Fifteen Minutes Late                                    Hay Festival 2014 (2nd Draft)
 
Pale triangles, sag-free, orderly
across a starting line of green vales
painted onto smudged
chaos-creating charcoal clouds
 
All events are running fifteen minutes late
 
In the white-wedding marquees,
congregations confettied on slam-shut chairs
near stoves sold by Burts’ bees blowdris
swishing forward, hiding sales dipping smiles.
 
All events are running fifteen minutes late
 
No Amazon or closing local bookshops
the Festival Bride belies the truth
as queues ebb and flow earnest believers
holding tight to yellow post-it new books.
 
All events are running fifteen minutes late.
 
In the Friends’ Café, marguerites stand to attention
As French Lavenders guard ‘Marc Green’s’ teak tables
And armed chairs fill with green Hunter wellies
 
All events are running fifteen minutes late
 
Outside spaces, left blank, filled in by
spotted wellies and pulling parents
pushing prides of joy into a make-a-shape tent
wannabe J.K. Rowlings trying hard not to mind
missing both Richard Dawkins and Stephen Fry.
 
All events are running fifteen minutes late.
 
Pale pastel triangles, sag slightly
Criss-crossing a finishing line of vanishing vales
Chasing charcoal-laden clouds.
 
Late events run away every hour.
 
 
 
 
Wrapped in Paper
Hay Festival 2014 (1st Draft)
Based on Fishbones Dreaming by Matthew Sweeney.
“He didn’t like to be this way.
He shut his eyes and dreamed back.”
 
 
I’m stuck in a rough-sawn bin,
next to the criss-crossed gate, sheep-sodden
black pellets beneath me.
I don’t like to be this way
I shut my eyes and dream back.
 
Rustling, unwrapping tearing at the
past news, torn paper catches
my grey-skin, crisped up and fried.
“Vinegar?” he had cried
“salt?” Don’t they know it’s bad?
shaken, tossed, speedily wrapped
Not in The Times but a two-day stale
Daily Mail, some fat lady gone skinny
having given up her fries.
I don’t like to be this way
I shut my eyes and dream back.
 
The Grimsby lorry driver slammed
the tailgate and trundled down the M1
destination known.
But I frozen solid shiver with the unknown.
Factory packed now, I had been
netted as a young ‘un
chasing the shoal,
trying to catch up.  
The sun had danced off my back
catching my speed, my skill
 
I like to be this way
I dream to dance with my shoal.