John and Tonic

Tonight, as John Hegley sang poems, him coaxing,
Keats House chorusing (happily, scarily, uproariously)
bright green parakeet, g-and-t’s slice of lime,
bounced into trees with tomato-billed, fractious mate.
 
Readers … audience digging ribs: ‘Did you see?’
Unconcerned, his own deft poetry
dainty-clawed parakeet hung upside down,
mate off, soaring.
 
Passing gilt Music Room as I was leaving
saw through framing windows, beaming
faces, their interior candles. Gazing
netted trees, caught love bird laughter.
 

Deborah Tyler-Bennett

in collection, Kinda Keats, 2013, Shoestring Press,
ISBN 978-1-9073569-0-2

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           Boy Acrobat and Footman
(Inspired by William Powell-Frith’s Derby Day, 1858)

The Boy’s tongue tastes Fuller’s Earth, tastes chalk dust
drying his Pa’s palms when preparing to negotiate
a rope above streets never echoing enough applause.
 
That liveried Footman doesn’t glance their way,
absorbed in theatrics of his own: chinking meat-knives;
salad-servers; lobster-cutters; tongs.
 
‘See him today, Britannia’s Great Boy Marvel!’
Pa’s patter grinds far off, then cold-cut menace:
‘Show ’em, Lad!’
 
But coral claws, for demolition, thrall,
then there’s the pie’s crisped ramparts,
speculation (juices thick within) bubbling.
 
‘See him, alive, Britain’s Wonder Boy,’
gypsy kids smirk at gaujo pantaloons, know bread-
rolls can vanish, as carriage-folk get served.
 
The Footman glances up. An acrobat is hissing:
‘Look live, Son, shake yer self!’ His Lad still courts
the pie, yet jellied-walls elude.
 
Night’s living quarters – servitude packed into
a picnic hamper. The Footman’s dream
accompanies Brittania’s Marvel down black-crust alleys –
Waking sounds of breaking hearts … of lobster, cracking …
 

Deborah Tyler-Bennett

first published online in London Grip, December 2017.

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                           No Relation
          (Private Sidney Nunn, 1900-1918)

Diseworth to Kegworth, Bleak House to Finger Farm …
 
    Not actual next of kin, but so recorded,
    Mr Morris, Finger Farm, Kegworth.
 
    Just an older man opening front door on trouble,
    walking his acres, squinting at bare-faced vistas.
 
    He might have thought the lad
    never had chance of life –
 
    Marleybone Workhouse, then Industrial School,
    Diseworth to Kegworth, Bleak House to Finger Farm …
 
    Perhaps a tear’s trick showed him toiling still,
    tin farm figure against cardboard skies,
 
    or wiping boots on the scraper, come to discuss
    cattle-fodder: mangolds; peas; and beans.
 
    Mr Morris, next of kin by dint of being last employer,
    may have considered the sheer nonsense of it –
 
    six years learning cultivation, six months a tommy,
    death ringing in a week before peace bells sounded
 
    across wintering fields his boy, Sid, had sewn,
    Diseworth to Kegworth, Bleak House to Finger Farm.
 

Deborah Tyler-Bennett

written for Diseworth and Villages Lottery-Funded WWI Project;
in collection Mr Bowlly Regrets, 2017, King’s England Press,
ISBN 978-1-9095486-9-5

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           In Praise of Ruby Slippers

Over fields, crows and starlings are charcoal scraps
from burning stubble.  Landscapes change:
industrial sepia to Eastman Colour coast.
 
The siblings with their ageing Mum have done
film quizzes all the way, sometimes her mind’s
 
mistaking actor’s names for movie titles –
The Godfather turns Pacino, while Jaws is
Shark!  Shark!  Shark!  I read my paper.
 
Wizard of Oz brings her back – sometimes she sleeps
Daughter saying: ‘Mum, just click your heels together.’
Waking, she smiles:
 
‘I liked Glinda, those cornfields,
that Wizard!
                        Wee man behind a screen.’
 
I scan burnished Scots’ acres,
stooks, poppies, shed looking as though
dropped from a great height.
 
All we need’s a young miss, yapping dog –
today’s news is full of tin-men, scarecrows,
cowardly lions.  The old woman’s smiling
 
tells her girl, whatever happens, something
in your head beats, bewitched as slippers,
‘there’s no place like home.’
 

Deborah Tyler-Bennett

in collection Mr Bowlly Regrets, 2017, King’s England Press,
ISBN 978-1-9095486-9-5

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