Everyone On My Street
Robert Ferguson
USD 19,99
Format: 13.5 x 21.5 cm
Number of Pages: 84
ISBN: 978-3-99146-490-7
Release Date: 01.01.1970
Diverse Britain! What an opportunity to learn about other people´s values, fears, difficulties, ambitions, and fulfilments! Just look around your street. “Everyone On My Street” is a series of poems that tells the stories of all of these different people.
Introduction
Of the total UK population, more than half live in major towns according to the 2021 census, and only a tenth in rural areas. This explains why the streets in our towns and cities are crowded and buzz, while a country walk is likely to be quiet and lonely – except for the cars rushing from one town to another down rat-run country roads.
Not only are our urban streets becoming busier, the people in them are becoming ever more fascinatingly varied. In 2021, apparently, similar proportions of the UK population were of people aged under fifteen and over sixty-five (about a fifth each), or of a different skin colour, culture or dress code from pale grey and British-pink. Also, a slightly greater proportion was in some way disabled (a quarter, and remember, you can’t always see the symptoms of a person’s disability as you walk past them), and at least 1.7 million people in England and Wales (2.8% of the population) claimed a gender other than that attributed to them at birth.
This collection of poems tries to stand with the people of the minorities in our society. It tries to draw on their richness and revel in their gifts to the rest of us; and sometimes just reminds the majority that difference so often offers us opportunities which we will be the poorer for overlooking.
Robert Ferguson
Summer 2023
Inappropriate?
I’d valued you so much and for so long,
Wished I dared offer a hug, but did so fear
It’s newness would frighten you.
If I were to try, would it change our relationship?
Would you feel unable to come back again
And give me what I so much appreciate each day?
Just once, without thinking, in a conversation,
I stretched out my arms in sympathy
And you came to me, gladly and giggling with thanks.
Next visit, you were just the same as always,
Beautiful and kind and gentle, quick and strong.
I had to be the same, and so I was.
Her choice, not mine
We tried to relate
My sister suggested him
But he was a void
She thought I needed
A man in a lonely life
Between hairdressers
I didn’t. So what?
He seemed well dressed, clean shaven
She could take him home
But her husband Al
Wouldn’t understand, of course
Though they are both bored
So, working with him,
Trusting and attracted, she
Must pass him on
Why me? That’s trust too
Pity it didn’t work for us
He bored me, just like Al
Lost
Lawn, leaf-surrounded, bailey round the house
Beyond which is my shed-motte sanctuary
Where pen and cushion wait to welcome me
Back from the bustling world, back to a peace
I am precluded from by thunderstorms
And traffic crashing past my open gate.
Deep in the flowerbed weeds your bracelet lies
Tarnished no doubt, now dull and lost for ever
In fact, but never from my memory.
Where have you been, love?
Where have you been, love? I haven’t felt you in years,
Your tremoring indecision about everything,
Clothes, colours, lens or glasses,
Tea or coffee, bus or cab or walk?
What would she like or hate,
Put up with or accidentally match in taste?
What present would she like, one for herself
Or for her home? When is her birthday?
Is her sign compatible with mine?
Or opposite? If so, is that why I’m attracted?
Where have you been, love? Never seen a girl
Like this, in the office, in the street? Or just asleep
For all this time, and only now awake?
How are you, heart? You’ll see her in an hour
In a new dress and earrings you haven’t seen before.
She’ll smile as you pull back her restaurant chair,
Knowing what you’re doing, slipping into her seat,
Putting her purse on the table, no mobile in sight.
How are you, heart, as you contemplate all this,
Not knowing her well yet, but hoping that her heart
Will be equally as excited as you are.
Poignant
Before We Opened
Why am I stuck here
Alone until opening?
Where are you, Johnny?
Café Breakfast
Only just opened
Coffee machine spits and drips
Will he come today?
Dangerous diving
I’ve never done it, stood on the edge of a cliff
A hundred feet above the sea, with the intention
Of diving out and down so gracefully
To enter the water below with ne’er a splash.
I’m doing it this evening without a cliff,
Or sea below. I’m meeting my new therapist for the first time
And throwing my self, my fears, my life into her hands.
Who will she be? I mean, I know her name,
At least the name she’s given me to use,
But who is she? Google offers many therapists with her name.
Which one is she? Is it a generic name they take
To hide their true selves confidentially?
“This session is just to get to know each other
And decide if we will fit, be able to work together,”
She said on the telephone,
But does she really mean, for her to judge
If why I sought her out is just too shocking
For her to face? Logic suggests she’s heard it all before.
My shame and fear suggest the opposite,
But I am not so very special.
A young woman, she sounded,
Like my granddaughter,
But, if she is that age, will she appreciate the world
In which I grew and formed and hurt and bent
To shapes that now I wish I had resisted?
What will she ask? What will I have the courage
To tell her truthfully? And yet, if I shirk this,
Whatever will be the point of gathering up my strength
To seek her help? Who am I? she might ask.
I cannot say. What moves my soul? Nor that.
This is far worse than interviewing for a job,
But unavoidable now, for here I am.
David
There he was, standing in front of me
When I hadn’t seen him in years,
And, when I last saw him, we fought
Like cat and dog. Literally! He accused me
Of almost breaking his jaw.
It was a beautiful punch.
He couldn’t have forgotten it,
But here he was now, an expert when I needed one.
“These are great cameras. Easy extra lens attachment.
Simple, no-trouble insurance.” I chose and paid
As much an old friend as a client.
He died six months later of leukaemia
At the age of twenty-three, while I was still abroad.
Was it a magical meeting?
“I forgive you, and goodbye.”
Escaper
He sat at the back of the class, behind bigger students,
And just simply drifted off, escaped,
Eyes half-closed, head still facing forward,
But empty and glazed, just not there.
We didn’t know where he’d gone to, or when.
But we formed his escape committee
And every time a teacher began
To ask him a question, hands would sprout up
All over the room.
“Sir, Sir,” piping voices would pierce the air,
And distracting questions would be insisted.
“Sir, if it doesn’t stop raining soon,
Will this afternoon’s games be cancelled?”
And, “Sir, what’s that woman doing there by the bus stop?”
And he would get clean away.
He always came back in plenty of time
To go home, and he never said
Where he’d been or when he’d got back
Or who he’d seen anywhere on his way,
But he didn’t miss much, came top every time
We were tested, and no-one let on.
I didn’t hear what happened to him later.
Maybe it’s best not to ask,
But once an inveterate escaper gets a taste for it,
There’s no knowing when he’ll leave you
Or if or when he’ll return.
Of the total UK population, more than half live in major towns according to the 2021 census, and only a tenth in rural areas. This explains why the streets in our towns and cities are crowded and buzz, while a country walk is likely to be quiet and lonely – except for the cars rushing from one town to another down rat-run country roads.
Not only are our urban streets becoming busier, the people in them are becoming ever more fascinatingly varied. In 2021, apparently, similar proportions of the UK population were of people aged under fifteen and over sixty-five (about a fifth each), or of a different skin colour, culture or dress code from pale grey and British-pink. Also, a slightly greater proportion was in some way disabled (a quarter, and remember, you can’t always see the symptoms of a person’s disability as you walk past them), and at least 1.7 million people in England and Wales (2.8% of the population) claimed a gender other than that attributed to them at birth.
This collection of poems tries to stand with the people of the minorities in our society. It tries to draw on their richness and revel in their gifts to the rest of us; and sometimes just reminds the majority that difference so often offers us opportunities which we will be the poorer for overlooking.
Robert Ferguson
Summer 2023
Inappropriate?
I’d valued you so much and for so long,
Wished I dared offer a hug, but did so fear
It’s newness would frighten you.
If I were to try, would it change our relationship?
Would you feel unable to come back again
And give me what I so much appreciate each day?
Just once, without thinking, in a conversation,
I stretched out my arms in sympathy
And you came to me, gladly and giggling with thanks.
Next visit, you were just the same as always,
Beautiful and kind and gentle, quick and strong.
I had to be the same, and so I was.
Her choice, not mine
We tried to relate
My sister suggested him
But he was a void
She thought I needed
A man in a lonely life
Between hairdressers
I didn’t. So what?
He seemed well dressed, clean shaven
She could take him home
But her husband Al
Wouldn’t understand, of course
Though they are both bored
So, working with him,
Trusting and attracted, she
Must pass him on
Why me? That’s trust too
Pity it didn’t work for us
He bored me, just like Al
Lost
Lawn, leaf-surrounded, bailey round the house
Beyond which is my shed-motte sanctuary
Where pen and cushion wait to welcome me
Back from the bustling world, back to a peace
I am precluded from by thunderstorms
And traffic crashing past my open gate.
Deep in the flowerbed weeds your bracelet lies
Tarnished no doubt, now dull and lost for ever
In fact, but never from my memory.
Where have you been, love?
Where have you been, love? I haven’t felt you in years,
Your tremoring indecision about everything,
Clothes, colours, lens or glasses,
Tea or coffee, bus or cab or walk?
What would she like or hate,
Put up with or accidentally match in taste?
What present would she like, one for herself
Or for her home? When is her birthday?
Is her sign compatible with mine?
Or opposite? If so, is that why I’m attracted?
Where have you been, love? Never seen a girl
Like this, in the office, in the street? Or just asleep
For all this time, and only now awake?
How are you, heart? You’ll see her in an hour
In a new dress and earrings you haven’t seen before.
She’ll smile as you pull back her restaurant chair,
Knowing what you’re doing, slipping into her seat,
Putting her purse on the table, no mobile in sight.
How are you, heart, as you contemplate all this,
Not knowing her well yet, but hoping that her heart
Will be equally as excited as you are.
Poignant
Before We Opened
Why am I stuck here
Alone until opening?
Where are you, Johnny?
Café Breakfast
Only just opened
Coffee machine spits and drips
Will he come today?
Dangerous diving
I’ve never done it, stood on the edge of a cliff
A hundred feet above the sea, with the intention
Of diving out and down so gracefully
To enter the water below with ne’er a splash.
I’m doing it this evening without a cliff,
Or sea below. I’m meeting my new therapist for the first time
And throwing my self, my fears, my life into her hands.
Who will she be? I mean, I know her name,
At least the name she’s given me to use,
But who is she? Google offers many therapists with her name.
Which one is she? Is it a generic name they take
To hide their true selves confidentially?
“This session is just to get to know each other
And decide if we will fit, be able to work together,”
She said on the telephone,
But does she really mean, for her to judge
If why I sought her out is just too shocking
For her to face? Logic suggests she’s heard it all before.
My shame and fear suggest the opposite,
But I am not so very special.
A young woman, she sounded,
Like my granddaughter,
But, if she is that age, will she appreciate the world
In which I grew and formed and hurt and bent
To shapes that now I wish I had resisted?
What will she ask? What will I have the courage
To tell her truthfully? And yet, if I shirk this,
Whatever will be the point of gathering up my strength
To seek her help? Who am I? she might ask.
I cannot say. What moves my soul? Nor that.
This is far worse than interviewing for a job,
But unavoidable now, for here I am.
David
There he was, standing in front of me
When I hadn’t seen him in years,
And, when I last saw him, we fought
Like cat and dog. Literally! He accused me
Of almost breaking his jaw.
It was a beautiful punch.
He couldn’t have forgotten it,
But here he was now, an expert when I needed one.
“These are great cameras. Easy extra lens attachment.
Simple, no-trouble insurance.” I chose and paid
As much an old friend as a client.
He died six months later of leukaemia
At the age of twenty-three, while I was still abroad.
Was it a magical meeting?
“I forgive you, and goodbye.”
Escaper
He sat at the back of the class, behind bigger students,
And just simply drifted off, escaped,
Eyes half-closed, head still facing forward,
But empty and glazed, just not there.
We didn’t know where he’d gone to, or when.
But we formed his escape committee
And every time a teacher began
To ask him a question, hands would sprout up
All over the room.
“Sir, Sir,” piping voices would pierce the air,
And distracting questions would be insisted.
“Sir, if it doesn’t stop raining soon,
Will this afternoon’s games be cancelled?”
And, “Sir, what’s that woman doing there by the bus stop?”
And he would get clean away.
He always came back in plenty of time
To go home, and he never said
Where he’d been or when he’d got back
Or who he’d seen anywhere on his way,
But he didn’t miss much, came top every time
We were tested, and no-one let on.
I didn’t hear what happened to him later.
Maybe it’s best not to ask,
But once an inveterate escaper gets a taste for it,
There’s no knowing when he’ll leave you
Or if or when he’ll return.
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