Remembering Us
Remembering Us
Written for National Poetry Day 2014
Remember the tide lapping at the shore
How we walked on shingled beach
War bomber fractured in the mudded flats
Metal bones peeking at low tide
Recall the estuary filled with birds calling
You showed me the eddible weeds
That grew there
Warm salt, bitter
Remember the old lady who swam
Hat of neon pink, skin of blue
There by the wall
They build it as wave defence
Black tar oozes and regular concrete blocks
Bring to mind the pill box set inside
Full of junkies’ needles
And discarded love
Remember the storm that ripped the sky
Spiking down and blazing the land
How the sky turned dark
Blistering heat and oppression
Broken in the thunder
The tent sagged upon itself
I got wet
But was denied the shelter of you
I caught you a green crab
By curved chimneys reaching into the sky
Their roundness cloud factories
You said it was edible
You said it didn’t belong
We put it back
But I got a rash
From algal blooms
You drove me to town for my prescription
Thinking now
Of how thisteled sand spiked my feet
You carried me to my tent
Where an adda lay in wait
I scared it and felt sad
We saved an orange ladybird
The first we’d ever seen
That night I was cold
A whole in the canvas let in the night
I thought of your arms
And dreamt of tangled feet
Throbbing footpaths greeted us
In a misty summer dawn
The mass of creatures writhed
Lady bugs of all colours
And not just dots but all kinds of shapes
They made fitful crunches as we walked
I gave up trying to save them
Most starved, some bit
And the sun set like a child’s painting
With a moon that arose on it’s heels
The whisper of the waves
Lapped froth at day glo sandled feet
You gave me a padded shirt
To keep me warm
It smelt of you
Remember the belt of rope you wore
To keep up the cut offs frayed to faded fluff
A sometimes shirt tight across your chest
The skin turned bronze upon you
Whilst I hid in sunblock and gingamed cotton
There was no hair upon your chest
Though you were older than me
We went swimming in the sea
I cut my foot on carelessness
Oh my polluted sea
I wept for the crimes of people
You smiled
I have always wondered
Was it for me?
My heart hurt at it’s beauty
As to keep you I enthralled you in
Greens and greys, browns and blues
Blending together in landscapes only we saw
I rescued a fledgling
So sickly small
It hopped on to me
I was filled with hope
Later laying in long sun dried grass
You said it would be fine
I believed you though I knew it could not be true
And little rabbits stopped near us
I caught them to pet
You laughed that I released them
Each with a new name
That meant nothing but my love
Do you remember the bike rides, in the ink of night
Drunkness a murmur on everyone but ours breath
The smell of wood smoke as we cooked
And chatted without care
Subjects and philosophies dripped from our tongues
The stars were pin pricks of ice
In my spin
Remember how it could not last
How they said we could not be
The disapproval
The anarchy
We did not have the guts to try
And the summer evaporated
Autumn put dreams under glass
We said goodbye
So chaste the taste of you
The scent in my mind
A look of longing
You held my hand
And gave me a memory
Posted: Thursday, October 2nd, 2014 @ 12:20 am
Categories: Verse.
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