Peter Phillips

Regent's Park

From Looking For You. Hearing Eye, c2001.

After forty years the boating pond is smaller.
Here I tried to drown my fears,
a boulder in my chest
as I circled to escape Victoria Station,
the train journey to boarding school,
a last holiday treat from mother.

Now mother's treat is the rose garden.
Her face likes the stroke of the scented breeze.
She shuffles to the ducks, licks an ice cream,
on holiday from herself...

From one of a sequence of poems about his mother's Alzheimer's condition.

Primrose Hill

From Looking For You. Hearing Eye, c2001.

Primrose Hill is grandmother:
large body, huge cheeks and the kind
of face that won't let go of life.

Today, standing at the top, below clouds
the colour of grubby underwear,
I see Canary Wharf blink its lights,
bully the East End...

Regent's Canal

From Looking For You. Hearing Eye, c2001.

Yellow sun and blue sky have greened
the canal to dusty emerald.
A barge sweeps past, swamping
crisp packets, its chug chug
soothing to me. But where is the horse?
No clipitty-clop on the towpath
or pull and plod of its doleful stare?..