Dad

 Dad had four brothers

Two were dead

Peter David and Peter George

Scrolls on the wall shorten their names to Pte

And say Peace and Freedom and King and Country

 

After work Dad carries his bike up the staircase

Parks it on the landing under the scrolls of the Peters

Cuts the handlebars with a hacksaw

To keep it narrow so we can squeeze past

And he can get through the traffic

 

The main road shakes beneath lorries and buses

Frosted glass in the front door buzzes

Stink of floor polish and damp old mats

To left and right every species of mobility

In perpetual commotion

 

We make a noise with meccano on the floor

Mrs Downstairs launches the wrong end of a broom into orbit

Complains to Mum about her nerves

When she goes out shopping we laugh and run

And Mum smiles and stamps her feet

 

In our beds at night we talk and listen

And blindly guess the passing traffic

Fords are easy and Beezer bikes and motor scooters

Brakes bells horns and hooters

Bedford lorries and the whip-whining trolleybuses

 

Passers-by laugh and shout about the film at the Gaumont

Or cry and drunk quarrel under the window

Car doors open and close

Somebody calls goodnight goodnight

Kicks a bottle over and it rolls and rolls

 

Sugar is off-ration and every Friday payday

Sister brings a chocolate mouse

Its inedible tail confected with sugar dust

Her bed is warm in the mornings

And she likes a man with a motorcycle

 

Dad comes home with an escort of road noise and night air

A personal chemistry of soot and soap and formaldehyde

He slips through the line of grey macs at the bus stop

Up to the front door the bike wheels click and click

And drip misty wet on the stair carpet

 

Sits at the kitchen table in bicycle clips and jacket

Eyes smarting with road dust and smog

Robotic fork commutes between plate and mouth

The double page of the working man’s daily is laid out

Serrated edges soak up brown gravy from the plate

 

The fork gathers the mash chop greens

Pauses as he gazes at headlines tall as monuments

While Mum relates a shopping drama and tuts Blimey Chas!

In awe of this passing hibernation

Eh? he says Eh? waking from the reverie

 

Fork hangs above the plate

His mouth open in half-spoken thought

Looks around the kitchen

Shrunken eyes seek refuge in non-commitment

As always

 

A quick elbow wash at the kitchen sink

Water dribbles onto the lino

We file into the living room around the black cooking range

Its scarlet yellow heart signals the mystery of unknown stars

And icy sulphurous air is sucked under the window frame

 

Wireless whistles off-station around the universe until bedtime

When Dad sets out his breakfast place

Sugar-bowl spoon puffed-wheat milk in a bottle

Folds work clothes on a chair in reverse order of dressing

Pants and vest cling to his cold white body for a slicker start

 

Five days and Saturday half-day at time and a half

Gets home early lounges in a hot bath

Clattering boiler heats the water under the suffocation of crusty anthracite

Coke dust stings the eyes and heavy ash falls in the grate

Afterwards Dad shows himself in a toga towel and forensically offers

 

Banana fingers and thumbs split by dermatitis

Under the exacting pall of a bare light bulb says Look at my x-ray fingers

And shows his hand bones through the soft-boiled transparency

Of his skin

His party-piece radioactive experiment

 

Formaldehyde defies the plastic curtains that sway and drip

Beyond the power of any sweet detergent

He fights soap with soap

The poison sits invisibly on his skin and clothes

A smell of fish high up in the nose is never purged

 

The bonus of half-day Saturday is a little talking

A walk on Sunday with Mum both dressing in Best

Strolling nowhere in particular for the liberty of strolling nowhere

Years in idle jobs sweeping carrying cleaning building

Addicted to the deep draught of daily routine

 

Honesty with an inkling flaw

Only if needed would he pilfer

The merest brick of carbolic soap to bring home

To sit squarely and immutably at the sink

The something-for-nothing of lesser men

 

He adjusts with precision and love

The fourteen mechanisms of the bicycle

Metal is to be caressed nurtured oiled

Levers and gears and bell and brake and chain

Economy in spending and income are his religion

 

He notices small things that others do not see

By studying details through the keyhole of his double deafness

Hearing aids are uninvented for him

Not bad for a man without friends who he never misses

Life is pointless he says

 

He understands the trajectory of the big guns

An algebra without the unknowns

He can explain acceleration per second per second

And the lift weight and drag of aeroplanes

Which he shot down or shooed away

 

In his long-sighted dreams he detonates the kicking spasms

Of an electric frog

Mum grumbles under the blankets Chas stop kicking!

In Norway the ground is frozen too hard for shovel spade axe

A three point seven explodes his neighbours mangled

 

And then to the Rock for three solid years

Surrounded by the sea and Spain waiting to be attacked

Which never happens at the cost of eternal vigilance

Men tease the apes and parrots or drink poison whiskey

Or jump

 

The two Peters are slaughtered in the Mediterranean latitude

The price of survival is guilt and the sentence is deafness

Perfect for those who do not wish to speak

Nor want to be spoken to

Wars have no brakes

 

Before The War After The War punctuates the shopping talk

The smog-tree of life grows an oily grey bark

The frosted glass in the front door buzzes

On payday we’re looking out for the chocolate mouse

And for the gathering of medals