Bombsite

i.   1954

Either mistaken half a mile off target

from the blacked-out Mersey docks,

  

or off-loaded onto with full apologies

on the way back to the Fatherland,

  

it was a hovering void still faintly

overhung with the miasma of loss - 

 

but still a house, despite its toppled

gate-posts, draughty entrance-hall,

 

open-plan rooms either side, scatterings

of deco tiles from where the kitchen was.

   

To think living took place there once, 

all traces being long since levelled off,

 

where boys in worsted shorts

crouched, and killed sixpenny baddies,

while neighbours in rooms remembered 

less and less as rationing came to an end at last.

ii.   2014

Still a withered hand sticking up,

curtain ring on wedding finger,

tatter of speckled hem of girl's dress

snagged on stump of gas pipe,

charred scraps of a Liverpool Echo

dated  ept mb r 1 41.

                                          

Next door

the exhausted hotel stares,

tired of surviving,

its willow drooping over the wall

like a dribbling fountain

weeping gobbets of grief

into stagnant pools,

where swarms of sassy frogs do skinny-dips,

all pretending to be the same,

and going glug in rainbow slicks,

hearts all throbbing and throbbing

like motorbikes on heat.

Small boys could take them home,

have little epiphanies with rampant cats,

but not Earnshaw, Riley or Reid,                                   

all gone, all bloody well gone,

there's only me left,

mucking around with this.

.

Reviews

[Beccy]

Gerald, the contrast and comparison between 1954 and 2014 is brilliantly handled.

The first part brought such vivid images to mind of the way it must have been during that awful time. How sad that house, once a home, but left no more than shattered windows and paint peeled doors.

For me though, the second part is poetically inspired. I just loved every line of it. Sorry, loved just isn't the right word to use here; I FELT each line with every fibre of my being.

Hope I'm not gushing too much, but this really is so very good.

Beccy.

[Gerald Parker]

Thanks, Becci. The first poem is from about 20 years ago. The second one I wrote this weekend, first poem for six months. It's a wee bit tongue in cheek and fun to write. Pleased you liked it. G