the temptation of writing

Brian said tonight
that I could just
become a writer

only now does
it seem a
real temptation

sure, he then said
I could write my name
twice monthly for the dole

but the idea of it
seems headier than
even travelling

scary in its loss
of pecuniary
safety net

but such a luxury
to do unfettered
research

to write, to read
untrammelled
from the daily grind

can't ask him now
at 1am, but was
he serious?

LMC 19-dec-10

Corrosion

This redundancy assessment
is so much bile
it seems unseemly
for them to take such
pleasure in it

Reading it
corrodes the spirit
Glad I've finally
plucked up the courage
to make my measured appeal

As Brian says
I'm better off away
from such vituperative
falsehood
what does it do to them?

And the irony is,
as I see at 1am,
that none of this
was necessary,
could have been avoided

a calm, skills-based assessment
would not have warranted
any appeal to clear my name,
had they but known enough
about their staff, their skills
.

LMC 18-Dec-10

Friends

20 years ago
I was made redundant
David gave me a signalling course,
I gleaned all I could
from Brian's railway nouse
and walked into a shining new
career in railway engineering

Now it's happening again
and every day my friends
keep me positive
keep looking out for
more work for me
and reminding me
of their good opinion

a few words and I stride out
smiling, buoyed up
with hope. and even the stupid
Metro horoscope signalled
new doors opening,
and staying positive
my friends, you sustain my heart

lmc 13-11-10

Full tilt

Full tilt
I'm shot from the cannon,
at risk, at great risk of redundancy
and now I can't stop: apply,
upload cv, check job sites, apply
work my list of contacts
panic mode, don't stop and think

For far too long
I applied my Wily Coyote
principle of the universe
don't look down; all will be well,
now my head is forced tilt down
and I react like Wily
pedalling frantically to avoid the drop

lmc 11-11-2010

Freda

I can't work, just remembering,
Freda, stiff backed, disapproving,
but dancing at my graduation
telling my mother not to laugh,
so pleased to be included
in academic celebrations.
You have to use words like indomitable
for her rise from Smith St to the direction
of the city's maternity unit,
for her conquest, for so long,
of heart complaints from
childhood Sydenham's chorea,
until defeated by her final operation.
Did her role require silence
on her early life or was it
a protection from remembered pain?
In any case I wish her beloved
poppies were in season
for her funeral.

lmc 15-10-2010

That Conversation

Of all the art centres in all England
I happened to walk into the one
where a man whose hair
would grow like a dandelion clock
whose care I could not imagine
was cooking a vegetarian dinner
and over the washing up
we talked of hitching to Australia
and how you get over the wet bits
Strange, how much we tried
with those first impressions
for he was a traveller on a micro scale
months and years won't be enough
for him to know France or Italy well
but it's rare I can persuade him
onto an aeroplane to travel further
and me? I've never been much of one
for washing up

LMC 21 June 2010

Silk Road of my Life

I try to paint the silk road
of my lfe
Miyajima's red torii
and peonies for my father
how can I paint my mother's songs?
no clouds, this is to target the beauty.
I'd add in Abbeydale
if I could paint it, build up
the layers of petals like the
factory painters, overlay the gold.
A swirl of Gobi should follow,
for those Edwardian Misses,
the real silk road explorers.
All China's glory leading to Kashgar's
sunday market, Kansu street's jade sellers
All the way to Venice
Burano's jewel houses
glass glinting, silver gondola prows
slide out from between palacios
and paintings everywhere
to steal your breath away.
if I take it further (as I always have)
then this silk road fascination
led to all my explorations
Paris, Havana, Santorini, Vietnam
Angkor Wat and the Taj Mahal
(pause for heart stopping, stunning beauty)
and to that travelling conversation
in that long ago arts centre
Turn for home to Pennine moors
endless beach of Druridge bay
or Lyminge forest bluebells
for coming down through vineyards
of a red-gold evening
hand in hand

LMC 21 June 2010

Take one small child

Take one small child,

Shake thoroughly,

Or enough to rearrange at least

Her natural trust

And there you have created

One woman who'll always look

For what might go wrong.

LMC June 2010

Hong Kong Coat

I take my work apart
never was it cloth of gold
but a useful working coat
sewn to stand the buffeting
of a season's work.
They don't want that, they say,
the thread to hold it together
is just too costly
the cloth too robust for their taste
stitch us something that
gives the appearance, just,
of covering at a distance
if they don't look too hard

LMC 27 APR 2010

Isa

Pendant un moment bref
Son sourire, sa vivacité m’accueillait
Dans son cercle d’amis
On riait comme des fous ensembles
Cet aprèm magique

Et plus que ça, l’ambiance totale
Qu’elle créait dans son hôtel
Faisait bien parti de la magique
Des cures d’Allevard
Je ne t’oublierai jamais, Isa

LMC April 2010

Office Blues

leaf green fools my eyes
outside trees shimmer and breathe
not paper colour

LMC April 2010

My Ada Lovelace timeline blog

Today, 24 March, don't wonder
whether women do science and technology
today, on Ada Lovelace day, we celebrate
our community by honouring those
who helped us know


I draw a line from a time before
I ever thought of being an engineer,
Vaughan King inspired me
to use learning to support my world
when all else was so chaotic


Then with feminism came
the glorious Women in Manual Trades
like me they'd battled through skillcentres
borne the pain of unfair treatment
and raised wild songs to keep us strong


Peggy Seeger made my anthem
'I'm gonna be an engineer'
and I didn't believe it
until , 27 years later,
I finally became chartered


So now the line goes on
my goddaughter, Alexia, in France,
is studying engineering
an Olympian of maths
and of champagne physics


Today don't wonder whether women
are scientists and engineers
follow Ada Lovelace blogs,
and look around you
we hold up half the sky

LMC24Mar10

Murder in Samarkand

How inconvenient,
our Ambassador in Tashkent has complained,
on behalf of her Majesty, about Uzbeki human rights
about Tajiks boiled alive and their
dubiously wrought confessions
being used in the war on terrorism.

A solution will be found,
Foreign office legal advisers will declare
we are not in contravention
of international law on human rights,
but will reserve their position on
the morality of our complicity in the act.

A reason will be given
for sacking troublesome diplomats.
No question is allowed into the means,
for State-sponsored terror
in this unholy war; truth
is insignificant in their reckoning.

and all this is absolutely necessary
in the interests of democracy,
this re-descent into Tudor barbarity
is meant to convince
the enemies of freedom of
the justice of our cause.

LMC 20 Feb 2010 on listening to David Hare's play "Murder in Samarkand"

Vaughan King, for Ada Lovelace Day

To look at, a classic little old lady.
But she graduated in chemistry
from Cambridge, aged 18
and worked in the early days of Kodak.

Me she taught to persevere,
the value of study and of
adding bay and thyme to stews.
She was my friend.

Taj Mahal

Aged four I had

Its picture on my wall

Cut from some cereal packet

but them forgot that till,

some 46 years later,

my heart stopped,

simply stopped and

missed a beat

as I turned under

its red brick arch and

saw its white jewelled beauty

for the first time

and remembered

My Mother's Garden

The peony's growing on blackened soil
Your gardener's faith is that
you can ignore the rot
and still it will bloom scarlet


the roots are tangled
sometimes I just want to lift and split
bring in clean air,
replant and start afresh

for that I need you to say
sorry for your failures, with no
angry guilt, so I can start
forgiving you, while you're still here