What I remember is walking into
the warm, amber glow, the reassuring
drop and clink of the latch behind me
locking in secrets, kitchen smells
bacon, boot polish, cabbage, a whiff
of drying dogs, trembling black flanks
glossy with rain, steaming by the range
a muddy spoor across the flagstones.
Hung on a hook, my father’s coat
collar five years’ pomade-slick
stiff with his form, wore his bitter spice
the threadbare armchair his impression
and in the larder, the grey March wind
sighed through the flyscreen while
a mail coach galloped round the biscuit tin
low enough to see, too high to reach.
The Bakelite radio played Family Favourites
and Jean Metcalfe read transoceanic hellos
from those remote, crumbling redoubts
Cyprus, Woomera, Hong Kong, Sarawak, the Rhine.
And always, my mother, constant as soil
absorbed with the Bramleys, working
the cinnamon, demerara, butter, flour and oats
crooning along to True Love Ways.
Perched, legs dangling, on a chair by the table
if I craned my neck, I could see the front door
down the hall, a tiny fissure in the mullion
an eye, winking bright, impish, weasel-sly
and again, the bending note of the piccolo wind
shivering me like the crimped puddles in the yard.
If I return one day, perhaps the eye, glinting now
will wear the crinkled edge of my grandmother’s smile.
Brilliant! I especially love “… bending of the piccolo wind, shivering me like the crimped puddles in the yard.”
I am hearing and seeing it just so. Now.
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Thank you Annie. Thank you so much.
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Great stuff – ” a mail coach galloping round the biscuit tin” – if Seamus Heaney was English, he might have written this!!!
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Thank you!
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Great stuff. Really great stuff.
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Thanks, mate.
It’s about time I came and bothered you. I want to meet the wee’uns.
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Love all the smells! It’s so easy to neglect that sense when writing but it’s so powerful and really linked to memory.
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I couldn’t agree more. They are with me now as I type.
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Beautiful!
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Thank you!
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Lovely poem. Such resonant, specific, evocative details. I felt I was there, and the bittersweet grace of the final lines. Thank you!
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Thank you, Tania, for your generous comments.
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Fantastic! Memories of being at my grandparents are flooding back to me so thank you for that!😀
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Thank you, Simon.
Those memories are the ones we treasure most, I think.
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Totally agree, Julian. I’m pleased you liked my poem so that I have now discovered your fantastic poetry!
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I did, and will follow with interest.
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Thanks, I’ve only been writing for a year and poetry even less than that. But I enjoy it so ill keep trying!
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Oh Bakelite radios and Family Favourites. I thought that BFPO was some sort of litany. Thanks for reviving memories so beautifully.
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So did I. All those far-flung places were food for a boy’s imagination.
And thank you!
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I could hear, smell, see, taste and touch this moment, this place. Beautiful.
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Thank you. I’m pleased this poem seems to have resonated with people, especially as it’s so personal.
I was afraid it might seem a trifle self-indulgent.
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I think it’s the personal, told in a universal way, that really makes it matter to people. We can identify, we become nostalgic for and with you.
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Hello Julian, having not heard of you until half an hour ago, and now having read two of your poems – I have to say this one, even more than the one in Summer – evoked such strong emotions… words fail me, as they often do.
I will come back here regularly to read your poetry.
I’m glad you enjoyed my shore dock piece – I had to think hard about a particular summer moment that meant a great deal to me – I was quite surprised that it was that summer which rose rapidly to the surface and even more surprised how easy it was to write (but difficult to keep it in the word limit).
Thanks again
Miles
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Thank you, Miles.
As you can probably imagine it’s one of my poems that is closest to my heart.
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yes that came through very clearly.
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I enjoyed this lavishly painted canvass. Beautiful. All that was missing were the smells.
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Thank you, Anita.
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A treasure. ~ Peri
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Thank you so much.
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A wonderful trip down memory lane.
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