Sunday, January 08, 2012

2012

The new year finds me in reflective mood, as the screams of sleepover weans recede into the distance and a long term of wage slavery beckons with the mornings as dark still as the evenings and the wind rattling the windowpanes all down the Glen.

I hope we all have a good year, folks, all the best to you. Here are some christmas downloads and a newish poem.










Starcat



Every Saturday morning
we meet, my daughter and I,
to study form. She has a plain scone,
sometimes an empire biscuit.
I have coffee. I used to have an egg roll
but she didn’t like the way it ran
yellow onto the napkin.
After a moment or two she’ll
put on her latest pair of glasses
give a slight frown and get to it.
Stars are good, Elektra Star, Mystery Star,
but cats are best, Kenya Cat, Lightning Cat,
Son of Cat. How the pair of us rejoiced
when Starcat was on the card at Ascot,
an alchemy just for us it seemed,
a totemic and irresistible blend
of the cosmic and the cute.
Stars are usually eighth, cats more spry
but still well down the field.
Starcat lost, its life in fact.
I say it has retired and today is eating grass
in the verdant field of our imagining,
a place where people of differing ages come,
to watch horses take wing,
and two bob make a thousand pounds.

11 comments:

hope said...

He's alive! (Gets kinda quiet around here when you're away).

Best to you and yours in the new year...and hope to hear you more often. I miss these poems when you're practicing silent introspection!

Titus said...

Happy New Year! You'll be delighted to hear that Starcat has just launched in The Phoenix, a new comic sneakily given away in The Times on Saturday in order to make your children desire it, and then persuade you to subscribe. Thus my £1.50 stake became £24 for 3 months subscription.
Starcat is half-cat, half-spaceship. I must admit Hyperdrive Level 5 is very funny.

Rachel Fox said...

Only the hardcore left here, I see.

Gordon Mason said...

Enjoyed this tale of 'innocence' disguised as maths homework with the odds, Hugh.

Hugh McMillan said...

What's wrong wi hardcore. Rachel?
Dinnae deserve any comments since I'm so crap at commenting on other folks'. Hey time for another reading in the north to launch 'Thin Slice of Moon'.

Titus said...

I didn't know this was a porn site.

Hugh McMillan said...

cannae take the sex out of essex, can you?

Titus said...

It's the only way.

Anonymous said...

Loved the poem, I can relate to the obscure and endearing obsessions of little daughters... I take it your daughter is also familiar with Nyan the Poptart Cat? It was a favorite of my daughter's for a while...

Best wishes
EA

Jean Atkin said...

Favourite lines:
Stars are usually eighth, cats more spry
but still well down the field.

Stars, I suppose, are predictable if you have a good eye for one. Whereas cats are movers alright, but notoriously eccentric. Your hybrid beast wasn't born under a lucky one, was he?

mykwerks said...

Hugh, you are new to me. Looks like I'll be here often. Fabulous.