CHILDHOOD (Remove filter)
A Winter Escape
Thank you to talented local musician Stuart Bell for turning it into a lovely Christmas ditty!
(a re-post, but it seems more appropriate now! ⛄)
Like comets we slid through the crisp, white grass
In our wake billowed a powder-puff mass
It floated and swirled and twinkled with light
Like low-hanging stars broke free of the night
And in snow-laden fields angels were...
Sunday 6th December 2020 10:32 am
Ode to the Pork Pies of Fleetwood
A babe in a pram,
Wheeled down Lord street,
At the speed of a tram.
Mouth engrossed with jelly and swine,
Melting fine
Michelback’s prime.
My mum grew up on these pies,
I too.
As an infant into the 80’s,
pate mini pork treats,
from Grimes butchers.
I suppose it is what you grew up with,
Your tastes, your clutches.
Jelly, pastry, succulent meat,
which ...
Sunday 22nd November 2020 3:01 pm
Poem for my big sister
A poem for my big sister about our grandparents ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once upon a time there were two sisters
One dark
One fair...
You
And me
And we shared
Sweets
Dreams
A bed
A room
A home
A family
An abuse
A neglect
A secret
A history
And yet here we are
So very different.
We shared so much
And yet so very little
You were
A coconut ...
Wednesday 28th October 2020 6:15 am
The Mound
The Mound
It started way back when I was a child
One cold November night in sixty-four
Old furniture and windfall from the trees
Piled high into a mound of combustibles
Each year new kindling was added to ashes
That had smudged the verdant back garden lawn
Layer upon layer added to the blackened hill
That was gradually growing towards the sky
One year I lo...
Wednesday 2nd September 2020 2:41 pm
Cairo On The Radio
Down the endless garden
to a hand-built shed of wonders
and little me, sitting with my grandad
listening to all the voices
pushing through the static
What magic in those wires!
The narrow band, the wide
The squelch and the gain
The whistle and the whine
sounds I’ll never forget
The spectrum of a planet
chattering
Such wisdom in rough fingers
so deft upon the dial
gently they’d ...
Monday 10th August 2020 5:12 pm
Marketplace
Marketplace
This space is like a ghost town
Trestle tables row on row
Echoing with the hustle bustle
Vendors cries of long ago
I held my mother’s hand
And listened to them shout
‘apples sixpence a pound
Come on get your money out!’
Comics stored in cardboard boxes
Toys stacked high on stands
Gleaming in the Friday sun
Just out of reach of sticky h...
Monday 6th July 2020 12:50 pm
Needles & Thread
Needles & Thread
I remember her sat at an old Singer sewing machine
Turning the handle in the half-light of autumn
Making dresses and skirts for herself
So that precious pennies could be invested in children
She made me a Lone Ranger mask
From remnants of black cloth
She had left from one of her creations
I wore it with pride and a whoop and a holler
When ...
Friday 3rd July 2020 1:59 pm
A Bell and a Boy
There's a big iron bell on the roof of the barn
that is used to call men from wherever they are:
from the fields, from mending the fences
from tending the cows in distant pastures.
There's a boy who likes adventure,
to find interesting places and things.
He likes to explore different places alone,
to go wherever he will near home.
Call him home from the forest, farm bell.
Call him bac...
Wednesday 10th June 2020 5:30 pm
Magyk
Magyk
I had a book all full of spells
Where childhood magic
Weaved its way
Between the yellowed pages
Where dragon’s breath
Set woodland glades alight
And lost children danced
With the frightened and the fey
The teeth of angry wolves
Chewed at the edges
Whilst chattering little demons
Clawed along your spine
Strange apples fell from wizene...
Friday 8th May 2020 2:40 pm
The Pictures We Drew
I wonder what happens
To the poorly drawn images
We keep abreast as children,
Sheltered inside our notebooks and their crinkly pages.
I envisage those pages accompanying
Balloons, bubbles and butterflies,
And the colors in them adorning
The sallow face of the sky.
I like to believe that my poorly chalked out blades of grass
Somehow appended the greenery on earth
Or th...
Thursday 7th May 2020 8:47 pm
My Mother's Kitchen
My Mother’s Kitchen
I’m in my mother’s kitchen
It’s a Monday afternoon
The oven’s heated up the air
The buns will be out soon
Everywhere there’s an aroma
Of cinnamon and spice
An apple pie sits on the table
I’m waiting for a slice
A black-leaded coal fire
Does it’s best to dominate
The heat and the smells
That the baking permeates
An old fridge hums...
Tuesday 28th April 2020 2:50 pm
Glam Rock Man
Glam Rock Man
A stack heeled stomp in platform boots
Trowelled make-up and glitter suits
Feather cut hair and tinted roots
It’s Glam Rock, man,
it’s Glam Rock
Teenage Rampage, Ballroom Blitz,
Radio One plays all The Hits
Driving your dad out of his wits
It’s Glam Rock, man,
it’s Glam Rock
Jackie, Smash, Disco Forty Five
What a great time to be alive
...Wednesday 15th April 2020 12:42 pm
Hayloft Memories
I remember playing in a hayloft
with older boys, daring to jump like they did.
I tunneled alone through hay and darkness,
to find light at the other end.
As my memory goes back to those carefree times,
I wonder if I tried to impress older boys
as if they were my father.
Was I trying to outdo my brothers?
Was there a sexual element
in body sensations in free fall in hay?
Was b...
Thursday 9th April 2020 2:01 pm
Overnight Stay
Overnight Stay
“Time for bed” they said,
In a front room warmed by coal fire licks
Where the red and orange and white flames
Danced patterns on the walls of falling dusk
They push, cajole, entice you to the stairs
And do not notice terror tears welling in your eyes
Fourteen steps up the narrow stairwell
Tracing fingers on a pale wallpaper wall
Festooned with or...
Thursday 2nd April 2020 12:36 pm
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