DREAM MAKER

Years ago, when I was a girl, I used to read scary stories at bedtime to frighten
myself. I bitterly regretted this when I had to live in a big old country house
with floors that creaked even when no-one was walking on them and when
shadows took the form of human figures. So, had I been asked then what was
the worst bad dream, I would inevitably have said something along these lines.
Now, however, bad dreams can be a lot more subtle and a lot more scary, just
like the one in this poem.

DREAM MAKER

His dream maker has retired and gone
on holiday,
Taking with it all the sunny holidays and
golden beaches.

What has it left behind?
What couldn’t it be bothered to pack into its
overnight bag?

Well, just about everything except the dream
of Hoovers.
Walking up and down grey carpet, constantly
running over the same bits of paper
With the same little black figures written on them.
The ones that don’t add up and never will no matter
how often he writes them down.

That’s it!
A vacancy has occurred at this house.
Only dream makers with fabulous holidays in hand
need apply.
Those who have hoovering and unfriendly figures
in their pockets

NEEDN’T BOTHER.

THE SCHOOL I WAS SENT TO

oakbankgirlsward-edit

Impossible as it seems now, when I was a child and very poorly, I was sent to
an Open Air School 300 and more miles from where I lived.
All the little girls, including me, slept in Wards with windows wide open every
night and had a routine which was totally, utterly foreign to me. I was a Northerner
in the midst of Southerners and absolutely everything was different.
You were discouraged from crying and it still physically hurts when I cry now.
However, because of that school, I’m here to tell the tale! I wrote a book about that
year there, KNOCK AND WAIT, which is the second book in my trilogy
PRIVATE-KEEP OUT, KNOCK AND WAIT and ONE WAY ONLY, the book I wrote when
I got back home. PRIVATE- KEEP OUT is available on PENGUIN Children’s Classics.

THE SCHOOL I WAS SENT TO

The first time I saw the school I had been sent to,
I thought it was a school for witches,
For the great house leaning against the forest
Was dark as night.
With only its snaggle toothed windows blazing in the moonlight.

Of course, it wasn’t a school for witches.
They only visited.
Swooping in through the open tops of windows
On their broomsticks,
Trying to make out they were the shadows of trees.
Bumping to a stop in the middle of the dormitory,
Where nothing could move them.

Nothing, that is, until Sister Sweet came crackling in,
All fiery with starch and bad temper.
Her purple hands so big, entire cities were built on her palms.
She made them shift.
The only thing I ever had Sister Sweet to thank for,
In the whole year I spent at that school I was sent to.

UNLUCKY BLACKBIRD

Sitting on the bus going into town on one of those baking hot mornings
of a very dry Spring, I watched this blackbird foraging around for food.
The bus had stopped almost alongside a battered piece of grass which
had a couple of thin and leafless saplings and many patches of bare earth
in it. This beautiful shining bird seemed intent on digging up the whole
of it in its search for something to eat.
I wished I had a ton of rich top soil to pour over the ground but, just as
the bus started to pull away, the blackbird suddenly ran across the
threadbare earth to a more promising patch under one of the saplings.
I hoped so much it found a good meal. It was so lovely, flashing and
glittering there in the early morning sun.

UNLUCKY BLACKBIRD

Unlucky black bird,
Beak flashing gold
In the sun,
Flinging lean crumbs
Of baked earth
Into the air.

Fruitlessly searching
For a succulent snail
That may be hiding
In there.

No ants.
No fat worms.
They have all gone.

Unlucky blackbird
Goes hungry.
Until it pulls itself together
And moves on.

FUTURE TENSE

FUTURE TENSE

The old girl lay sleepless in her bed,
Eyes staring through the dark,
Fretting at a future she couldn’t see,
Worrying at the hours and days and weeks
That lay before her.
Sleepless, she sighed again and again
‘If only I knew what the future will bring.’
Until the future, hiding behind the door,
Listening keenly, stepped in.

Picking up two particularly heavy days,
It smacked them round her head.
‘That’s one thing,’ it said.

Then selecting an especially lovely
String of hours,
Gently laid them round her neck.
‘And that’s another,’ it said.
‘Now, before I go, is there anything else
You want to know?’

‘No,’ the old girl whispered, shaking her head,
Turning quick and over in her bed.
‘If it’s alright with you,
I’ll look at the stars instead.’

‘Good thinking,’ the future said.