My Cousin Anne

My cousin Anne was beautiful.

Dark hair and eyes, rich voice,

soft, curvy figure and that smile….

After childhood friendship,

life sent us apart.

Young women

briefly together again

in the big city, we still

talked long, shared books 

and clothes, and secrets.

The man she loved

couldn’t be hers – not 

full-time. (Wife, kids.)

And eventually not at all.

Known as glamorous, efficient

super-secretary, she who loved

children never had her own … 

though many fond nieces and nephews.

Poem #107

My Dad

Grew roses,

strawberries,

ferns and bamboo.

Made wooden dolls

from round-topped clothes-pegs,

drawing faces on.

Sketched for me

water-colour flowers; I remember

pink heath’s delicate bells.

When I had nightmares

sat with me into dawn,

telling stories.

At parties, played

comb-and-tissue

mouth organ;

declaimed with gestures

‘Abdul the Bulbul Emir’

or some Rabbie Burns.

On every family birthday
made an acrostic poem,

the person’s name down the side.

Laughed

sang

danced.



[Poem #105]

Cross-posted from my poetry blog, The Passionate Crone, from whence it is linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #309

David at 20

My son David —

slim and golden, beautiful —

looks good in all his clothes now,

and is more adventurous with them.

The red T-shirt lightens him up.

He smiles and talks to me

more than he used to.

He seems very happy lately,

confident and free;

even laughs at my jokes.

He has been growing muscle

working as a builder's labourer

(holiday job) for his dad

in Tasmania, at the caravan park.



[Poem #104]

Found poem from old journal entry 14/1/87

His Ex-Wife

At first meeting, was glad
to see she looked old.
I was wearing my red jacket
and I wasn’t fat then.

Hearing her talk, liked
her forthright politics,
imagined being friends.

But how, disappointed in life,
could she like me?
(And I warmed
to one she despised.)

That was 18 years ago.
Her youngest tells me now
she’s near her end.

My stepchildren’s mother.
My love’s first love.
This stranger.



[Poem #84]

The Grandson

'Everyone says
leave him with his father,
can’t take a child to live
in a country like that.'

'What!' we said.
'You’ve been
the one constant
in his life.

'In South-East Asia
they’ll love
you beautiful blondes.'
She took him.

Too admired,
they couldn’t go out,
got mobbed.
Came back here.

Now he’s teenaged
tall and lean, big-eyed.
She’s given him
stepfather, step-brothers.

The other day
he hit her.




[Poem #75]

PS (years later) that last was an isolated incident, I'm relieved to say.

'Grandpa Daddy'

The distant Grandpa,
the one I never met,
who lived across the water
like the rest of my Daddy’s
fabled, extensive family,
all those unknown
aunts, uncles, cousins.

I was grown
before I was told
of his love of the glass,
which took him so far
from Grandma.
A popular, dancing man,
charmer and flirt.

I still have the delicate
poem he wrote for me
when I was born.



[Poem #72]

Enemy Alien

I was fifteen.
My posh new stepmother
drawled with rounded vowels.
Stank.

Scent heavy, sickly.
Eventually I understood
it overlaid
the reek of spirits.

Stout stomach;
fluttery, floral
afternoon-tea-party frocks.

She stole the dress
Mum bought me,
sold it for charity.
(Someone saw.)

Hid my most treasured books
under the hedge
to rot in the rain.
Blamed my little brother.

Yes,
she was mad.
I’m alive, she’s dead.



[Poem #65]

Returned Traveller

Hates Australia
land of his birth and growth,
hates Holland
land of his father's ancestry;
holds dual citizenship.
Travels as much as he can
on all continents, preferably
far from his first country.

Now he's back, in limbo,
waiting a call from elsewhere.
I wonder if he'll find himself
strangely at home
as time passes,
or will he confirm
that he's still at odds
with his own people?



[Poem #46]

Aunty Amy

Ugliest woman
I ever saw: stout
with mottled skin,
plain-faced even when young
in those severe photographs.
Sometimes I looked away
not to puke.

She was still the favourite
we all begged to visit;
Grandma’s spinster sister.
Grandma had seven kids,
21 grandchildren. Aunty Amy
belonged to us all.

Now my sensible shoes like hers
make me smile. Past eighty
she read everything,
loved gardening
and us all.



[Poem #43]

Firstborn

I gave him something
and I’m glad I did:
some happy memories,
a love of cats and poetry.

I remember talking
in his teens and since:
quiet conversations
about ideas,
and sometimes
of turbulent feelings.

My snowy-haired
clear-eyed child,
fearless climber and diver,
grew to make poems, stories,
computer programs
and lasting friendships.

I rely on him now
for sense, honesty
and understanding;
the most fair-minded of men.



[Poem #40]

Cousin-Sister

Soon after you died, you came
to visit in my mind.
We sat together, children again,
talking as we used to
among tall ferns and grasses
and bells of pink heath
in that secret dell under the pines.

We always called it Paradise.
I wonder now if that in itself
was your message.
Otherwise, we said little.
Tied up a few loose ends;
agreed we were quits. Grinned.



[Poem #39]

Younger Stepson

We met at Christmas.
I guess you’d heard
there was someone new
in your father’s life.

You kissed me shyly on the cheek
and included me
in the present for your Dad:

scented bath salts.
'You might enjoy them
together,' you said.

16 years later, you’re not
slim youth but solid,
handsome man.

In one forgotten family drama
we exchanged fierce words.
Now we talk deeply,
good friends.



[Poem #37]

We no longer live near each other, but Younger Stepson is staying with his father and me this xmas, and the last line of the poem is truer than ever.

Cross-posted from my poetry blog The Passionate Crone, from whence, on 25 December 2011 (a Christmas 19 years later!) it was submitted for dVerse Christmas. 

Favourite Uncle

You walked on your hands
across the floor, up on a chair,
along the dining table
and down at the other end.

And you could whistle
and play a comb and tissue
just like a mouth organ.

You called me Mary Rose,
my Dad’s name for me.
You were his youngest brother.

At 70, grey-bearded,
you rode a motorbike.
90 this year, you requested a party
'small but memorable'.



[Poem #31]

Sister

When my father married your mother
we were already friends. Became
allies – against them.

You taught me to smoke:
puff, cough, sip raspberry cordial,
lie down dizzy on your bed.

We escaped to Melbourne,
you dragged me from studying to parties:
dancing in the dark to Nat King Cole.
Later we hosted children’s birthday parties.

Always talked for hours;
literature and theology, with coffee.
Wish you weren’t dead.



[Poem #26]

Black Sheep

You were the aunts’ whispers,
the rebel we shouldn’t meet.

Grown up, my brother said,
'I met that cousin. She’s brilliant!

You must meet, you’d love her.'
So I did, and you were, and I did.

Actor, dancer, thinker.
Spiked hair, bangles, throaty laugh.

We adored each other through decades
of marriages, babies, moves interstate.

Then what happened? A sudden
freeze. I still don’t know what I did.



[Poem #8]

Mum

You were always inclined to denial.
How well we all knew that stare
looking coldly a little way past us
or into some internal distance,
that vaguing of eyes and voice.

During the day of your dying, I discovered
I had it too, the same inclination.
An inheritance, perhaps?
I walked and I talked in a sort of trance.
This is not happening, I thought. But it did.



[Poem #1]