In a Chelsea restaurant
the young boy sits stiffly,
school blazer straight-backed,
hands flat on flannel grey,
darting glances at his father,
whose fingertip command
mesmerises waiters to his wide.

Father scrutinizes son
as if lost for youthful words,
adjusts his Versace jacket,
fidgets with two vibrating phones
nestling by his bread plate,
as if to anchor him in a stormy sea
of uncontrollable intimate space.

As soup arrives, his eyes brighten relief
at a ringing summons beside the warm baguette.
BlackBerry-eared, the father engages with
the invisible visitor cyberstepping in to join the meal;
two plates, three people at the table.
The schoolboy swings his foot rhythmically,
hammering the wooden table leg.

The waiter brings a chocolate sundae,
but the boy’s blazer has drooped;
he’s melted like the ice-cream.
Face forlorn, he smiles feebly up
as the father ruffles his hair,
in pretence that bonds
have not just snapped.

And here is a poem about a visit I made to a medium many years before I set up Positiveworks.  Spooky!

A Medium with a Message

It was an unremarkable house,
on an unremarkable day,
redbrick Victorian terraced,
in a street as long as life.
A house you’d pass by,
not notice it was there
nor fathom what was beyond
the nondescript number.

He opened the door
with its stained glass window.
I walked across a tiled floor,
crisp black and white,
an unambiguous contradiction
of what was to come.

The room was small,
at the back of the house,
busy Laura Ashley wallpaper,
a still air of claustrophobia.

Then he started talking:
a torrent of words
that opened scenes
I didn’t know were there.
He told me my Dad walked beside me;
that I would travel the world
talking about life
with those as anxious as me.

He mentioned starting a business
I never knew existed,
writing books, being on TV.
How did he know?
That, he said, was one of life’s conundrums.

And it all started
in Fulham
that remarkable day.