Pest?

The first wasp of the season is something to note; it is a flying indication that summer or something spring-like is near.  OK, the wasp may have been lured into the wide open though a freakishly summery day, but it is a harbinger of warmer days ahead.

     I suppose it was my observation of the creature rather than a frantic flapping as it approached my cup of tea and baguette after my customary swim than started my jottings.  Although I suppose it is tempting fate to say it, I have never been stung by a wasp.  Indeed, now I come to consider it, I don’t know anyone who has been stung by a wasp either.  I have been stung by a bee; but that was because I topped a passing weed when walking the dog and a bee happened to be on the plant head.  I can hardly blame the poor creature for having an instinctive reaction to being swept up in a giant hand!  And I can remember looking at the tiny, still pulsating sting lodged in the fleshy part of my hand at the base of my thumb and realizing that the ‘offending’ bee was now one of the flying dead.

     The reaction of people to wasps is one that goes beyond the pain of the sting; for some people the fear of these creatures is visceral and reduces them to gibbering wrecks.  Mind you, I have seen the same reaction to the appearance of a daddy-long-legs – and when has one of those ever managed to pierce the skin of a human!

     My aunt had an allergic reaction to wasp stings.  She was told that if she was stung she should not panic, but go to a hospital immediately – but she was not as neurotic about wasps than those who only had to endure a little local pain if they managed to get it to attack.  Fear of wasps is not logical: yes, there is the possibility of a sting, but you have to work fairly hard to get a wasp to attack.

     The post-swim wasp did come exploring me and had an expeditionary crawl along my hand, and then it flew away.  That has always been my experience; wasps do not really want to expend energy and valuable venom on a creature that is not (usually) going to drop down dead in response.  However, I do not go out of my way to commune with wasps as my experience with the bee shows that even the most placid ‘live and let live’ attitude can be compromised by accident.

     And the last section of the poem asks the question of definition as we usually find that approximation is enough for action.

 

 

 

Pest?

I don’t kill wasps.

Don’t panic-swat with flailing hand,

infuriate with futile squeals.

I let them be.

And watch.

As they traverse the contours of my hands;

short, darting tongues through hairs to flesh

to drink in what I smell of: meat.

The gaudy abdomen, sting tipped

in sunshine’s gleam, is threat,

but why should they, whose prey

is ants and spiders, flies and Coke

take on a landscape smeared with taste?

For me the wasps are visitors:

they stay; they eat; they leave.

And no attack, no pain, just tickle-foraging

through hirsute undergrowth. 

And flight. 

Away.

An aunt of mine

did not kill wasps,

though they could easily

have finished her:

anaphylactic shock

could follow sting –

and death, of course.

But she did not

regard the summer months

as buzzing with mortality.

Discarded ice cream wrappers

and the overflowing bin

were Scylla and Charybdis

on an August stroll, for her,

but she pressed on as if the

sighted, noted, danger was not there;

walked though, and passed unscathed.

Our fear becomes attack:

provokes and redefines.

The wasp has a bad press

(and there’s resentment

at no ‘bee-death’ after sting)

but it’s entitled to defend when it’s ‘attacked’

It’s feared, though adder’s feared more,

and adders do not lurk for human strike,

but they will bite if stepped upon.

And bite and sting are real,

though more in thought

than in lived life.

Pain is always possible,

but weapon’s definition

not offence.

Flight, not fight, the coloured patterns urge,

and gaudiness is warning: go or stay,

your choice,

and was the ‘wasp’ that started

all of this a hoverfly?

It is easy to think of the current pandemic as an enemy, and much of the rhetoric of our leaders has centred on words like “invasion”, “fight”, “struggle”, “foreign” and the like, with Trump (of course) being the most naturally xenophobic, racist and unreasonable in his characterization of the virus.  He is the most belligerent and bellicose, missing (of course) the irony inherent in his being someone who ducked military service in Viet Nam though the fictional ‘bone spurs’ – when he had the opportunity to demonstrate his ‘real’ militarism, he chickened out.  It is characteristic of the coward that he is, that his previous ‘war’ was on undocumented immigrants, and of course the Mexican ‘rapists’, ‘murderers’ and ‘drug dealers’.  A war conducted, as all his ‘wars’ are from the safety of the White House and the golf course.

     In my case Conscription ended in 1960, when I was ten, and Harold Wilson did not take the UK into the Viet Nam War.  All other wars and skirmishes were dealt with by the regular army-  I could, as a charmed Baby Boomer, go through life with social silver spoon in my ever open mouth!  Or at least, given the circumstances of a person growing up in the UK nowadays, it certainly seems that the metaphor is not too far-fetched.

     The preparations and reactions to the virus by the governments around the world certainly put one in mind of armed conflict, indeed the Coward Trump has directly compared the (eventual) state of preparedness that his contemptable administration has been forced to accept is tantamount to War.

     As pronouncements are broadcast and ever more stringent positions are adopted to cope with the virus, it is difficult not to think in terms of General Mobilization.  

     The inspiration for this poem is directly stated in the opening stanza: it did cross my mind. And then the rest followed.

     I write from the point of view of a Baby Boomer born in 1950, five years after the end of World War II, and a being who began to take note of his surrounding and more importantly remember what he saw in about 1953/4.  When I was growing up in a suburb of Cardiff there were still ruins from the war in parts of the city; the war figured large in television and film; the war and its aftermath still defined who we thought that we were.  It took the Suez Crisis (that I do remember in my own child-centred way) to put us firmly in our ‘second-rank-and-falling’ state that has possibly culminated in the collective idiocy of Brexit.

     From the point of view of the generation now coming up to school leaving age (without doing their final exams?) my generation had a charmed way through life in Britain.

     My father was sporty (he captained the school rugby team when he was in the third form) and clever (he came top in his class in his grammar school – though that achievement was noted by his form teacher as, “Top out of a mediocre lot.  Reflects nothing of his ability, he’s slapdash, erratic and easy-going” to which my grandfather response after reading this assessment was, “That man know you!”) and when he should have gone to St Luke’s College to become a PE teacher he went into the RAF instead and eventually spent his war in Africa.  When he came back to this country he was in his twenties, his ‘college years’ gone.  He was one-year emergency trained as a teacher and he found himself a job.

     The differences between my father’s generation and my own are instructive.  My father’s brother was a Bren gun carrier who was ‘mopping up’ through Germany towards the end of the war: he didn’t talk much about his horrific experiences; my mother’s brother was deeply scarred by his experiences of being evacuated from France after Dunkirk, though towards the end of his life he was a witty raconteur about his absurd times in the army.  What did we Baby Boomers have to put beside this?  And what real threats had we had to contend with?

     I use an echo of the phrasing from a character in the BBC television series ‘Dad’s Army’ as the title for this poem because I wanted to bring in the sense of muddling unreality yet ultimate success that the series seemed to encapsulate, and I think that that attitude is now being applied to the virus: excitement tinged with pleasurable cinematic disaster-movie fear.

     The end of the poem asks a question.  To which I have no answer.

“Covid-19, Mr. Mainwaring, Sir!”

It crossed my mind

this virus is the war

we baby boomers

never had.

We missed conscription,

so, The War was second-hand

with scraps passed on

from first-hand sources in our homes.

Music, names and words and thoughts:

spivs, blackout, Vera Lynne, Dunkirk,

Black Market, Blitz, and rationing,

and mind my bike, put out the light!

No, that’s Othello, not a warden’s words.

And, that’s the point.

I went to college

at the age my dad went to the RAF.

Free milk before,

fees paid for then,

and job ahead

for we, we happy few –

and pension too.

But now, malign, omnivorous

(and our specific age group in its sights)

this virus comes to spoil the tale.

I once asked mum

if she had ever thought        

in darkest days of war

that we could face defeat?

“Not once!” she said.

Not once, in spite of all that

sleek, repulsive, Nazi chic

that seemed to ooze efficiency

against inept Dad’s Armoury!

Not once. 

A phrase of confidence and faith,

or blind delusion based on hope?

Or all of the above, and more?

And do I have to choose?

Litter

It was an ongoing joke in one of my past schools that in morning assembly, if it was taken by a particular deputy headteacher, then whatever the ostensible topic was, the eventual message of the assembly would be, "Don't drop litter!"  Sometimes the reasoning behind the transition from one of the parables, or an improving story of personal courage, or whatever he had heard on the radio coming in to school that morning to "Don't drop litter!" could be a little involved.  But, as one of the few members of staff that actually listened to what was being said in the morning assembly, I always looked forward to the Heath-Robinson reasoning that would take us from the story of The Titanic, for example, to rubbish and the evil ways in which school kids dispose of it.

     I suppose it is impossible to listen to this sort of thing year after year without have some sort of almost instinctive reaction to the throwing away of rubbish in the street or playground or where ever.

     Personally, I find it impossible to throw a piece of paper on to the pavement.  I simply cannot do it.  I keep it in my hot little hand until I find a bin, or I put in a pocket to be disposed of later.

     I do not claim to be a saint in rubbish disposal, as my 'sorting' of household waste leaves much room for improvement - but the casual throwing away of a piece of paper in the street is something that I simply cannot do.

     My parents were stern guides in this department and schools also play their part in inculcating socially acceptable standards of behaviour.  And there were the campaigns, of which "Keep Britain Tidy" - with its stylized one armed man (it is a man isn't it?) puts a piece of paper into the bin or basket - is the one that comes most readily to mind.  It is a campaign that never really ended as Keep Britain tidy is a registered charity and is still going strong.

     But that campaign saw litter as un-tidyiness, it didn't really have the same sort of do-this-or-perish imperative that comes with the solutions to the Problem of Rubbish today.  It seemed like a problem that was more about unsightliness than survival.

     And, given that there appears to be a whole new continent of rubbish forming in the Pacific Ocean, the dropping of a small piece of plastic rubbish in the leisure centre of Castelldefels does not seem very important.  But, watching a kid throw the packaging of something away with an almost unconsciously instinctive movement of the hand was deeply depressing to watch.

     As I was having my traditional cup of tea after my early (very early) morning swim, I also had my trusty notebook to hand in which I had made a few inconsequential remarks on the weather, and so I was able to add my thoughts on the thoughtlessness of the kid.

Litter

It was a moment

of that childish mindlessness

that children do so effortlessly well:

discarded cellophane consigned to gravity

and to oblivion that’s far beyond

the immanence of youth.

That which has left the hand,

Is Other, out of sight, does not exist.

But I observed, and flinched a little

at the regal disregard for what was done.

They pick and choose

the calculations that they do

- the young.

They add up and they take away

within the firm circumferences

of urgent lives.

Adolescent algebra is still ahead,

as is the calculus of age, but

“Here and now, boys, here and now!”

is a belief enough by which to live.

Complex tenses, just like complex sums

lie ‘lives’ away in distant years to come.

But years and lives that they,

not I, will see.

“Keep Britain Tidy” is engrained

(and is a good exportable campaign)      

whose time has perilously

come round again:

as streams and rivers,

lakes and seas,

land-fill and people-filled

are found too full of

what . . .

But yes,

in case you’re wondering,

(although I merely watched

the rubbish fall)

I later passed the dropping point,

and passing, stooped and picked it up

and placed it in a bin.

For what?  For whom?

We need

a damn sight more

than “tidiness”. 

Any comments on this poem will be gratefully received and will get a response!

Daily run

Now that I rise at the ungodly hour of 6.10 am because public transport does not allow my partner to get to work for 7.00 am and I have to act as a grudging taxi service - it means that I get to the pool for my daily swim just at the time that it opens to the public.  Indeed, once or twice I have been, engine running, waiting at the gate for it to be opened!  It also means that I have 'done' my daily exercise by just after 8.00 am and the rest of the day, therefore, is mine and open to do interesting and creative things.

Some of those things should be poetry, and, although the gap of time between this post and the last is large, I have (honestly) been filling it with writing, I simply have not been posting.  And if you think that is some sort of "saving lie" then you could be partially correct.

However, here is a poem.  Freshly written and partially edited, it is at least ready to be laid to one side allowing it to mature, so that I can come to it later and read it with fresh eyes!  That, at least, is the theory.

After my swim, I go to the cafe that adjoins the pool and have a tortilla bocadillo and a cup of tea.  And I take out my little notebook and make notes.  Usually these are mundane to the point of weariness, but occasionally they contain a kernel of something that gradually mutates into a poem.

The seat that I usually claim in the cafe is not my usual summer seat that is in one particular spot outside.  In less clement times I take a seat facing the large floor to ceiling windows giving a view of the car park and the building work beyond.  this view also takes in the pathway to the door of the centre and, at the time that I am usually sitting there, I am able to witness the steady stream of parents who try (and usually fail) to find a parking space to deposit their children so that they can go to the British School of Barcelona (the BSB) that is next to the pool.

As with any Tesco's car park, you can tell a lot about people when they are presented with the need for a parking space that is not there, or at least not where they want it to be.

You can also tell a lot by the way that the deposited children leave the car and begin their walk to school.  As I do not know these people, it is easy to make sweeping assumptions about their attitudes and their home backgrounds.  It is very tempting to pontificate (at least in the privacy of your notebook) about what a scruffily dressed, slow-stepping, head down to mobile phone, earphones plugged in, no coat wearing, not backward looking child leaving a large people carrying Mercedes might represent!  And, yes, I am aware that it might well say more about me than about the 'victimes' of my observation!

This poem, however, was provoked by a child's smile as he accompanied his mum.  It was the sort of smile that said that all was well with his world and that indeed, it was the best possible or all possible worlds and that he was well prepared to go and cultivate his garden!

Added to the observation of the child was the serendipity of hearing part of a  a podcast from Classic FM by Tony Blackadder (his real surname will come to me) that mentioned a musician I had heard of and someone of the same name who I hadn't.  Within 24 hours I had visited an excellent exhibition in the Caixa Forum in Barcelona "Toulouse Lautrec and the spirit of Montmartre" that had a poster for a musical production of the composer that I had heard about the day before.  From that it was an easy step in my mind to remember times when a new piece of information had been given to one of my classes only to have the kids stop me and say that, amazingly, they had heard the word or idea or whatever spoken by someone on the television or on the radio or heard another teacher use it or whatever.  What they took as coincidence I recognized as the normal process of highlighting something so that you become sensitive to its repetition - a repetition that you have previously ignored!

Anyway, here is the poem, in its partially edited form.  I expect it to change before it makes it to a book, but I am pleased with the shape that it has taken so far.

As I always say (and always mean) I welcome any thoughts or responses - good, bad or indifferent!

Daily run

Hand held firmly in his mother’s hand,

the blond-haired boy is smiling

on his way to school.

Why does he smile?

Most children, mobile-eyed,

traipse sullenly

towards day-time captivity.

But he?  He smiles.

How often did I do the same

along the minutes’ walk from

Dogfield Street to Whitchurch Road and

Gladstone Infants/Junior School?

I tolerated school, accepting process

as a means to something

that the years of schooling were a ticket for,

for me, for years & years & years

of schooling more.

But now, with time to muse,

I like to tell myself that smile

on that boy’s face is one

anticipating something new

on offer, or at least could be,

from each fresh part of the curriculum.

The hackneyed, clichéd, everyday -

all are reborn in growing minds.

In all our minds?  Not so?

Three days ago I heard a programme clip;

caught, by chance, a surname that I knew –

but given name Gustave, not Marc-Antoine.

Another man, a  different time, composer too.

Within a day: a poster on an exhibition wall;

“Louise” a ‘roman musical’ four acts (with five tableaux)

Charpentier, the same Gustave I’d heard about the day before!

How many times when dealing with vocab. in class

I’d have the kids excitedly tell me next time

that they had heard “that word you talked about”

Amazed at the ‘coincidence’.  

What we don’t know, we may not sense,

until a word, a gesture, thought

shows up a this & that or these & those

as things together, not apart.

So we, like that young child, should smile

expecting unexpected truth.