It’s a great pleasure to introduce this month’s guest poet Cliff Yates. I met him on an excellent online workshop he ran for the Poetry Business. They published his New & Selected Poems, which brings together poems from five earlier publications – over thirty years of ‘inimitable’ work. Poignancy, economy, humour, a touch of the surreal…

You can find Cliff’s biography and the link to his website below the poems.

Day Breaks as a Petrol Station

Day breaks deliberate as a petrol station
newspapers and expensive flowers
but you’re tired of vacuum-packed sandwiches
and sordid headlines.

On the 15.07 out of Deansgate
she’s reading The Holy Sinner.
The dog opposite smiles
through its muzzle.
Coffee, or maybe something’s on fire
we do appear to be speeding
unless we’re stationary and the landscape’s
rattling past. ‘It’s been a good day,’
she says, ‘it makes up for yesterday.’
‘Why, what happened yesterday?’

Days without rain and suddenly it rains.
Another country, your body’s not your own.
You want to go for a walk. In this?

He threw a stick for the dog in Habberley Valley
the tattoo flew from his arms
landed in the bracken like leaves.

Dog

So many places closed: the off-licence,
the butcher, the corner shop, even
the telephone box screwed shut.
Dog had come a long way, and now what?

The cherry blossom, he noted,
looking up for once from the pavement,
was particularly stunning this year,
maybe it was the same every year

but noticing it, his heart was lifted
and he decided not to be disappointed.
The journey had been arduous, the future
was uncertain, but there is more to life,

he reflected, cocking his leg against the letter box,
than a bowl of fruit on a table.

The Lesson

The nun points out the ones to watch:
the boy in the corner, the girl at the back.
In this class it’s the boy in the middle
who thinks he’s a cat.

Outside, workmen are felling trees.
A bird’s nest tumbles in through the window,
lands on a desk. Inside the nest, a baby bird.
It’s okay it’s okay, the children say,
Brian will know what to do.

The boy who thinks he’s a cat
gathers the bird and, holding it
at arm’s length in the cup of his hands,
heads for the door, the nun behind him
between the silent rows of children
and the bird, as if on cue, lifts up its beak and sings.

Lighthouse

The lighthouse flickers at the end of the pier.
We watch it in our red pyjamas.
Actually, neither of us are wearing red pyjamas.
You’re wearing my blue shirt.

The lighthouse flickers at the end of the pier.
It’s the only thing we can be sure of.
Everything’s uncertain
since you set alight my record collection.

I’m trying to work out an appropriate reaction,
rearranging things in my head to eliminate
all memory of the record collection.
The lighthouse flickers on and off.

Actually it doesn’t, you point out, it just appears to.
You look amazing in my blue shirt.
I haven’t words to describe how good you look
in the light from the lighthouse. Now you’re here

now you’re not. Maybe I should burn
something of yours, you suggest.
Your voice leaves me in the dark.
It doesn’t sound like you when I can’t see you.

Cliff Yates was born in Birmingham and has been publishing poetry since the 1980s. His New & Selected Poems (Smith/Doorstop, 2023) brings together work from various collections including Henry’s Clock  (Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize; Poetry Business Book & Pamphlet Competition), Frank Freeman’s Dancing School (Arts Council England Writers Award) and Jam (ACE Grant for the Arts). He taught English at Maharishi School in Skelmersdale and wrote Jumpstart Poetry in the Secondary School during his time as Poetry Society poet-in-residence, following the success of his students in poetry competitions. He has led courses for, among others, the Arvon Foundation and the British Council.

Cliff’s site: https://cliffyates.wordpress.com/