My mother died in 2001 and I realize now that there is so much I don’t know about her life and can no longer ask. This is something mirrored by many of my friends. As older relatives die history dies with them, especially when written letters and diaries are replaced by emails and social media. It is easy for people to forget what happened yesterday let alone twenty years ago. A news story can be huge one minute and disappear from the front pages the next.
I have written this chronicle of my life expressed in poetry in order to give my grandchildren and their peers some insights into the life I and my generation have lived. We Baby Boomers have certainly experienced massive social and technological change.
Perhaps there are people whose lives turn out exactly as expected, but I imagine they are few and far between. Certainly the twists and turns of my life have surprised me and I suspect many others born in the post-war era would echo my own experience. We may have lived through the Swinging Sixties but we were often remarkably naïve about life and its possibilities! I hope these poems reflect some of this period.
It’s 1973. Georgetown is blooming;flower power blossoming the streets,twisting pink stems around long corkscrew curls,tie-dye T-shirts, purple bellbottom trousers,pavements stoned with grateful Dead posters. In
The oak tree overshadows the drive.I walk across the gravel,brown Start-rite sandalsand grey socks rucked around the ankle. The front door is wooden. Creaks.Teal, our
I’m sorry that I broke your model plane?You’d left it on the desk in your bedroom.I snuck in therewhile you were in the garden. Thing
You were 26 years old,witty, handsome.You worked for a fashion brandbehind the Royal Academy,relished a young man’s London life. After I heard the news I
Dawn tiptoes through the shutters, grey then bright morning sun.The city wakes up in the street. I hear footsteps and voicesalong the Arno. The building
At the End of the Day It was the end of the day,the lift doors were closing,the office commute began here.I pulled my Portobello furscruff
In a Chelsea restaurantthe young boy sits stiffly,school blazer straight-backed,hands flat on flannel grey,darting glances at his father,whose fingertip commandmesmerises waiters to his side. Father
The double doors had rubber seals. They swung open with a crash against the wall. A porter pushed your stretcher through. It was April Fool’s
The birds in my garden don’t listen to the news, can’t know of Assad’s brutality or of families struggling in poverty or grief. Their exuberance