Filed under: childhood, happiness, home, love, memories, nature, strength | Tags: blossom, bread, gran, ironing, mary, mash, pie, pudding, sea, winter
Mary moo Mary
You were there
When the blossom
Came, Mary you
Were there when
The winter
Went, Mary you
Are here just like
A Gran.
Standing ironing
Sitting moaning,
Laughing, crying,
Listening to ‘Lipstick
On your collar,’
Telling tales from
The betting shop or
You and Marge’s
Latest trip to Wimpy,
Brian, Moreen
Leighton,
Patrick the Irish
Queer next door.
Have some more
Cream slice,
Bread pudding,
You’ll buy four for
For me, ‘Only a paahnd
Fifty’, to take home.
Or pie and mash for sister.
YOu? No, no you
Don’t eat like
You used to,
In the caravan,
Round, happy,
Just the sun and
Slot machines and
Walks along
The sea, girls
On leads, so’s
We dont ‘draaan’.
Please remember,
We thank you
And love you like a
Gran.
Grand old Mare
Filed under: childhood, haunting, home, memories | Tags: cat, ghost, haunt, house, kitchen, london, ma, neighbour, poetry, terrace, time, victorian
The house was built in 1864 or thereabouts
With bricks and mortar
In the usual way,
Set down on the street
‘Tween two just the
Same.
No, I lie. Next
Door was a shop,
Greyed out now, modern
Style, frosted windows, the works.
Behind doors to the house of
A family, bent by
Chance into odd-
Shaped rooms, tombs
For the spirits of eras
Passed, mingling now and
Then with the plates on
The rack or a glass in the
Cupboard, no harm meant.
After twenty five years
No surprise at a flying saucepan.
The family lived in the house,
Part of it, kin to it,
Whatever its freight.
Besides, after twenty five years, they
Had their own ghosts as guests,
Those former selves in former
Times living on,
Resonating in overlapping lines.
The cello practice, the barking
Dog, the sleeping dog,
The trampoline, the one that
Broke, the roller blades,
The skipping rope.
The time when budgies tweeted
In the kitchen
And Ma cooked at 6 for me
And 8 for him, again.
The time when garden’s shade
Was less and next door neighbour
Had a cat called…called….
Times gone but still present
In the ether, round the stairs, up the blocked chimney,
Or the skylight, then,
Down, over mossy steps
And at the back door, again,
With a ratataptap, like a
Ghost..
No, it must be Jack
The new next door neighbour’s
Cat.
