Royals on Big Brother
Caroline Lucas in the Jungle
David Attenborough on Take Me Out
Angela Merkel acting in Rapunzel
Simon Cowell taking singing lessons
Brad Pitt teaching drama in Crewe
Theresa May in the boxing ring
Katie Hopkins being good.
Lilac circles like liquorice allsorts
Defined a casual 80s looks
Baggy jumpers and spiky hair
Magenta teardrops with matching dress
Perhaps a blazer and a broach
The dozen weddings of our youth
Carat gold knots like miniature danish swirls
A more sophisticated look
Scarves and theatre trips
Baby pink crystalised drops
Like cough sweets swinging from silver threads
Handmade with love
A stained, frayed festival wristband
It could be cut off and discarded
Or saved in a bulging scrapbook
But it clings to your wrist as if
Life depends on it.
Peroxide that goes on easy as underwear
Although your hair can’t take it anymore
Like tinsel that’s seen better days
But you hold on to the fantasy
Of a silky golden mane.
“Do they know we’ve got cancer?”
The realisation of what I’d said made us laugh
It’s easier if the conversation has already happened
We can move on to something else.
“Yes, they know we’ve got cancer,
That should be the name of our blog”
A mother and daughter with cancer
A conversation that never took off.
My compassion was delayed
For the nine-year-old
Who couldn’t act in her drama class
Because even pretend mockery was too much to bear.
I winced at her back then
Her reluctance to play the part of the girl who was shamed
Because that’s how she saw herself in real life
The one who couldn’t get things right.
How could she be so scared of fiction?
Why would she always play small to stay safe?
Hiding behind the curtain prompting others
Sometimes even then losing her voice.
Twenty years later I can hold her hand in my mind
And tell her that it’s understandable
That her fear would eventually be contained
Sometimes vulnerability would reign.
The leather jacket wears like new
The scarves with zebra and moose
Clothes that I carry close
The fake fur is falling apart
But I will keep it still
And remember you at St Pancras.
The polka dot dress is us
In Sloane Square
Laughing, getting on well
I’m scared to let the moisturiser run out
It’s Christmas
It’s your soft skin
The pyjamas were cheap
From a long weekend in Bruges
Out of the charity bag again
I keep going back for more
Especially your socks
Your comfort as I walk
Your bright white teeth, not as straight as Jo’s
Skewed quiff and doubt in your eyes
The puddle of mud, on a CD case
The Hagrid impression at my mum’s friends place.
Your dance moves, to funky house
The scar on your nose, from Sadie dog.
The unused guitar, gathering dust at college
The lava lamp that I had and you copied.
The red wine that let your emotion show.
Piece by piece the memories
are slipping away – growing shorter
More fleeting
Buried – like you told me that day.
The knowledge that the post box was rare and unique
The rose engraved in the wall was from Tudors hundreds of years ago
The knowledge of how knights fought – how arrows pinned a man to his horse.
Some of the old buildings fake, not really from those times at all.
That someone really lived in that tea room back in the day. The fact he’d looked it up made it more.
She spent all of her time wanting to be older. To be with older men, to go to clubs and parties she was too young for. She loved to dance and she copied the ABBA routine from Murials wedding. She wore makeup that made her look like a ghost. She drank way too much. She was studious, but didn’t know what she loved.
Dear sixteen year old
Why don’t you like yourself more?
You could be quite good.
Sitting on the fourth step,
Facing the front door
Sobbing because her teenage daughter
Cursed and slammed the door
Tears trickling down her cheeks
When not invited out with friends
Crying over spilt milk
Dad’s shaved head
Split ends.
Wailing with frustration
Fretting over dinner
Blubbing at Coronation Street
Enjoying the release it would bring her
Roaring at injustice
Weeping down the phone
Puffy eyed when others died
The tears would flow and flow
Then when her own death drew near
I looked for water in her eyes
Instead I was met with something else
A new gaze had materialised
Her hazel grey eyes blazed with intensity
They met mine with resign
A new sorrow shared with me
Regret and love combined
And I longed for her to cry with me
But I think I was missing the point
The tears dried up when there was nothing to resolve
Her heart stopping with a jolt.
Poetry on impulse 