Little Man

   Little man, what changed you?
   Do you know what changed you?
Gave you lips to pull a sneer,
Picking quarrels, swilling beer;
Gave you hands to roll a spliff,
Made you hot-tongued in a tiff.
Once you were my bright-eyed child,
Cautious, if not meek and mild.
   Little man, what changed you?
   Do you know what changed you?
 
   Little man, I’ll tell you,
   Little man, I’ll tell you:
Hormones sluice you day and night,
Testosterone will cause a fight.
High on grass and blind to danger,
Weaving dreams, my six-foot stranger:
You a child and I your mother,
Butting heads, we hurt each other.
   Little man, God help us.
   Little man, God help us.

June Hall

in collection, bowing to winter, 2010, Belgrave Press,
ISBN , 978-0-9546215-1-3;
first published in The Interpreter’s House, 2010

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Wheelchair Wars

Bickering burns the air. Sparks from
a clash of tongues light up the bystanders,
who, though singed, pretend indifference.
Would we be addicted to point-scoring
like this couple if I were in a wheelchair,
my feet and legs, bloated like hers,
were sausaged into joggers and slipper socks
like a guy stuffed for burning?
 
Or what if my husband and bicker-partner,
a smile smeared indelibly on his face,
were chained to my penned-in, pent-up body,
as he hitched and tipped the wheelchair,
dodging my snarls, his tired eyes hidden,
face averted in a spiral of frustration?
 
Would he, companion, soul-mate, be trapped
into snap-and-score carer? Would I begin to hiss
orders in the silence seething between us
or crack out my fury in finger-bone clicks?
Would we train in squabbling to Olympic standards:
fire volleys of high-scoring sighs, keep a tally
of reproach? How would we score our joint captivity?

June Hall

in collection, bowing to winter, 2010, Belgrave Press,
ISBN , 978-0-9546215-1-3;
first published in Acumen, 2009

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Monkey-Mind*

 loops
               the loop of boredom,
tying up space with its antics;
                        tail curls round the past,
            trying it for size
squeezing close,
                memories thrown to the wind,
titbits of distraction,
       while      quick fingers
                pick and scrabble
           at worries,
meticulous as bank clerks,
     who sort, count, bag up
             the small change of daily life.
 
                                      Plans bunch
        in a babble of head-talk,
                      huddled like banana clusters,
               while mind shins up
the cage mesh,
         clutches at over-ripe fruit,
                                   spits out undigested seeds
              and blackened skins from old ideas;
 
                          springs       across possible stillness
               to chatter and protest,
collecting fears like fleas,
                                  tempted towards an itch,
                         which, once scratched, ceases,
having tricked the mind from concentration;
 
           leaps         across an ice-lined ditch,
                               swinging perilously
between opposite banks
                     before it lands on a less familiar perch
               and there, counting breaths,
                    waits for snow to fall –
          silent
                                          still
                                                                                   white.
 

*Zen term for meditating with scattered mind

June Hall

in collection, bowing to winter, 2010, Belgrave Press,
ISBN , 978-0-9546215-1-3;
first published in Envoi, 2009

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The Now of Snow

An early snow-plough’s cleared the mountain road,
heaped crystals on either side,
banks that fall into deep-sleeping whiteness.

Puppy-children tumble out, pant heat into crisp air,
yelp and snowstorm one another, belly-flop in
sharp-edged drifts high and soft enough to bury them.

Whooping, they scoop powder-balls, brickbats
to launch against the car while we, caged in warmth,
gaze through a screen exploding with snow,

foresee hands, iced red, too numb to warm,
sodden trouser legs that cling to frozen skin,
feet stuck in shoes heavy with slush, the crying

and the long journey home. Worry shadows the sun.
Somewhere we’ve grown old.
We nag and fret over wet socks and the lack of boots.

What, for God’s sake, is a wet sock
to the dazzle of the moment, the now of snow?

June Hall

in collection, the now of snow, 2004, Belgrave Press,
ISBN 0-9546215-0-6;
first published in Seam, 2002

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