I laughed like a drain.

Do you ever get a 'ping' moment when something just resonates with you? I do and one such was on a solo Saturday evening drive last week. I was tuned in to Radio 4's 'Loose Ends' and listened to an interview with Imtiaz Dharker. Who she? She was born in Pakistan, grew up a Muslim Calvinist in a Lahori household in Glasgow and eloped with a Hindu Indian to live in Bombay. That marriage finished and she married a Welshman, Simon Powell, who died in 2009. She is an accomplished pen and ink artist, poet and political documentary film-maker. With such a background, the interview was bound to be interesting and the 'ping' moment came when she read her poem 'I swear'. It's a love poem with a difference and I like it because the genuine affection comes through in the language and the modulation of her delivery. I did two things when I got home: I went on the BBC i-player and recorded the clip directly from the programme and I ordered the book in which the poem appears. The publicity blurb for the book, Over the Moon, says that "these are poems of joy and sadness, of mourning and celebration: poems about music and feet, church bells, beds, café tables, bad language and sudden silence". From what I've read so far, I agree, and it will a great collection to dip into.

Here's the recording, followed by the verses. Both to enjoy - or maybe they only 'ping' for me?



I Swear

Because I turned up from Bombay
too prissy to be rude

because you arrived via Leeds and Burnley
you thought it would do me good

to learn some Language. So

you never just fell, you went arse over tits,
and you were never not bothered
you just couldn't be arsed, and when
you  laughed you laughed like an effing drain
and when there was pain it was a pain
in the arse.

That was just the start: you taught me
all the Language you knew
right through the alphabet from a to z,
from first to last, from bad to worse and worser
and the very worst you could muster.

I learned the curses. I learned the curser.
So proper you looked in your nice shoes and suit
until you produced Language like magic
out of your mouth and I was impressed

and oh I fell for you arse over tits
and when I said so you laughed like a drain
and we blinded and swore like the daft buggers
we were, all the way down Clerkenwell
and all the way up on the train
to the Horseshoe Pass.

And I tell you, since you went it's a pain
in the arse, and when some days I feel like shit
or when I say that I feel flat, I swear
I hear you laugh like a drain.
Not just flat, Mrs, Flat as a witch's tit,
that's what you say. Flat

as a witch's tit.