Poetry Blog by Ralph Dartford

On the laps of our beloved smoking mothers - 
we heard them speak of how the world
was whilst they were young.

The festooned nights of war-torn bingo halls -
where everything was just about right and unjust
about wrong. Where no one owned a phone.

I can still see her on abandoned mornings -
alone and never giving inches to winter ghosts.
Cigarette in mouth. Eyes down. Enraged of Englan...

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The diggers at Black Cross
waiting for grief that climbs
its reason hilltop bound.

Sting of the hot funeral tear -
cold rain on wild-red curly hair.
Yes. She’d drink the cinema of this.

The waltz of born bluebells,
a stalled train before the tunnel.
Bending this season to her end.

 

 

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It’s early evening. I’m meeting
a man to discuss iambic.

He offers a drink and I refuse.
He asks why not, of course. 

I say one will lead to another.
Then to cocaine - then to crack.

Then to heroin. 
Then to black.

Let’s discuss iambic, I say.
My parameters are pentameter. 

 

 

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It all began so very well
on this blossomed Easter Day.
Which led to a misunderstanding - 
in a quietened, difficult way.   
 
Tiptoeing the Pacific shoreline,
Hannah gripped her black plastic locket.
Showed him all her sacred stories 
that were hidden within her pockets. 
 
A plastic six-legged spider,
a chewed Chewbacca pencil. 
A love letter from the tiny boy, 
her dreams of b...

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