Competitors

‘Share and share alike’ was one of the things taught to us when we were young. I found it difficult at times but in the presence of older people it was best to comply. There were a few times when uncensored, I’d surprise myself by sharing something, prompted by a spontaneous surge of generosity from within. I’d feel quite saintly for a while and believe I should have been treated more kindly by folk, had they but known.

I can’t remember when it started but it probably began with a simply unhygienic sharing at school. My mate had an apple. I did not. So placing my arm around his shoulder as I’d seen other boys do, I said to him, “Give us a bite then, Jim?” And without any further persuasion, I enjoyed my first bite. Later, on observing other boys, I added, “Save us t’core too, will ya?” Over a period of time, the bite or the offer of the core would be shared as naturally as others had shared theirs. (I never extended my request to share oranges though. It was far too cold where I lived to be eating those anywhere but in the warmth of home. I also confess to an inbuilt aversion to tasting the juices of an orange watered down with the dribblings of a runny nose.)

Time and experience have brough competition to bear. There were other mates without an apple, so I set about acquiring skills to cope with the situation. It wasn’t long before I would hone in on an apple breathed on and being polished by a schoolmate as naturally as a female Codling moth’s antenna could pin point the male she sought. My oral seductions for a bite and the core had to be pruned and tamed; and they were.

After a bout of measles I was forced to wear spectacles, and the bottom dropped out of my persuasive approach, finely honed. Overnight I became a has-been mate, with four eyes. Then the school bully took to calling me ‘Skenner’, everyone laughed and I was relegated to a small group of forlorn no-hopers. My self-esteem plummeted. I was the last to be picked for soccer played with an empty tin – exciting within the four walls of the school yard where it was banned. I stood on the furthest boundary for cricket (played with a ball made from rags), if I was picked at all. No wonder I lost something of the bubbling infectious enjoyment of just being with my mates, especially when I we tried to see who could pee the highest up the wall in the boys’ loo (I could only reach the half-way mark). As a competitor I’d become a non-entity. A dreadful label for anyone.

I decided I’d become a monk. I’d be safe behind the cloistered walls of a monastery. I could have, if I’d lived in the Middle Ages… Many of my ideas and inspirations sprang from, “I could have, if…..” The monk idea didn’t last. I looked up the word in an encyclopaedia and pictures of them put me right off. They all looked so woe-begone, and it was obvious they could only reach the half-way mark too.

Anyway, it didn’t take me too long to accept being called four eyes, or Skenner. There seemed to be nothing I could do about it, so I’d grin and make some humorous comment…and in the process I gained a couple of great new mates. No point being woe-begone if I wasn’t even a monk, I thought.

Dennis Crompton © 1997

Broken shells

Thought was of food

as blackbird high perched

observed cars trucks buses,

and a fair-haired youth

pedalling carefree

wheels whirring smoothly

on hard sealed road.

*

Sharp eyes focused

downwards as blackbird swooshed

hop-stepped head angled

beak pecked shell packed food;

dropped pecked picked up

shook dropped pecked

flayed on road flayed and flayed.

*

I looked again saw

only broken shell remained.

*

The youth passed by

fair hair flying

helmet from handlebars swinging

and clear inside my brain

I pictured cold hard road

waiting

'neath his humming wheels

waiting

waiting for the dropping

the shaking

for the pecking and the flaying

with only broken shell remaining.

*

*

Dennis Crompton © 1997

Mindful be

Again, youth's had its terrible fling,

reckless, carefree, bubbling thing,

now streams of cars flow through the town,

head for the plot in cemetery ground.

*

If only young eyes could have seen,

felt the hopeless sorrowing,

known the grief and felt the pain,

of friends and family by the grave.

*

The preacher says what he has to say,

but you don't answer, you've gone away,

left us here to weep and sigh,

to remember you as years crawl by.

*

Young life's a wild, tempestuous thing,

trying out its fledgling wings,

careless, free, racing to and fro,

seeking all there is to know.

*

Now its finished at least for you,

we who are left, we grieve for you,

robbed of your warm personality, we

learn how fleeting is our humanity.

*

In that, you may not have died in vain,

a warning giving to those who remain,

life is a precious, quicksilver thing,

contained in a mortal, disposable frame.

*

Enjoy by all means what freely abounds,

of life in your family and all that surrounds,

mindful please be, if tragically finished,

we who remain will be sadly diminished.

*

Dennis Crompton © 1995

A journey

Today on my journey into town

a youth rode by.

His bicycle, with its wicker basket

(a relic from the past)

reminded me of journeys I had made

feet draped over handlebars

of the farm hand's bike.

*

How the wind whistled in my ears,

forcing tears from my eyes.

Sometimes he'd whistle or sing,

and an inner surge of joy

made small irrepressible laughs

bubble from my lips

as we hummed along.

*

Fairgrounds, swings, roundabouts, or

roller-coaster rides never could compare

to riding home that way, for me,

when I was seven.

*

He was young, quiet,

not given to saying much,

but he smiled a lot in a basic friendly way.

He had a good clean country smell

of animals, the barn and hay,

a homely smell to me.

*

He went away,

took another kind of journey,

and the war, you know...

and he never did come back.

I was glad, and sad,

as I remembered him today.

*

Dennis Crompton © 1998

A good time?

How good it was to be alive,

feeling, enjoying my exuberance of spirit,

slim teenager then, still foot and fancy free...

I strolled with ease the main streets of our city,

looked kindly on those who looked kindly on me.

*

Then there came towards me, smiling,

a slim and fresh teenager like myself.

In the midst of people passing on the pavement,

she came up close, and speaking softly said to me,

Hello. Would you like a good time, with me?

*

I smiled, shook my head, and walked on

before what she'd said had registered with me.

I stopped, turned  'round, saw people watching,

knowing, as I knew, what she'd just offered,

bewildered she'd just propositioned me.

*

A few work mates would have laughed

and mocked my quick innocent rejection.

What they'd have done had they been in my place...

but, oh, how sad I felt as I looked on that maiden,

I never could have used her as she'd suggested then.

*

Where is she today, I wonder?

How often have I thought on that,

that and her thoughts on my refusal that day.

Was it her looks, her form or personality

I disapproved of, rejecting what she had to say?

*

I do wish I'd had

the chance once to meet her,

on equal terms, both innocent and unstained.

How different then would have been our conversation,

leading to who knows? Well, I think a better way.

*

© Dennis Crompton 1985

(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)

Distant flavours

Michael, the quiet and reserved sixth-former at college was tolerated by the boys, being a worthy goal-keeper in their soccer team. Girls saw him differently, rating him tops in good looks and charm and dreaming of him as most likely to succeed as donor father to their as yet only dreamed of children. Despite their best efforts, none succeeded in gaining his attention and were dismissed with a fleeting smile. Visible but unattainable, Michael with the aura of a living Oscar, remained a delectable but distant figure. By the middle of term two sights were lowered, any male, ready, able and willing was seen as desirable. Hasty perhaps, as feminine intuition may or may not have let them down.

A movement, quivering for some time in Michael’s most secret place, began a gradual agitation to volcano status. Despite his best efforts, even with his mind in neutral, his body would take over, embarrassing him when in public, frequently and without warning, the location of its trigger to gain control eluded him.

However, at other times delightfully suggestive femininity surrounding him brought a higher impetus to play. Then, as if a door had opened in his mind, sonnets in homage to their loveliness would flow from his pen, sensuous and beautiful and waiting to be shared.

Until Kumiko arrived, softening the blue of his heaven and all other hues as well. Divided attention saw him replaced as goal-keeper but he’d gained a partner for the mid-term ball. Michael’s gift to her, discovered and purchased via the internet, came from Kumiko’s own country, Japan.

She took a moment to use it and there on the dance-floor they shared their first taste of tengokuno kutizuke, a lipstick rightly named ‘the kiss of heaven’.

And I’m assured that sharing such distant flavours is just divine.

 

Dennis Crompton © 2000

(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)