Thursday 23 August 2012


So, here's a bit of poetry. Kind of fits in with the last post. I cringe a lot when I look back at old poems I wrote and no longer like. Why I ever thought there was any poetry in any of them remains a mystery. This, I wrote a few months back. 

For my Dad


Sixty something years
Of living fast, get olden,
Used to sing me Sinatra
Just to watch me throw a strop
Never seen you shed no tears
But hell, you must have had some
And when I think of whys and whats
My tears won’t stop.

And you used to talk to god
Down the big white telephone
Sipping back the golden
Dregs
Of poison homebrew after dawn
Growing poppies in the garden
Watching buds rise up from sleep
With the spinach
And the gooseberries
In your scrap metal heap

When you left, you left her crying
(Well, she weren’t the only one
Who believed you’d make her happy; no, of
Many, she was one)
And the garden started dying
Taken over by the thorns
And my mom was disappearing
Eating nothing but remorse
Did you tell her that you loved her
When you fucked my best friend’s mom?
Cos if words like that come easy
Then I never heard them once

Did I tell you ‘Dad, I love you’?
No, the words were trapped inside
With the caustic taste of single malt
And blame and shame and pride
And if I said a word again, ‘twas likely ‘It’s your fault’
As the train pulled into Piccadilly, something in me died.

You brought me piccalilli
And some dogs’ breath pickled stuff
With our eyes set at foot-level
Lining bottles on the shelf
And believe me it was tough
So we cracked a red one open
Drinking sorrows to our health
And the rest was left unspoken

If you don’t call me
And I don’t call you
Think of me in lima beans
You soaked for cholent stew

Is it no love lost
Or were we both unable
To get further than the zehug sauce
That’s always on the table?



 © Vee 1993-2012

2 comments:

  1. I have a soft spot for poems about dad's xx

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  2. ...me too...anything nostalgic...
    I'm working on another one about The Old Man at the moment, but my heart's not really in it what with running around trying to find a place to live. I might call it 'Any Old Iron'...it's about bikes and scrap metal...scrap metal ran in the family which is funny, because that's where the word "Junkie" came from, but as far as I know, I was the only needle fiend...
    Although I do question that...!
    X

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