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poem in a white ribbed vest

~ poems every day of april

poem in a white ribbed vest

Category Archives: family

1976

30 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by bashfulbadger in family, love, NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, weather

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1976, drought, motherhood, NaPoWriMo, poem, poem in a white ribbed vest, separation, standpipe

standpipe

what if
in the unforgiving glare
of that harsh and endless summer
of standpipes and hosepipe bans,
his crimes in stark relief,
throwing long shadows
of she should have known better,
she folds up her forever afters,
disappointedly, reprovingly
and packs all her tomorrows
in an ancient case of faded tartan?

even at dawn
the house would thrum
with argument,
a plucked bowstring
of tension,
holding its breath
while the combatants
mustered grievances
for the fray.
the red checked rectangle
she grips and heaves,
a burden of guilt,
an unwieldy catalogue
of wrong decisions.

and she slips
the bolt on the safety chain
on the solid 30s front door,
unlocks the chubb
and then the yale,
silently,
as the milk float
glides into view
around the corner
of the cul de sac.

she exits
the hall of mirrors domain
of the man who’s
in thrall to his temper,
who can turn on a dime
into someone she fears.
essays the first few steps,
unsure as if across
an untried lake,
frozen overnight
into the freedom of away.

her marriage –
like a heap of unwashed clothes
in their broken washing machine –
behind her, a jumble of soiled
and mismatched items.
an endless list of chores
that will never now be done.

impossible to escape
the wreckage unscathed.
but the girls to be,
curled together
inside her
like seahorses,
can still be saved.

 

Photo from BBC.

 

yellow wallpaper

24 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by bashfulbadger in age, family, NaPoWriMo, poetry, youth

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age, anaglypta, depression, NaPoWriMo, old teddy, poem, poem in a white ribbed vest, sorority, wallpaper, yellow paint

IMG_0392

I touch
with reverent fingertips
my sister’s bedroom walls.
once a brilliant crocus yellow,
vibrant and aflame,
a fresh coat of paint
testament to a new home,
a new freedom,
a new start.

now the sunshine emulsion
is faded to the dusty golden
of a cherished old teddy
in the airing cupboard,
held together by patches and repairs.

beneath the paint
the anaglypta is like
stalks of wheat
waving in the breeze.
but we are a ruined crop,
ungathered, turning
to dust in the wind.

wednesday’s child

19 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by bashfulbadger in family, NaPoWriMo

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childhood, double decker, NaPoWriMo, neglect, poem in a white ribbed vest

a solemn child on the lower deck
twists sideways in his buggy
to look at me. he fixes me with a frown
so intensely sorrowful
that I feel my heart breaking.
he doesn’t speak or smile or wave;
his mum in a fur gilet, scraped back up-do
and fierce attitude, refuses to engage,
succumbs to a profound languor.
slumped back in her seat,
she resists the worry in his blue eyes
so that foreboding for his future
lodges somewhere in my chest.

 

ex-offender

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by bashfulbadger in family, NaPoWriMo, television, youth

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alienation, michael hennessy, NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, red rock, violence

michael2

 

his heart has forgotten how to feel.
it is desiccated, a dry streambed
at the foot of a deep canyon
in a years’ long drought.
fear opened a chasm inside him
and a cold wind blew through it.

he suppresses the aggression
that rises through him, as if
his whole frame were cabled
and plugged into a wall
socket of violence.

it curls his hands into fists
and twists his insides so
that he can hardly breathe,
and his smile tastes bitter with malice.

while they watch him through
locked windows, tremble and brace
for the onset of his wrath,
he longs only to be as empty as
a beach swept clean by the tide.

entreaty

08 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by bashfulbadger in family, NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, youth

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childhood, jesus, NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, religion, sacred heart

sacred-heart

kneeling by our 2ft6 twin beds,
matching red tartan bedspreads
hemmed with neat scarlet fringes,
we said our prayers inside our heads
and felt the darkness in the bedroom breathing,
gathering density and texture
like a giant ball of wool rolling itself up
into something substantial.

we half fell in love with the jesus on our wall,
wavy auburn locks and kind blue eyes,
always with that smile, a touch reproachful,
whose sacred heart still somehow forgave us all.
meanwhile, swimming up from dreams
into the shouted voices of the night,
the recurrent intermittent clamour of the fight,
our eyes try to hold on to each shadowy form
as if awareness can still it or keep it at bay.

abduction

20 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by bashfulbadger in family, NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest

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abduction, poem


panic in the ragged edges
of her voice, calling
a child’s name into
the twilight.

guilt rising hot and acrid,
instant heartburn,
churning her stomach
with a wooden paddle
of speculation.

her breathing serrated
by apprehension,
imagination supplying
every gruesome
possible outcome.

the inevitable
parental press appeal
cliché of TV dramas
dries her throat
and drains her will.

she all the time,
against her will,
visualises the pathos,
the poignancy
of a tiny white coffin
lowered into the earth.

unreconstructed

12 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by bashfulbadger in age, family, NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, writing, youth

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70s, blanket box, blog, kodak instamatic, memory, NaPoWriMo, nostalgia, poem, schreiber

old cameras

we put our past together
imperfectly,
from fragments we find
in envelopes with yellowed paste,
on the tops of wardrobes
and at the backs of drawers.

overloaded drawers that only open
if yanked at a certain angle,
and taken by surprise, whose bottoms
billow out into the cupboard below.

or in a schreiber blanket box,
with its unsatupon black vinyl seat,
long-term resident of the landing,
a sanctuary for half-finished garments
sewn for small children long grown up.

washed out 110 instamatic colour snaps,
faded as if by the hot 70s summer sun
they captured in blurry matte oblongs.
or square monochrome over-exposed
polaroids, the nearest we came to magic,
as we posed awkwardly,
clutching our own elbows,
in front of the french windows.

blanket box

letters from our neighbours,
witnesses who took an interest
in our welfare, postcards
from our younger selves,
cheery messages from foreign parts,
birthday cards from long-lost friends.

we reassemble our lives as they once were.
but they are jigsaws with missing pieces –
the edges of a cloud, the arrowhead tip
of a church spire, the verdant heart of a tree.
they will always be insoluble and incomplete,
vital clues absent or jumbled,
astray in the thickets of memory.

 

Incidentally found out the camera on the left is still halfway through a film …

death and the musician

11 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by bashfulbadger in family, music, NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, poetry, US

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blog, death, grant hart, grief, husker du, nostalgia, poem, rip

hearing a certain song now
resonates inside your heart
as if it really held strings;
and your eyes begin to leak the grief
that is drowning you by degrees.
your record collection
a roll call of the dead.

it carries the same unexpected pathos
as the accidental discovery
of something banal or mundane
– a note to the milkman,
for ‘one extra pint, please’,

 a recipe or an address –
in the handwriting of
a deceased parent, so
grant et al
 familiar and now so seldom   seen.
they will never put pen to
paper again.

31 upland road no.2

09 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by bashfulbadger in family, NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, youth

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70s, blog, dulwich, family, last of the mohicans, poem, upland road

Fiat_2300_estate_ca_1968
you endure bad black
and white sunday night TV,
impenetrable action adventures,
feigning immersion
in someone else’s bleak
unimaginable past,
to postpone the wrench
of home-going.

while the row incubates,
a bickering beginning
simmering like the anglo indian
curry, fragrant, on the stove.
then rages, sulks and headaches
precipitate a door-slamming
leave-taking.

you are bundled into the back
of the beloved fiat 2300 estate –
a beautiful mushroom machine
sleek and stylish,
straight out of a 1960s
monaco heist movie.

ill will and intransigence
reign supreme
and rain down a plague
of prejudice and hate.
the recriminations rise
like bubbles to the surface
and the argument sweeps over you,
a storm you cannot outrun.
and the top 40 radio show
is never turned on.

 

Photo of Fiat 2300 Familiare from Charles.

31 upland road no.1

08 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by bashfulbadger in family, NaPoWriMo, poem in a white ribbed vest, youth

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blog, dulwich, family, NaPoWriMo, parma violets, peckham rye park, poem, upland road

peckham_rye_park_restoration_3_

31 upland road,
a hop and a skip,
from peckham rye park,
where tiny hooped fences
guard the grass to be kept off
and the dogs, let off the leash,
explode into action,
speeding bullets shot from a gun
in an invisible holster
on your aunt’s hip,
rebounding just as fast
as if on elastic.

a parma violetlooroll
grandmother,
all bustle and bluff
and big-bosomed hellos,
clutching you with kindness
in a hard soft embrace.
her house is dogs-barking
excitement, a cheerful chaos
and cacophony, unruly,
disordered but for
loo rolls stashed discreetly
beneath crocheted flamenco dancers.

parma_violets2a welcome world away
from that finger along the mantel
evening check for dust,
when we all held our breath
in unison, existing
in the shadow of a volcano
that might erupt at any second.

 

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‘forget that I remember/and dream that I forget’

  • 1976
  • on fire
  • harmony
  • make hay …
  • make-believe
  • short shift*
  • yellow wallpaper
  • double summertime
  • famished
  • journey ennui
  • residue
  • wednesday’s child
  • wabi-sabi*
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  • schoolgirl
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  • unfinished
  • sundown
  • head teacher
  • primary
  • ornament
  • plain sailing by tracey thorn
  • thistledown

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