ‘Still I Rise’1978.
An Evening at
the Masked Ball
to read this prose poem go to:
~~~~~~~
Two
Meeters
After the Prime Minister’s broadcast
I became very fat.
I measured a metre more all round.
Going out, I wore
A giant ball of nothing.
The heaviest nothing I ever had.
I smiled with others, learning how
To manage awkward nothings,
Each keeping a metre to make two.
Though only our boundaries can meet
Nevertheless
Some part of us reaches through to the
heart.
Stuart
Larner
~~~~~~
Clap
for Carers
In
our hall we’d stored
Best
stuff to bang an honour with.
Pots
and pans, what we as parents
Had
used to feed our kids.
Dead
on eight
We
came outside
To
cheer and clap.
We
were the fireworks
Exploding
all at once.
The
sky clanked too,
Like
Someone
up there knew.
Stuart Larner
OTHER POEMS
*published in the Gazette and Herald
North Yorkshire Newspaper 13/2/19
The
Cinder Track*
I’m on my bike and cycling
right up the Cinder Track.
I’m pushing round the pedals.
Bright sun. No turning back.
I’m crushing under tyres
remains of history,
of cinders that were nuggets
once burnt by trains for me.
Chicaning through the ramblers
and steering round the bogs,
it’s afternoon to all
while minding out their dogs.
I’m steaming up and puffing
slow out of Staintondale,
through these ancient forests
along the Harwood Vale.
What people used for power
is now the ground for me,
and all their engines’ efforts
have set our county free.
Stuart
Larner
Map Reading
“This is where we started from,” you say.
A feeble line, on uncertain ground,
Wispy as your hair once on my coat.
“This is where we think we went,” you say.
A wavering contour took us round
And back – though no higher, yet so close.
“This is where we meet again,” you say.
Looking for pointers is how we found
Each other, when thinking we were lost.
Stuart Larner
first published Kansas City Voices (Volume 10),2012
Sunday, 19 July 2015
Visiting Time
‘LIFT CALL’ pressed, an arrow tings.
A patient on a trolley is manoeuvred out.
I step in. Doors slice me off from outside
as if they want to give me secret news.
Going up, but I’m weighed down.
Floors flash past the tiny window and ask:
How much of this might we find in you?
How much of this best not to know?
Is this my visiting time, or is time
visiting me? Perhaps the answer’s here
where the lift aligns the chosen floor,
and gravity slips off me like a coat.
Arrows lead me to your bed.
From some deeper level you stir.
Eyelids flicker, then fall back asleep:
Like a lift coming, but going past.
Stuart Larner
this poem first appeared in the anthology "A Pocketful of
Windows" edited by Felix Hodcroft, Valley Press 2014.
Saturday, 28 March 2015
When a Snowman Melts
You might think that when a snowman melts
someone has died.
But they haven’t.
Instead, someone has warmed and begun to flow,
said sorry for being such a frozen lump,
realised they are part of everything,
and started to cry.
Stuart Larner.
(first published in anthology "A Pocketful of Windows" ed Felix Hodcroft, Valley press 2014.
Monday, 29 December 2014
Twelfth Night - Decorations down
Here's a love poem about taking down the Christmas decorations. It was
published by the Huddersfield Examiner 06/01/2007.
Decorations
The season’s passed; the trimmings come to floor
From where I’d fixed them at your well-judged mark.
But your bright beauty won’t go back to store
Along with lights that flashed once in the dark.
Your beauty needs no extra signs for me;
No festive letters shouting out ‘Rejoice!’.
In each ball’s shining surface I still see
Your perfect face by any painter’s choice.
Unlike full-fruited Nature, bought and pinned
Through its stem to wall at trophy height,
Your beauty’s free – not bauble to be binned
Or boxed away in cupboards out of sight.
Now I will see in place of those things there
Not emptiness, but beauty all this year.
Stuart Larner
A Present from Scarborough
You went to the shops to get someone a present,
And wrapped it with the best glitter you could buy.
Now the time comes, you watch them open it.
And in this first moment, they stop, stock-still,
Sensing there is something else as well inside.
Something else they cannot see, hear, taste, or smell;
Something else they cannot wear or even touch.
Rather, it touches them.
Something else called love.
Stuart Larner
Scarborough Review, December 2013
On Scarborough Beach
Soft and mortal, yet creating
Fantastic shells to brave the forces,
Slowly they drag ashore from the sea.
Fantastic shells to brave the forces,
Slowly they drag ashore from the sea.
This is as far as the poets get.
For here, afraid of piercing beaks,
They close up into the sand, secreting
To themselves alone – their captive audience.
For here, afraid of piercing beaks,
They close up into the sand, secreting
To themselves alone – their captive audience.
Years pass, their bodies turn to sand.
Now just a resistant shell or two
Have withstood the sea for future mantelpieces.
Now just a resistant shell or two
Have withstood the sea for future mantelpieces.
Stuart Larner
The Skateboarders
With no more light than this
The monitors show the basement car park
Coming at the day’s end, padded for concrete,
Gliding with braced knees, left shoulder leading,
Shark’s fins circling in this half-lit world.
Sport absorbs their mischief
Statues of kings, they reign on boards
Toy soldiers with their own bit of earth
To stand on or be buried in.
Obstacles do not limit their realm-
They overcome what other minds devise.
Over white lines, down exit ramps,
They jump and land in complex stunts.
Their steady practice proves to them
Airs and ollies can turn the worlds about.
Stuart Larner
Previously
published on “Every Day Poets” website:
Believe
“Let us
hope.”
And as you
drive away
Your hand
waves like a bird that,
When its
cage is suddenly lifted,
Tries to
fly. My hand flutters too,
Even beyond
that far point where
You’re still
there, but cannot be seen.
Stuart
Larner
Saturday, 5 November 2011
My local newspaper runs an annual competition on Mothers' Day of children's drawings.
The youngest winners often have the most enlightening pictures.
“Draw Your Mummy”
All the mothers’
faces in the competition:
Hair combed or
coiffured, eyes full and kind,
White teeth exactly
stacked, neat-nosed.
Most sought true
likeness as the greatest truth.
Then a winner, by a
child so young
Pencil still
overwhelmed by passion,
Hardly recognisable
as a human face
The scribbling energy of love.
And all across the
top of its small page
In broad lines
flooding off either edge
Unending beyond imagining
A rainbow.
Stuart Larner
Saturday, 25 June 2011
LIfeboatmen say that the most difficult part of a rescue is not always
the horrendous perilous sea conditons, but the problem of trying to convince
the fearful victims to jump from their stricken craft onto the safety of the
lifeboat.
Life’s Boat
Once when my life did near submerge
They came to rescue me,
Called me to jump the crashing surge
To where I’d find safety.
To where I’d find safety.
At first I was afraid to make
That vault, so they did plead
“Your life comes from the leap you take!”
Thus I found truth in deed.
If problems since seem wide and deep
And can’t be solved by Man,
I think back to that wondrous leap
For now I know I can.
Stuart Larner
(first published Gazette and Herald 2008, reprinted in 'Patterns
of Hope' anthology and 'Scarborough Modern Sea Songs')
Wednesday, 19 December 2018
It was not until Francesca had brought the antique bowl back to her shop and inspected it beneath her lamp that she saw the crack.
She swore at herself. How could she, the owner of one of the premier antiques shops in town, have spent five hundred on such a bowl when its value was now probably a fraction of that? She noticed that the date marks on the bowl were letters, whereas they were usually coded dots for that period of Royal Worcester. Yet, the depiction of the apples, pears and plums was so lifelike that she could almost pick them from the bowl surface and eat them.
She knew that she should not sell it at a high price knowing it had a flaw. Later discovery by an expert would publicly taint her reputation as surely as the crack marred the bowl. Then she thought of her long-planned cruise holiday, and what might happen if she had insufficient funds to cover it when the time came.
She wondered how many of her customers would see the crack in her dimly-lit shop if she could barely see it. If a tourist whom she would never see again bought it, there might not be any comeback as it would have been offered on an as-found basis. She dared to put it in the window at eleven hundred.
Many passers-by stopped to gaze at it through the window, but none offered to buy it. In her mind each aborted purchase was a punishment for displaying it at such a high price, and each day that the bowl remained unsold in her window was a glaring reminder to her of her deception. Over the weeks she reluctantly reduced the price, and this lessened her guilt. Then, just as she was closing early one day, a distinguished-looking man in a suit and bowtie appeared.
go to http://bridgehousepublishing.blogspot.com/ to read other stories.
"Gliterary"
from Bridgehouse Publishing contains my story: "Pictures at an
Exhibition", about two children perilously trapped in pictures in
a five dimensional world, and the attempts by their mother and art gallery
attendant to rescue them.
Extract:
Pictures at an Exhibition
By
Stuart Larner
The crowd quietened.
“So here, ladies and gentlemen, you see
a line of ten large computer screens stretching down the hall.” The acne on the
art gallery attendant’s face made him appear young and immature despite the
dark square frame of his designer spectacles. “In each screen is a holographic reproduction
of one of the ten paintings by Hartmann, which the composer Mussorgsky used for
his piece ‘Pictures at an Exhibition.’ Please be careful not to cross the
wooden safety rail, as the hologram screens are highly charged.”
“Mummy, Mummy I can tell the time upside
down.” Thomas was swinging one-handed from the rail.
“No, you can’t, that’s silly.” said his
sister, Gabby.
“Yes, I can. It’s eight five.”
“You don’t tell it like that,” said
Gabby. “That’s silly. You say eight minutes past two. Have you been messing
with your watch? Mine says three minutes past two. Look.” Gabby held out her
wrist to reveal the cheap pink-strapped children’s watch.
“Calm down, you two,” said their mother,
Carmella, who was looking into the first screen in which a gnome walked up and
down a country lane. “Wow. Look at that gnome’s eyes, and he moves like he’s
alive.”
“Yes,” said the attendant. “That’s
right. All the characters are alive in their world of 5D technology. You have
the three dimensions of space, the fourth of movement in time, and the fifth of
solid reality.”
“So it’s like a
computer game?”
“Yes. Only real. Inside the
representation of the painting, the 5D means it can go on for infinity. Outside
it, the envelope of that world is compressed into just the thickness of a
modern monitor as you can see. There’s no glass front, though. It’s all held in
by an electromagnetic layer....”
His voice tailed off and Carmella turned
to follow his wide-eyed gaze as he looked past her.
“...Excuse me, madam, but will those
children stop climbing on the safety barrier? That’s very dangerous. It’s
highly charged and will draw them in if they get too near.”
“Don’t push me, Thomas!” yelled Gabby.
“I’m not. The computer’s pulling me in.”
“It’s
too strong! Mummy!”
Carmella watched in horror as the
children’s hands slipped off the rail. There was a large flash and an
explosion.
When her eyes had recovered from the
intense light, her children were no longer in the hall.
find out more here:
https://bridgehousepublishing.blogspot.co.uk/
Wednesday, 5 April 2017
see my latest story here at Every Day fiction.
Go to eighteenth century Vienna.
https://everydayfiction.com/there-all-the-time-by-stuart-larner/
Go to eighteenth century Vienna.
https://everydayfiction.com/there-all-the-time-by-stuart-larner/
Saturday, 15 March 2014
The Big Dream
for a detective story with a difference go to:
http://www.everydayfiction.com/the-big-dream-by-stuart-larner/
for a detective story with a difference go to:
http://www.everydayfiction.com/the-big-dream-by-stuart-larner/
My Bench
Not on the tarmac esplanade
Where the proudest benches tout.
Nor facing the rising or setting suns –
It needs no glory from light’s posturing.
Not varnished annually –
Its grain is weathered truth.
Overgrown, uncatalogued,
It hosts no remembrance spray,
Save the blossom fall
In sadness and in triumph.
Sit away from faster paths.
Under this unpruned bower
The world in shaded silence
Unfolds itself around you.
Stuart Larner
(republished from Every Day Poets)
Poem:
6th November
This morning my son and I
searched the lane for fallen rockets.
We found only one:
a charred remnant amongst sodden leaves
run over by a car.
'Obviously a dud,' I said, 'burnt out
before it had even reached those trees.'
'No Dad,' he said.
'This fell back to earth
after it had scorched the stars.'
Stuart Larner
(earlier version first published disguised in prose on the letters page
Scarborough Evening News , 10/11/08).
Monday, 3 October 2016
I found my old Teddy in a cupboard,
A cross stitched over where each eye once lay.
His mouth is sewn into a smile so broad
As though he’d still have soothing things to say.
His ear hangs off as if he’s strained so long
And worn it out listening all those years.
Time’s washed us both: I’ve grown, he’s shrunk, among
The tumble-turnings of my adult cares.
And worn it out listening all those years.
Time’s washed us both: I’ve grown, he’s shrunk, among
The tumble-turnings of my adult cares.
Feel his fur. Comforting is his soft art.
Still the same cuddly stuffing all way through.
Against my cheek I think I hear his heart.
You hold him. Listen. You might hear him too.
Still the same cuddly stuffing all way through.
Against my cheek I think I hear his heart.
You hold him. Listen. You might hear him too.
Stuart Larner
first published by Every Day Poets
Sunday, 25 September 2016
Walking the dog at night,
the realms of scent and sight
flow from this lamppost and your house.
There’s freshly-coded news to sniff,
and a curtain only partly-drawn
shows me your light-blue TV world.
Suddenly you look out –
we see each other
like photographers caught in each other’s picture.
A world opens on this moment,
so huge its power rushes down the leash and
tugs me to your door.
Stuart Larner
(first published Every Day Poets).
Sunday, 18 September 2016
The Five Course Reunion
i)
The melon crescents were served
Back to back like a frown.
When ours were collected afterwards
They had been turned over into a smile.
ii)
The soup darkens as we stir,
Reds and greens arise then sink.
The stop and go of us these years.
Boundaries split, natures mix. Catch
Them in our spoons, rediscover
The recipe for what we were.
iii)
Choose a wing with me.
If they are from the same bird
It will fly again .
iv)
Let's halve this Emmental, you said,
Though in our hands at first
The cheese knife curved away
Nervous at slicing so deep into
Fermented joys we'd sealed up tight.
But then we saw ourselves,
Heart valves, moon craters,
Half-formed question marks,
Caverns echoing our answer.
v)
After so long you`ve opened it again
To seek some biscuit bits,
Edges smoothed in the jostling jar.
Once fresh with flavour at first snap,
Now old and soft and taking on
The crumbs of ones they`re kept with.
Like you and me, a match can`t now exactly be
Rejoined at where it broke, the art is to agree
Two pieces can taste about the same.
Stuart Larner
Sunday, 4 September 2016
This poem, originally published on
Every Day Poets, takes its inspiration from a 1931 creative map (produced by
artist Edward Bawden) which now hangs in Scarborough Library.
Looking at a Print of Scarborough
This picture reminds me of the smell
of seaweed in cliff gardens at low tide,
when sunshine felt like a warm new suit all over,
and the open-top bus ride tousled our hair.
On the beach, eating ice creams,
we stared deep into donkeys’ eyes
to see their souls, sure they sensed ours
in the quiet tide beneath everything.
Lying on our stomachs, watching the sea,
I kept you safe like the castle keeps safe
its bay with rocky shoulder and encircling arm.
I touch the glass that separates the print from me.
There’s a slim airspace between today and yesterday.
I know I can always reach you there.
Stuart Larner
Tuesday, 9 August 2016
Pool Lifeguard
From my high chair I watch them
splash and kick, push and drift.
That’s how they measure progress
here.
A passer-by might often think
my life is sunshades and casual
cotton.
But swimmers know my legs
are bared for instant rescue.
My whistle halts their risky tricks:
I can save lives without moving,
but, surprised, they freeze as if I’d
killed them.
Stuart Larner
another poem reprinted from the
Every Day Poets website
Invitation to the Dance
Our words drown in disco sound.
All week this beat had leaked
from loose earphones on rush-hour trains.
Tonight you fluoresce. In strobing light I see
parts of your self you’ve brought from home:
keepsakes from the past,
keys to the present,
charms for the future.
All piled here between us.
May I dance with you round the bag?
Stuart Larner
Wednesday, 20 July 2016
‘Next to my barber’s, was there a matchbox seller’s?’
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘That was the
tripe-dresser’s.
The other side sold extreme umbrellas,
Two doors down from the
laundry-presser’s.’
‘But wasn’t my short-back-and-sider’s once there,
Amongst that row that has been pulled down?’
‘Not quite,’ she said. ‘It was ladies
underwear –
This barber’s of yours was in another
town.
Remember where you bought the sugar
cutters?
That roof’s come down, the shop’s in
wrecks.
Superstore now, once a fruit and
nutter’s,
Whilst ladies’ and gents’ turned to
unisex.’
So I won’t worry over what’s lost and gone
When I’m not sure what was there on day one.
Stuart Larner
previously published on Every Day Poets
Courtship by an Equilibrist
Is your
love life sometimes like walking a tightrope stretched out in public view?
poem
published by Every day poets in 2013
Courtship by an
Equilibrist
A
secret street performer,
Without
coin-inviting cap or sign.
You
can’t see me. You don’t know yet
That
I’m here, the balancer in your life.
Zephyr
amongst the crowd, I launch
Soap
bubbles which float unseen
To
pop their good luck on you.
Did
you feel that touch on your arm?
When
all your traffic lights were green
And
your phone calls went through –
That
was due to my juggling with
The
junction boxes of your days.
Soon
you’ll spot me in your thoughts:
No
longer an act, I’ll be risking it all.
There’s
danger in the next steps on the line.
Hold
tight that line. Don’t let me fall.
Stuart
Larner
Wednesday, 9 December 2015
The storyteller recounts the titanic struggle between arch enemies Fred Glover and John Loggarforth in a "Call My Bluff" pub quiz. A thrilling tale of psychological insight.
read my story in
"Making Waves"
2015 anthology by
Scarborough Writers Circle.
A compendium of fiction, flash fiction, and poetry from the members.
Diaoraphragm
Let’s sit here in the corner, out of
the way of the darts board. I like a nice log fire in a pub, don’t you? Faint
smell of smoke, like campfires of the past. Feel the warmth on you on a winter’s
night like this. Dark beer with bitter hops. Cheers. Ah, that hits the spot.
Beautiful.
So, you’re writing an obituary on
Fred Glover for the paper, and you want a personal angle. What can I tell you
about him? I suppose you’ve got all that stuff about him being a champion
fell-runner, his services to charity, and his medal? That’s why it came as a
shock to us all. Fit bloke like that. Sudden, just as he was breasting the
tape. Makes you think.
Fred was a freelance survival expert,
trained in the army. He had appeared on TV a few times. Shaven-headed,
extremely fit. Forty-eight years old. He was away for long periods leading
training courses, and his motto was ‘Always to the end.’
I went out for a short walk in the
country with him once, just from one pub down to the next. By goodness, he had
a fast stride on him. After only a dozen yards, I was struggling to keep up. He
said, ‘There’s probably a mountain rescue jeep round this bend that can give
you a lift.’
I thought he was joking. I asked him
how he knew, and whether it was a usual parking space for them.
‘No. Something’s just run over a
rabbit round there and it’s probably the rescue jeep.’
I was amazed. How did he know
there was a dead rabbit round a bend a hundred yards away out of sight? Had he
been there earlier this morning?
..........................................
read the whole of my story in
"Making Waves"
2015 anthology by
Scarborough Writers Circle.
A compendium of fiction, flash fiction, and poetry from the members.
"Making Waves"
2015 anthology by
Scarborough Writers Circle.
A compendium of fiction, flash fiction, and poetry from the members.
Friday, 4 April 2014
You gave me a lift to the station
With just minutes on the railway clock.
You stopped with a flourish in the car park.
Our life is a roundabout.
Your name I said leaving the front seat
As we came to our usual fork.
Your smile was in the takeaway coffee
I drank slowly, all the way, to York.
Stuart Larner
Saturday, 9 November 2013
Poem about the war
memorial in the parkland on top of the hill overlooking Scarborough
The Seasons at Oliver’s Mount
The Seasons at Oliver’s Mount
In winter, the referees’ whistles fill the field.
In spring, the birds’ songs fill the air among the trees.
In summer, the bikers’ drone fills the suburb below.
In autumn, the reading of memorial names fills the spirit
As it soars right out across the bay.
Stuart Larner
(published in Scarborough Review November 2013)
Tuesday, 24 September 2013
I was helping out with some DIY work
on a house in this part of Scarborough and was impressed by the friendliness of
the people and the general environment around the cemetery.
At the Door
Dean and Manor Roads carry stories
from the town’s grey streets, names, numbered doors,
thresholds where you linger with polite hellos.
Inside the cemetery, green paths lead
to rows of slab gravestones,
doors to some other space.
And the old fading ones, difficult to read,
hold you longest there as if they, most of all,
had not quite finished saying goodbye.
Stuart Larner
(first published in Scarborough Review, September 2013)
(first published in Scarborough Review, September 2013)
Sunday, 7 April 2013
Is it possible to write a poem on
anything?
One day I closed my eyes, and challenged myself to write a poem on the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes again. Since I was sitting at my desk at the time, the thing I saw was a cellotape dispenser.
One day I closed my eyes, and challenged myself to write a poem on the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes again. Since I was sitting at my desk at the time, the thing I saw was a cellotape dispenser.
The Cellotape Dispenser
Clung to its roll cellotape hides, clever,
Clearly eluding the keenest nail and eyes
That search its circumference for ever
Tensely hunting the slightest nick to prise.
Like cellotape we hide the tortured end
Of life’s crude tears and long twisting stresses
And when we are called upon again some part to mend
Our strengths tangle into weaknesses.
But the dispenser, a friend of measure,
Will keep an outstretched hand so clear and free.
The cutter zips. The bond grows with pressure
And clearly through it all we learn to see
How with simple help at various lengths
From weaknesses can come our greatest strengths.
Stuart Larner
Grandfather’s bullet
Inside the small gift box
A twisted nail of lead,
A claw shed from Vimy Ridge.
The field surgeon’s letter hoped
That to extract and send it home
Might undo Time and
Close things whole again.
Gran kept this final link.
His body, laid in honoured line,
Now part of the earth they’d won.
The bullet, laid on cotton wool,
A dormant seed.
Stuart Larner
The Scaffolders
When they start the scaffolders
surprise you,
Tensing their rods against who
you are,
Bolting an answer against your
question
With poles and planks and
anchored struts,
Chisels, hammers and hard red
hats.
You never thought you needed
this.
You didn’t know it was your turn
next -
That your place so high would be
reached.
Up there it’s the same cement as
us:
Our dust down here was once high
mortar.
Weeks later, from evolution’s
frame
They remove their magician’s curtain.
We compare with others in the
crumbling street
The masterly neat brickwork, now
out of phase,
Aged too early, returned to youth
too late.
Stuart Larner
You tell me you have seen my tiger
You tell me you have seen my
tiger
Watching you from my thorny woods
of thought.
It growled white fear and amber
danger.
But - splashed by tears which I
dismissed as rain -
It ran, sensing it had been
discovered.
Last night you told me you heard
it purring –
Or was it a slow breathing in our
blood,
Camouflage we had become? This
morning
You say it patted you with
playful paws
Then crept away, its tail curled
low
Trailing like the mark of a
question
We never had got round to asking.
Stuart Larner
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