And So Back To England

And so back to England
to the gym
to calories
and to Harry Potter.
Back to friends who had fun while you were away
back to kisses in dark corners of the nightclub
and to jealousy burning in your chest.
Back now to loneliness
to self-consciousness
and apprehension.
But mostly back to the sunny garden
to texting and tweeting
to chilli con carne
and Holby City.
Back to buses
and bosses
and Bran Flakes.

What It Is

These half-formed images
of sunny quads
(the wrong ones)
busy cafés
(on campus)
and conversation
(less stimulating)
are quite appealing now.
But with excitement
and the contentment with what there is
comes disappointment
always
over what there is not
and what it is not
and that -
what it is not, I mean -
is Oxford.
I suppose you'd like me to apologise for that.

She Had Only Seen It Once

She had only seen it once
on that wind-shredded hillside three years ago
during a residential trip with her music class.
Teachers and students tense against the cold in their raincoats
rustling in the natural silence
which was unnatural to those of them who lived near a major A road.
Teachers and students tipping back their heavy heads
necks aching
eyes straining
everyone looking up.

Millions of silver dots in the night sky.
Sheets upon sheets of light-emitting planets
the nearest winking white
the furthest away fading to black.
But the more she stared the more there were
free at last from their blind veil
of light pollution.

She thought that to look for too long
would be to go mad
with longing
or with realisation
of the insignificance of this moment.

"Look, over there, that's Orion" the teacher said
but all she saw was the universe.

The Boy With The Lightning Scar

He was not real
an yet more real than anybody
to everybody
who had grown up with him.
That generation
that split its soul into seven books
(and eight films
so that Warner Bros. could ring more money from the plot of twisted cloth.)
The boy with the lightning scar
had fought his last battle on harvested wood
but would fight again
in 3D.
Spoilers
the movie magazine warns.
But not really - if you'd read the book.

The Senior Executive Of A Large Commercial Cinema Chain

The senior executive
of a large commercial cinema chain
leans back slightly
smugly
smirkingly
in his large leather office chair
which creaks (or whimpers)
under his vast thighs.
The real victim of the senior executive
is not the spotty teenage box office attendant
on minimum wage
with the perpetual stench of sweets and ice cream permeating his nostrils;
nor is it the freckly pink jacketed 13 year old -
whose birthday it is today -
finding that she's already spent all the money her grandparents gave her
on a pair of 3D glasses
and a half-filled tub of chewy popcorn;
but this chair.
It groans with the strain of supporting the senior executive's weight
as he swings himself from left to right
and surveys his large 7th floor office
like a 10 year old looking proudly upon his make-belief castle.
The senior executive's beady eyes swivel gleefully in their swollen red bed
as he shoves his ballooned fingers into a box
of premium caramel-coated, gold-encrusted
"Topcorn"
and chucks the pieces vaguely in the direction of his gorge of a mouth.
As he chews, his watery eyes fix
on a man who seems very small to him
and who stands facing him on the other side of his mahogany desk.
Thin
sweaty
and vaguely shaking.
The senior executive begins to chew.
The representative from Topcorn Ltd. continues to shake.
Then
after the chief executive has licked each of the sausages which protrude from his palm with a grotesque slurping noise,
he brings his fist down onto the desk
with an almighty boom that shakes the entire 7th floor.
This causes crumbs to jump 3 feet in the air from the desk surface.
"NO!"
he yells in a strangled gurgle.
"You didn't like it?" 
says the representative from Topcorn Ltd. (though rather less voice sounded than he would have liked.)
"Well of course I liked it you insolent pustule!"
growls the chief executive.
"But I cannot possibly -"
he spits -
"allow something which tastes this good
to enter MY CINEMAS!"
The senior executive stands to intimidate
and interrogate
the representative.
His large office chair sighs almost audibly with relief.
But the leather remains moulded in the shape of the senior executive's massive behind
poised for the moment when he thunders back down again.  

Ends

At the end of the day
I looked around at what I had gathered
as the 5 o'clock sun was casting that nice honey glow
over the patio.
There was a wicker table, two wicker chairs -
one recently vacated
by my friend from across the road
who's moving away next Wednesday.
There was a mug
a box of tissues
and an odd felt bird on a stick in a plant pot
which my friend had made in primary school
and which had been sitting in my summer house since we were ten
and thought it was a veterinary surgery.
There was a flimsy beach umbrella in a cheap plastic stand
casting a patch of shade.
When the shadows are long in my garden
and everything's golden in the evening sun
and my friend's moving away next Wednesday
I get sentimental
about felt birds
and the way we used to examine our guinea pigs with knowing looks
in our veterinary surgery in my garden.  

Dishy Dave

Dave stood in the kitchen
which was light
with fitted cabinets
and a flagstone floor.
We'll have to get rid of those
he thought,
looking at the grimy dishes stacked up by the sink
the wine glasses stained with crimson
and the coffee-encrusted mug towers.

As Dave stood in the kitchen
he wondered what he could cook
that would make him seem most normal.
An average guy.
A family man.
I'll have to mention the wife
he thought.
And the baby
he added.
And wear trainers.

Pasta?
he wondered.

Dave stood in the kitchen - hands on hips.
Authoritarian.
He wouldn't be cooking it himself
of course
but that wasn't the point.
How like politics this was all turning out to be!

Dave decided to apply some tactical thinking to the situation.
He found his wife's Italian cookbook
buried under the signing-in books of the kitchen staff
and picked a page.
There
he thought.
That'll do.

A month later, Dave was sent a complementary copy of the Sainsbury's food magazine.
Dishy Dads!
it shouted from the brightly-coloured front cover.
The country's busiest dads share their favourite recipes!
"The photo came out well"
said Samantha,
"The kitchen looks lovely."
"Mmm" agreed Dave, pleased that the editors had managed to pass the dish off as his own.

"Whose trainers are those?"
asked Samantha.

3 for £12

It's a hazy June evening
and everything's warm
and vaguely throbbing.
When you've drunk every last drop of the Pinot Grigio you got cheap
from Sainsbury's
(or Tesco)
last Sunday.

The Girl With The Cleopatra Haircut

She sat next to the girl with the Cleopatra haircut in her music lessons,
was intimidated by her oeuvre of wit
her blotch-free complexion
and her ability to work out keys
in listening tests.
She hadn't chosen to sit next to the girl with the Cleopatra haircut
but her friend had moved out of the seat
in between them.
And so there she sat
envying -
out of the corner of her eye -
the neat symmetry of Cleopatra's cropped cheveux
the pearly-white shade of her cheekbones
the ruler-straight line of her fringe.
She hoped no-one else in the class had noticed her relative inferiority
in terms of musical ability
skin
and hair. 

The Disillusioned University Applicant

The disillusioned university applicant
sits at the dining table
chewing her pen, biting her nails
attempting to beat down the memories of her Oxford interview
and concentrate
on the Flying Theme from E.T.
But revision - learning this list, remembering these words -
won't reclaim the place she lost
when the wild-haired
smirky-mouthed
bespectacled Oxford don
put her Personal Statement on the 'no' pile.
Heat rises
in the disillusioned Oxbridge applicant's chest
as she remembers those words:
"You would be the ideal student"
 that slithered from the don's mouth
like the emerald green serpent of temptation
taunting
dangling

giveth, then taketh away.