Hardly noticed at first
absorbed in coffee and book
then the phlegmy cough intruded
loud, recurrent, unscreened by hand.
I raised my book higher between us.
Elderly. Weathered.
Baseball cap, t-shirt, work shorts.
Laughter. Interjections.
Was he communicating
with wife or friend at the counter?
Followed his gaze. No-one. But …
ah! someone invisible in the other chair.
Met him walking later.
Not so old after all. Maybe 50.
[Poem #66]
This began as a game some bloggers played in 2008, to write about people who'd made an impact, in the same number of words as one's age, every day for a year. I did them less often and went on longer, adding one word each birthday. I stopped in 2016 and incorporated them into my main poetry blog. In 2019 I resumed the project and gave it its own blog again, with a new name, where it may unfold at its own (slow, intermittent, lapsing and resuming) pace. I've labelled these verse portraits, but they're more like quick sketches: mere glimpses, impressions....
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Sunday, 5 April 2009
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]
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]
Thursday, 26 March 2009
The Marine Biologist's Mother
News: a suicide
far across the world.
I didn’t know him.
But I remember
his mother’s words:
‘O golden child
the world will kill and eat.’
It ate her first.
She never saw him grow
so like his father.
Didn’t know her either –
but through her poems
we think we know.
‘Famous because of scandal’
the know-alls say.
Perhaps.
But loved for her words,
beauty and passion
living on.
[Poem #64]
far across the world.
I didn’t know him.
But I remember
his mother’s words:
‘O golden child
the world will kill and eat.’
It ate her first.
She never saw him grow
so like his father.
Didn’t know her either –
but through her poems
we think we know.
‘Famous because of scandal’
the know-alls say.
Perhaps.
But loved for her words,
beauty and passion
living on.
[Poem #64]
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