Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry

Promises, there were so many
most unnecessary, the voters were angry and tired
and tired of being angry –
old and new
the old had ruled for a decade: Conservative,
thumbs in the dike
government knew best, better than the voters
and literally raised finger
some caricatured it as a raised salute.
Out with the old and in with the new
Michael Mouse would have won a landslide.

Landslide, it was –
perhaps a new prime minister thought
thoughts of the then new President
about a passed torch and quoting an old poet
about promises to keep
and miles to go before sleep.

Promises,
the interest groups waited
but one didn’t, or couldn’t
the campaign promised 25 pupils per classroom no more,
absolute.
A 6-year-old boy wrote to the Prime Minister
his class was 32 in size –
here was a list of seven names
could Mr Lange please get rid of them.

Hierarchies – put three of anything together and one will emerge
surgeons, all elite, but a doctor friend said
orthopaedic surgeons see themselves as the fighter pilots of medicine.
Top Gun
top dog
top ego.

He was reputed to be the best –
the best orthopod in the city –
the nation’s largest, so ipso facto, the country.
Many leading sportsmen consulted him.
I was surprised to be sent to him.

He was impeccably dressed, lean and austere
both physique and word.
He spoke little saying he been contacted by letter
by my GP.
He said to wait two years
the problem still existed to go back.
It did. And I didn’t. I didn’t want to.

The second opinion orthopod looked like a rugby player
or a boxer –
rather like the middle-aged Ernest Hemingway,
burly, bearded and
a nose that had been straightened,
but still seemed bent.. I told him my history –
and the first surgeon
his eyes twinkled slightly
and he said,
“ I believe the young surgeons call him the godfather.”

It opened onto the loading dock,
where the trucks, growing more quickly than the planners planned
squeezed in, unloading all the goods needed for 24/7 surgical hospital
– the door used by tradesmen and service staff –
kitchen, laundry, cleaners,
the better dressed, better status-ed staff used the main entrance.
Upstairs downstairs
more front door, back door.
It was for some, where they made their last exit
to
where the solicitous hearse, masquerading as a suburban station wagon
and
waiting patiently,
had right of way.

In these times I would act as a form of security
keeping access clear and shooing away lingerers
easy normally, word travelled the building like water,
from a burst main,
for most etiquette or superstition found reason to be elsewhere.

The fruit and vege man was relentlessly cheerful,
always a big laugh and a quip,
a barrow boy literally
pulled in alongside and proceeded to wheel in sacks of onions,
cartons of lettuce, oranges and bananas,
just as the undertakers wheeled out that distinctive
zipped bag stretcher :
“ Gee, that’s how I feel today.”