timwrite.net

Curious writing for curious people

Category: Poetry

  • A Cuppa for Mum

    A Cuppa for Mum

    Like millions of other people, I became a carer for my mother as she died of dementia. She had left home in her teens to join the women’s Royal Navy (Wrens). She learned to rally drive, to drive defensively. She brought up her sons alone after the death of my father.

    I will make you a cup of tea

    The shade you like

    The warmth you find comforting

    The sweetness you find acceptable

    And you’ll savour it

    And recall all the other cups

    In your long, eventful life.

    And you will be you safe this afternoon

    As you drift

    As it rains outside

    As I say “I love you”

    As I put the cup in your paper skin hand.

    Reaching outside of all recognition

    As I cease to exist for you

    But you’re still there

    Drinking the tea

    That someone kind brought you once.

  • Sounds Like a Mother’s Woes

    A poem about a child.

    Hushed up in a few seconds to corral sounds

    The little ones she made at first.

    Spoken-splatters from her tongue

    Inside me first then on and on.

    And all the music in the world

    (sounds like a mother’s woes)

    Could not have made your toes

    Change my mind like they did.

    Small, perfect, resolved, a normal kid’s.

    I would die for you but wee-ooooh-wee-oooh

    You wouldn’t want me to.

    But you couldn’t tell me “No”.

    So sleep a touch for me.

    And I will protect you.

  • At The Funeral

    At The Funeral

    My daughter, Zuzu, died in 2004 at our home in Sydney. Her funeral was attended by more than one hundred people — not too shabby for a little girl who was unable to talk, walk or eat unaided but who could smile to light up a stadium. Every day I think about her. Some days it’s good. Some days I remember her funeral. It’s all too very human to write about it.

    The peace that flowed from her sleep

    Stopped suddenly

    In her bedroom near dawn.

    While I slept.

    There is a hall with a curtain and an oven

    For her body

    To lift away

    As smoke

    Into Sydney’s spectacular light.

    On the perfectly green lawn

    Of the modern crematorium

    Ice cold air filled with fire

    In the July winter sun.

    We were so deeply moved

    By your scared sacred kind wishes,

    Evaporating in front of us

    As we tried to survive the future.

    As she lay there, in the mortuary

    I brushed her hair

    As I often did before

    In her short beautiful life.

    Although her skull

    had been opened

    and emptied

    Her brain delivered to hope.

    I listened to other mourners

    Behind me talking about her life

    Because they knew her and loved her.

    (Her laughter was real once

    It had drifted away

    It had gone

    Imagine that

    If you can)

    She left pursued by white balloons

    Brought along to the fire scene

    By someone I don’t know

    Who was doing their very best.

    After abnormal handshakes

    And crushing embraces

    We went down to the pub in town.

    and I started drinking

    For decades.

  • The Summer of ’76

    1976 was a hot summer. Hot and teenaged for me. My father died that year. Punk began to happen in rural England. I spent a lot of time in the water meadows.

    We all went down to the water meadows,

    Together in the bunk-off school sunshine,

    When diving was dangerous

    When the cows scarfed up the grass.

    I nearly drowned that summer,

    I was cut by broken glass

    In the water by the wooden danger sign

    The scar remains

    On my ankle today.

    In 1976 we dived into the black,

    The deep drowning pool,

    Where the ancient pike lived with other legends.

    And ate all incautious children.

    Later, in freezing December,

    I looked in there for the lost boys

    From the terrible concrete orphanage

    That had been quietly closed.

    The savage boys from savage Boys Home

    That wasn’t a home at all.

    Where the orphans ate old, raw meat,

    And other legends.