My Dad

Grew roses,

strawberries,

ferns and bamboo.

Made wooden dolls

from round-topped clothes-pegs,

drawing faces on.

Sketched for me

water-colour flowers; I remember

pink heath’s delicate bells.

When I had nightmares

sat with me into dawn,

telling stories.

At parties, played

comb-and-tissue

mouth organ;

declaimed with gestures

‘Abdul the Bulbul Emir’

or some Rabbie Burns.

Made an acrostic poem

every family birthday,

the person’s name down the side.

Laughed

sang

danced.

Linking to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #309

Cross-posted to my verse portraits blog, Impressions You Left

Nursing Home: Jeanette

Tiny woman.
Soft, full hair
beige blonde.

Seated at our table,
at first glance
looks fifty.

I think she's used to
no conversation;
responds when we begin.

We ask how long
she's been here.
'Do you know,' she says,
'I think it's four months ...
I can't be certain.'

Her son works
in the kitchen.
She can see him
sometimes.

Used to live
by water, misses
her house ... voice
trails wistfully,
eyes grow distant.


Submitted for dverse Open Link Night #49

Cross-posted to my verse portraits blog, Impressions You Left

Nursing Home: Marjorie

1 Meeting

‘Another author!’
The Activities Officer
delightedly introduces
someone Andrew can talk to.
But it’s me who’s interested.

Marjorie, my mother’s name.
And her book, that she clutches
and displays, recounts
her childhood in India.
My mother was a child there too.

Still pretty, she’s also gracious:
beautiful English manners
from the last days of the Raj.
Like Mum again —
but this Marjorie
was legitimate Officer stock,
not a little Anglo-Indian girl.


2 Getting acquainted

She shows me a baby photo,
her family’s newest; can’t quite
explain where he fits.

And her son is a writer
(I know the name).
She describes his home,
which she visits. Sure enough,
on Mother’s Day she’s missing;
they must have taken her out.

She asks about my writing,
double-checks
that man’s my husband,
a writer too. I think
of giving her our books.
But I never see her read.


Submitted to Poetry Pantry #101 at Poets United. Click on the link to enjoy a poetry feast!

Cross-posted form my verse portraits blog, Impressions You Left

Nursing Home: Keith

He’s thin and slighty stooped

but the grey hair’s thick and wavy

and he moves at normal speed —

except when he’s with her.

Holding her hand 

or arm around her

he leads her to meals

or out to the sunny garden.

She turns to him

a gentle, vacant face.

He greets us cheerily,

eyes full of comprehension.

We realise he lives here 

to be with her.

He looks happy. 

So does she.

Submitted to Poetry Pantry #101 at Poets United. 

Cross-posted to my verse portraits blog, Impressions You Left

Nursing Home: Bobbi

Bobbi walks quickly 

along the corridors,

keeping to the edges.

One day she tells me,

whispering:

‘I hurt my hip. Now 

I have to keep walking 

or it seizes up.

I feel conspicuous

and embarrassed.’

She is slim

in her neat slacks

and cardigan,

sweet face framed

by a short pageboy.

Her eyes widen

a moment and I glimpse 

fear, want to hug her 

but will not intrude

on her frail dignity.


Submitted to Poetry Pantry #101 at Poets United.

Cross-posted to my verse portraits blog, Impressions You Left

The Lady from Lombok

‘My husband beats me,’ she murmured,
eyes downcast, to Bill in reply to his praise
of her gentle beauty. Perhaps she thought
to reject an advance? I never saw a mark
on her delicate face, nor a bruise
on her dainty arm, and she didn’t move
like one with hidden injuries; she was lithe.

Nor did she, later, reject his advances.
I wasn’t with him on that trip. But I knew.


Now also forms part of my 'Remembering Bali' series.

Launceston Girls

My Mum saw her sobbing backstage
after the elocution competitions —
second to my first. We were eight.

Grew up in the same suburb,
came to each other’s birthday parties,
attended High School together.

Thirty years later, surprise:
reunion onstage in another city,
reciting our own works.

Awhile inhabited the same
publications, venues, academies.
Supported each other, allies.

Went different ways again:
fiction her love, poetry mine —
rivalry, like childhood, past.


30 Poems in 30 Days, 2010: 12
Prompt: A poem about a rivalry

Cross-posted from my Verse Portraits blog: Impressions You Left

The Man at the Next Table

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.

Cross Posted from my 'verse portraits' blog, Impressions You Left,  this also does duty as my 2009 April Challenge 6.

Younger Stepson

We met at Christmas.
I guess you’d heard
there was someone new
in your father’s life.

You kissed me shyly on the cheek
and included me
in the present for your Dad:

scented bath salts.
“You might enjoy them
together,” you said.

16 years later, you’re not
slim youth but solid,
handsome man.

In one forgotten family drama
we exchanged fierce words.
Now we talk deeply,
good friends.

Submitted 25 December 2011 (a Christmas 19 years later!) for dVerse Christmas. We no longer live near each other, but Younger Stepson is staying with his father and me this xmas, and the last line of the poem is truer than ever.

Cross-posted from my verse portraits blog, Impressions You Left