There is a field in Northern parts

Where root vegetables grow strong,

Against Peak winds and cold,

And at the harvest moon, stand resolute

And welcome the immortality that

Follows swimming in the brine,

To winter in more acidic climes.

And when the summer summons comes

(Their world thus now ajar),

They charge to spike the maiden salad

Like some Brontëan ravisher

At the wedding feast who cries:

‘Unleash the bulldog,

And cry Great Branston!’

(For Mulberry and for Bex)

A bag is a bag

Is a receptacle, a container

Of leather, plastic, cloth or paper,

Capable of being closed at the mouth.

It started with the Viking bagge you pack your pillage in,

Became Burglar Bill’s over-the-shoulder swag,

Or the brown bag of moonshine to drink under the stars;

Or the place where late the cat was waiting patiently to exit

Or frankly a mixed one of curate’s eggs,

Rucked, duffelled and toted.

Don’t forget that bag of bones, the woman who’s just gotta have Alexa,

The It-Bag apparently,

(So my sources tell me,

Unless it was a typo and actually she said ‘kit bag’)

And if any wanted proof of our baggage bonkersness

And the sublime triumph of irrationality in human behaviour,

Let them visit Mulberry.

But afterwards, watch out for an unexpected Bayswater[1] in the bagging area.

A kind of pushbutton Narnia,

A screen that opens to a Grand Canyon of stories;

Here a hiding place for killers; there, great shoals of red herrings

Lurk underneath the opaque plastic surface.

You’ll find the colloquies of the kings and the kingdoms of the past they rule

Delivered in glorious Whispersync.

Or if it’s love you browse, you’ll find hearts broken and mended; won and lost;

Endings – happy, endings  – sad:

The kiss-and-tell brigade’s finest moves.

Poets gather hither and thither keeping time,

Hoping for digital royalties and an easy rhyme

The science future has its own Black hole,

‘ It’s a library, but not as we know it, Jim’.

This one lights a thousand ethereal fires a day

Whatever would Johannes Gutenberg have said?

Surely not ‘customers who bought this also bought…’

(For Laura Ashley)

Have you been to Carno?

Seen the slate grey faces in the empty streets

Where only the Spar now offers its mundane retail therapy?

Have you been to the factory?

Seen the boarded units

Where once the floral prints blossomed off the looms?

Have you seen the headstone?

In John The Baptist’s churchyard

Where Laura lies in patterned rest?

But you know the patchwork quilt she made

The antique fabric of our lives,

The golden look of summer that warmed dull winters.

And I know that in a trunk upstairs at home,

There is some treasured Carno lacework:

The dress my wife wore the day I married her.

It’s actually quite exhausting living on the edge

As everybody’s standby shortcut for something polarizing.

The handy synonym on everyone’s lips – well, not everybody’s –

For the concentrated extract of heaven or hell that comes in one little jar.

I’m sick of being bipolar, exiled beyond the comfort of the average.

Being permanently in the top and bottom quartile of every choice gets you down.

To be loved and hated in equal measure is quite confusing to your long-term Wellbeing.

Can you imagine, friend, being at once the toast of the morning and its pits?

I’m just a little jaded – out of sorts, you understand,

And need to take a holiday somewhere medium and bland.