Tag: Family

Yellow blanket

Cat fur and itchy crumbs,

The soft and milky

Spell of films and laughter,

Salty tears the blanket took,

Stretchy holes and threads

Pulled loose by happy claws –

The ecstasy of dribbling jaws –

Bobbly bits I want to pull

(Pigtails on the girl in front)

And dingy bits from god knows what –

Old friends –

Do not wash my yellow blanket.

Baby Bird

A little baby bird:
Such a tiny, fledgling soul.

Come, please come!
It’s time we met.
Your every little flutter
Makes my drumskin belly roll.

Come, please come!
The stage is set,
And never have I felt
Such a joyful, longing ache.

Come, please come!
But not just yet,
The thought of us apart
Is more than I can take.

Come, please come!
But not just now,
For never have I cradled
So much churning hope inside.

Come, please come!
But god knows how.
I cannot picture you,
My love, however much I’ve tried.

Come, please come!
At last, allow
Your patient daddy man
To hold you close with pride.

Come, please come!
For you will be
The first to join our nest
And make our two hearts three

Prank

Trousers on your head,

Ears pressed forward

Like a baby elephant,

You arrive and ring the doorbell:

‘Hello!’ you say.

It’s a stranger’s voice,

Deep and posh.

There’s laughter in your eyes.

It’s you, my son;

I’d never have known!

It’s quite a disguise.

Helpless

Fierce garish horses trotting

Up and down with groundhog rage;

Paint chipped and reins long-handled,

Chasing nothing in their cage.

 

There’s something in the chiming

Tinny clatter of the songs

That speaks of childhood toys and

Rocks like parents’ well-loved wrongs.

 

And so she rides again, enduring

Sickness all the while,

Because it isn’t home without

That raw nostalgic bile.

 

There’s no use telling her to

Change the route of her old horse

Because she’s bound, with it, to

Take the same old dizzy course.

 

If only we could stop it:

Take her arm as she stepped down

And show her all the other ways

To play in this wide town.

 

If only we could stop it:

Take her gently by the hand

And show her she could live a

Life much sweeter than she planned.

 

A life that feels so strange at first

Without the seasick dance,

But one where love and happiness

Will grow with half a chance.

 

Now in the nightmare lights

We just slide by in coloured streams.

She slips from rescue reach,

Like whispered words from fading dreams.