memories

NaPoWriMo Day 23 ~ I like this prompt.

/ A. Gouedard / Leave a comment

Write a poem of your own that has multiple numbered sections. Attempt to have each section be in dialogue with the others, like a song where a different person sings each verse, giving a different point of view. Set the poem in a specific place that you used to spend a lot of time in, but don’t spend time in anymore.

~

I decided to write about a village I once lived in. A place I miss. I belong to the Facebook Group for the Village School we all went to for a while. I was there in the early 60’s. People share memories there. I have used my memories and theirs in the poem, and a few of their words.

You Forgot

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i don’t want to be haunted by memories
of starlit nights and peace

I don’t want to remember your skin
i struggled so long to reach
to then be denied again

i don’t want to remember
your footsteps in my house
or our dreams we shared in the dark
or the loving you quickly forgot

my heart isn’t made of rubber
i won’t be strung on a string
or be chained to you by my open heart
we are apart,
let me forget

Falling House

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There’s a chair I will never sit in.
There are unread books by his bed.
There are things that I said
That I wish I said sooner,
Long before he was dead.
I am glad this house is falling down
It’s a fitting tribute
To the skill that kept it strong,
The skill of a father who’s gone.
Light spills through the cracks in the floorboards.
In the creaking timber I still hear his footsteps.
Let it fall, let it fall, let it fall.

The windows hang on frayed breaking ropes
Worn by the shifting years.
Now they won’t open at all.
The lighting rod, well earthed,
Serves its protective purpose.
The house is weathered by sunlight and storms,
Its wires inextricably tangled.
It’s hard to let go of memories.
It’s hard to let go of mortar and bricks.
It’s hard to let go of buildings.
It’s hard to let go of a father who’s dead
While his voice speaks clear in my head.

When he was dead

/ A. Gouedard / 1 Comment

when he was dead
i expressed,
inside my head,
all the words I’d left unsaid
thinking it too late to say
the things I wasn’t sure he knew
but there’s a time
for listening too

he never wanted me to feel
a darkened thought
with troubled heart

how could he go?
how could he rest?
my pain could only make him sad
until with love and happy smiles,
instead of guilt and bitter tears,
i blessed him with sweet memories

I knew what he would say to me
I knew his words would set me free

Bank Holiday Blues

/ A. Gouedard / Leave a comment

Bank Holiday gloom seeps into the room
from a flat sky, full of grey light,
pressed to the glass of the window
three days of no brightness
changes the view
this hollow whiteness
deadens the day
the sounds become softer
the memories harder
of all that is vanished away

When I am Old (revised)

/ A. Gouedard / Leave a comment

Dedicated to my Mother ~

 

when i am old i wont do anything
but think
and run my life back and forward
in my mind
in translucent back-lit visions

the trek to the kitchen and back
a long journey
re-gaining at last the armchair
i sleep
to dream dreams of the long gone

i will develop a liking for jelly and custard
milk pudding
soup from a can and cheese with jam
cream cakes
and forget what i meant to have for breakfast

the taps will drip, the fire will burn cold
windows rattle
and the mice will move in unafraid
as company
and eat the fabrics to tatters

I will confuse the books i have read
with memories
i will see the ghosts of my family
standing by
and wonder if they wait for me in the night

I wont care about any of this
watching light
watching shadows move across the walls
distant birds
i will ignore all bad news and live in imagination

drifting back to childhood again
so clear
with all my family gathered around
the dead ones
now is just a space between sleeping and waking

 

Thinking

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the complications of the heart are so many
as complex as the veins that carry our blood
i am no cardiac surgeon to feel your delicate pulse
but i feel my own heart beat and my aorta throb
there are times when it hurts and i don’t know why
there are times when i know every cause

some words cause my blood to pound
my head to spin and my arteries swell
though they are small words in themselves
words that perhaps meant little to you
said in some casual off-hand way
you don’t see the surge on the line

i will ingest yet another tablet
that will take care of that, i hope
but my brain needs greater attention
it’s harder to tell what goes on in there
it’s not just the moment that matters
it has all those memories, stored too well

i could go with my guts of course
base animal instinct and insight
the one that makes our hair stand on end
it’s as strong as the sense of smell
it’s the one that sees through it all
but then i would have to trust

walking cures many things
it’s good for your health
it clarifies thought
or retreats from a bad situation
but it brings you home again
i have always trusted my feet

A poem by Tamara

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Old shell

Empty shell covered with wrinkles
Pearl shine brushed away by winds and tears.
Drops of memories dried by layers of sand.
Sad eyes looking blindly over my shoulders.
I stop and stretch one arm forward.
Touching the white unnourished locks.
Sudden rush of images inside dead eyes.
A smile between the drapes looks surreal.
Little sound comes out of the bottomless cavern.
Fragile like the fairies wings
Sparkling like children voices on the snow.
Just one smile, filled with tender memories.
Short.
Gone.
Silence is back inside the empty shell.

 

(This was written by Tamara, not me – having seen, through a window, an old woman out in the winter street)