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Best Famous Auntie Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Auntie poems. This is a select list of the best famous Auntie poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Auntie poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of auntie poems.

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Written by Spike Milligan | Create an image from this poem

Granny

 Through every nook and every cranny
The wind blew in on poor old Granny
Around her knees, into each ear
(And up nose as well, I fear)

All through the night the wind grew worse
It nearly made the vicar curse
The top had fallen off the steeple
Just missing him (and other people)

It blew on man, it blew on beast
It blew on nun, it blew on priest
It blew the wig off Auntie Fanny-
But most of all, it blew on Granny!


Written by Barry Tebb | Create an image from this poem

Incompatabilities

 For Brenda Williams



La lune diminue; divin septembre.

Divine September the moon wanes.

 Pierre Jean Jouve



Themes for poems and the detritus of dreams coalesce:

This is one September I shall not forget.



The grammar-school caretaker always had the boards re-blacked

And the floors waxed, but I never shone.

The stripes of the red and black blazer

Were prison-grey. You could never see things that way:

Your home had broken windows to the street.

You had the mortification of lice in your hair

While I had the choice of Brylcreem or orange pomade.





Four children, an alcoholic father and

An Irish immigrant mother. Failure’s metaphor.

I did not make it like Alan Bennett,

Who still sends funny postcards

About our Leeds childhood.

Of your’s, you could never speak

And found my nostalgia

Wholly inappropriate.



Forgetting your glasses for the eleven plus,

No money for the uniform for the pass at thirteen.

It wasn’t - as I imagined - shame that kept you from telling

But fear of the consequences for your mother

Had you sobbed the night’s terrors

Of your father’s drunken homecomings,

Your mother sat with the door open

In all weathers while you, the oldest,

Waited with her, perhaps

Something might have been done.



He never missed a day’s work digging graves,

Boasting he could do a six-footer

Single-handed in two hours flat.

That hackneyed phrase

‘He drank all his wages’

Doesn’t convey his nightly rages

The flow of obscenities about menstruation

While the three younger ones were in bed

And you waited with your mother

To walk the streets of Seacroft.

“Your father murdered your mother”

As Auntie Margaret said,

Should a witness

Need indicting.



Your mother’s growing cancer went diagnosed, but unremarked

Until the final days

She was too busy auxiliary nursing

Or working in the Lakeside Caf?.

It was her wages that put bread and jam

And baked beans into your stomachs.



Her final hospitalisation

Was the arena for your father’s last rage

Her fare interfering with the night’s drinking;



He fought in the Burma Campaign but won no medals.

Some kind of psychiatric discharge- ‘paranoia’

Lurked in his papers. The madness went undiagnosed

Until his sixtieth birthday. You never let me meet him

Even after our divorce.



In the end you took me on a visit with the children.

A neat flat with photographs of grandchildren,

Stacks of wood for the stove, washing hung precisely

In the kitchen, a Sunday suit in the wardrobe.

An unwrinkling of smiles, the hard handshake

Of work-roughened hands.



One night he smashed up the tidy flat.

The TV screen was powder

The clock ticked on the neat lawn

‘Murder in Seacroft Hospital’

Emblazoned on the kitchen wall.



I went with you and your sister in her car to Roundhay Wing.

Your sister had to leave for work or sleep

You had to back to meet the children from school.

For Ward 42 it wasn’t an especially difficult admission.

My first lesson: I shut one set of firedoors while the charge nurse

Bolted the other but after five minutes his revolt

Was over and he signed the paper.



The nurse on nights had a sociology degree

And an interest in borderline schizophrenia.

After lightsout we chatted about Kohut and Kernberg

And Melanie Klein. Your father was occasionally truculent,

Barricading himself in on one home leave. Nothing out of the way

For a case of that kind. The old ladies on the estate sighed,

Single men were very scarce. Always a gentleman, tipping

His cap to the ladies.

There seems to be objections in the family to poetry

Or at least to the kind that actually speaks

And fails to lie down quietly on command.

Yours seems to have set mine alight-

I must get something right.
Written by Elizabeth Bishop | Create an image from this poem

The Burglar Of Babylon

 On the fair green hills of Rio
 There grows a fearful stain:
The poor who come to Rio
 And can't go home again.

On the hills a million people,
 A million sparrows, nest,
Like a confused migration
 That's had to light and rest,

Building its nests, or houses,
 Out of nothing at all, or air.
You'd think a breath would end them,
 They perch so lightly there.

But they cling and spread like lichen,
 And people come and come.
There's one hill called the Chicken,
 And one called Catacomb;

There's the hill of Kerosene,
 And the hill of Skeleton,
The hill of Astonishment,
 And the hill of Babylon.

Micuçú was a burglar and killer,
 An enemy of society.
He had escaped three times
 From the worst penitentiary.

They don't know how many he murdered
 (Though they say he never raped),
And he wounded two policemen
 This last time he escaped.

They said, "He'll go to his auntie,
 Who raised him like a son.
She has a little drink shop
 On the hill of Babylon."

He did go straight to his auntie,
 And he drank a final beer.
He told her, "The soldiers are coming,
 And I've got to disappear."

"Ninety years they gave me.
 Who wants to live that long?
I'll settle for ninety hours,
 On the hill of Babylon.

"Don't tell anyone you saw me.
 I'll run as long as I can.
You were good to me, and I love you,
 But I'm a doomed man."

Going out, he met a mulata
 Carrying water on her head.
"If you say you saw me, daughter,
 You're as good as dead."

There are caves up there, and hideouts,
 And an old fort, falling down.
They used to watch for Frenchmen
 From the hill of Babylon.

Below him was the ocean.
 It reached far up the sky,
Flat as a wall, and on it
 Were freighters passing by,

Or climbing the wall, and climbing
 Till each looked like a fly,
And then fell over and vanished;
 And he knew he was going to die.

He could hear the goats baa-baa-ing.
 He could hear the babies cry;
Fluttering kites strained upward;
 And he knew he was going to die.

A buzzard flapped so near him
 He could see its naked neck.
He waved his arms and shouted,
 "Not yet, my son, not yet!"

An Army helicopter
 Came nosing around and in.
He could see two men inside it,
 but they never spotted him.

The soldiers were all over,
 On all sides of the hill,
And right against the skyline
 A row of them, small and still.

Children peeked out of windows,
 And men in the drink shop swore,
And spat a little cachaça
 At the light cracks in the floor.

But the soldiers were nervous, even
 with tommy guns in hand,
And one of them, in a panic,
 Shot the officer in command.

He hit him in three places;
 The other shots went wild.
The soldier had hysterics
 And sobbed like a little child.

The dying man said, "Finish
 The job we came here for."
he committed his soul to God
 And his sons to the Governor.

They ran and got a priest,
 And he died in hope of Heaven
--A man from Pernambuco,
 The youngest of eleven.

They wanted to stop the search,
 but the Army said, "No, go on,"
So the soldiers swarmed again
 Up the hill of Babylon.

Rich people in apartments
 Watched through binoculars
As long as the daylight lasted.
 And all night, under the stars,

Micuçú hid in the grasses
 Or sat in a little tree,
Listening for sounds, and staring
 At the lighthouse out at sea.

And the lighthouse stared back at him,
 til finally it was dawn.
He was soaked with dew, and hungry,
 On the hill of Babylon.

The yellow sun was ugly,
 Like a raw egg on a plate--
Slick from the sea. He cursed it,
 For he knew it sealed his fate.

He saw the long white beaches
 And people going to swim,
With towels and beach umbrellas,
 But the soldiers were after him.

Far, far below, the people
 Were little colored spots,
And the heads of those in swimming
 Were floating coconuts.

He heard the peanut vendor
 Go peep-peep on his whistle,
And the man that sells umbrellas
 Swinging his watchman's rattle.

Women with market baskets
 Stood on the corners and talked,
Then went on their way to market,
 Gazing up as they walked.

The rich with their binoculars
 Were back again, and many
Were standing on the rooftops,
 Among TV antennae.

It was early, eight or eight-thirty.
 He saw a soldier climb,
Looking right at him. He fired,
 And missed for the last time.

He could hear the soldier panting,
 Though he never got very near.
Micuçú dashed for shelter.
 But he got it, behind the ear.

He heard the babies crying
 Far, far away in his head,
And the mongrels barking and barking.
 Then Micuçú was dead.

He had a Taurus revolver,
 And just the clothes he had on,
With two contos in the pockets,
 On the hill of Babylon.

The police and the populace
 Heaved a sigh of relief,
But behind the counter his auntie
 Wiped her eyes in grief.

"We have always been respected.
 My shop is honest and clean.
I loved him, but from a baby
 Micuçú was mean.

"We have always been respected.
 His sister has a job.
Both of us gave him money.
 Why did he have to rob?

"I raised him to be honest,
 Even here, in Babylon slum."
The customers had another,
 Looking serious and glum.

But one of them said to another,
 When he got outside the door,
"He wasn't much of a burglar,
 He got caught six times--or more."

This morning the little soldiers
 are on Babylon hill again;
Their gun barrels and helmets
 Shine in a gentle rain.

Micuçú is buried already.
 They're after another two,
But they say they aren't as dangerous
 As the poor Micuçú.


On the green hills of Rio
 There grows a fearful stain:
The poor who come to Rio
 And can't go home again.

There's the hill of Kerosene,
 And the hill of the Skeleton,
The hill of Astonishment,
 And the hill of Babylon.
Written by Barry Tebb | Create an image from this poem

Bridge Over The Aire Book 3

 THE KINGDOM OF MY HEART





1



The halcyon settled on the Aire of our days

Kingfisher-blue it broke my heart in two

Shall I forget you? Shall I forget you?



I am the mad poet first love

You never got over

You are my blue-eyed

Madonna virgin bride

I shall carve ‘MG loves BT’

On the bark of every 

Wind-bent tree in 

East End Park



2



The park itself will blossom

And grow in chiaroscuro

The Victorian postcard’s view

Of avenue upon avenue

With palms and pagodas

Lakes and waterfalls and

A fountain from Versailles.





3



You shall be my queen

In the Kingdom of Deira

Land of many rivers

Aire the greatest

Isara the strong one

Robed in stillness

Wide, deep and dark.





4



In Middleton Woods

Margaret and I played

Truth or dare

She bared her breasts

To the watching stars.





5



“Milk, milk,

Lemonade, round

The corner

Chocolate spread”

Nancy chanted at

Ten in the binyard

Touching her ****,

Her ****, her bum,

Margaret joined in

Chanting in unison.





6



The skipping rope

Turned faster

And faster, slapping

The hot pavement,

Margaret skipped

In rhythm, never

Missing a beat,

Lifting the pleat

Of her skirt

Whirling and twirling.





7



Giggling and red

Margaret said

In a whisper

“When we were

Playing at Nancy’s

She pushed a spill

Of paper up her

You-know-what

She said she’d

Let you watch

If you wanted.”





8



Margaret, this Saturday morning in June

There is a queue at the ‘Princess’ for

The matin?e, down the alley by the blank

Concrete of the cinema’s side I hide

With you, we are counting our picture

Money, I am counting the stars in your

Hair, bound with a cheap plastic comb.





9



You have no idea of my need for you

A lifetime long, every wrong decision

I made betrayed my need; forty years on

Hear my song and take my hand and move

Us to the house of love where we belong.





10



Margaret we sat in the cinema dark

Warm with the promise of a secret kiss

The wall lights glowed amber on the



Crumbling plaster, we looked with longing

At the love seats empty in the circle,

Vowing we would share one.



11



There is shouting and echoes

Of wild splashing from York

Road baths; forty years on

It stirs my memory and

Will not be gone.





12



The ghosts of tramtracks

Light up lanes

To nowhere

In Leeds Ten.



Every road

Leads nowhere

In Leeds Nine.



Motorways have cut

The city’s heart

In two; Margaret,

Our home lies buried

Under sixteen feet

Of stone.

13



Our families moved

And we were lost

I was not there to hear

The whispered secret

Of your first period.





14



God is courage’s infinite ground

Tillich said; God, give me enough

To stand another week without her

Every day gets longer, every sleep

Less deep.





15



Why can’t I find you,

Touch you,

Bind your straw-gold hair

The colour of lank

February grass?



16



Under the stone canopy

Of the Grand Arcade

I pass Europa Nightclub;

In black designer glass

I watch the faces pass

But none is like your’s,

No voice, no eyes,

No smile at all

Like your’s.





17



From Kirkstall Lock

The rhubarb crop

To Knostrop’s forcing sheds

The roots ploughed up

Arranged in beds

Of perfect darkness

Where the buds burst

With a pip, rich pink

Stalks and yellow leaves

Hand-picked by

Candle-light to

Keep the colour right

So every night the

Rhubarb train

Could go from Leeds

To Covent Garden.





18



The smell of Saturday morning

Is the smell of freedom

How the bounds may grow

Slowly slowly as I go.



“Rag-bone rag-bone

White donkey stone”

Auntie Nellie scoured

Her door step, polished

The brass knocker

Till I saw my face

Bunched like a fist

Complete with goggles

Grinning like a monkey

In a mile of mirrors.





19



Every door step had a stop

A half-stone iron weight

To hold it back and every 

Step was edged with donkey

Stone in yellow or white

From the ragman or the potman

With his covered cart jingling

Jangling as it jerked hundreds

Of cups on hooks pint and

Half pint mugs and stacks of

Willow-patterned plates

From Burmantofts.





20



We heard him a mile off

Nights in summer when

He trundled round the

Corner over the cobbles

Jamming the wood brake

Blocks whoaing the horses

With their gleaming brasses

And our mams were always

Waiting where he stopped.





21



Double summer-time made

The nights go on for ever

And no-one cared any more

How long we played what

Or where and we were left

Alone and that’s all I wanted

Then or now to be left alone

Never to be called in from

The Hollows never to be

Called from Margaret.





22



City of back-to-backs

From Armley Heights

Laid out in rows

Like trees or grass

I watch you pass.



23



The Aire is slow and almost

Still



In the Bridgefield

The Joshua Tetley clock

Over the Atkinson Grimshaw

Print

Is stopped at nineteen fifty

Four

The year I left.





24



Grimshaw’s home was

Half a mile away

In Knostrop Hall

Margaret and I

Climbed the ruined

Walls her hair was

Blowing in the wind

Her eyes were stars

In the green night

Her hands were holding 

My hands.





25



Half a century later

I look out over Leeds Nine

What little’s left is broken

Or changed Saturday night

Is silent and empty

The paths over the Hollows

Deserted the bell

Of St. Hilda’s still.



26



On a single bush

The yellow roses blush

Pink in the amber light

Night settles on the

Fewstons and the Copperfields

No mothers’ voices calling us.



Lilac and velvet clover

Grew all over the Hollows

It was all the luck

We knew and when we left

Our luck went too.





27



Solid black

Velvet basalt

Polished jet

Millstone grit

Leeds Town Hall

Built with it

Soaks up the fog

Is sealed with smog

Battered buttressed

Blackened plinths

White lions’ paws

Were soft their

Smiles like your’s.

28



Narrow lanes, steep inclines,

Steps, blank walls, tight

And secret openings’

The lanes are your hips

The inclines the lines

Of your thighs, the steps

Your breasts, blank walls

Your buttocks, tight and

Secret openings your

Taut vagina’s lips.





29



There is a keening and a honing

And a winnowing in the wind

I am the surge and flow

In Winwaed’s water the last breath

Of Elmete’s King.



I am Penda crossing the Aire

Camping at Killingbeck

Conquered by Aethalwald

Ruler of Deira.





30



Life is a bird hovering

In the Hall of the King

Between darkness and darkness flickering

The stone of Scone at last lifted

And borne on the wind, Dunedin, take it

Hold it hard and fast its light

Is leaping it is freedom’s

Touchstone and firestone.





31



Eir, Ayer or Aire

I’ll still be there

Your wanderings off course

Old Ea, Old Eye, Dead Eye

Make no difference to me.

Eg-an island - is Aire’s

True source, names

Not places matter

With the risings

Of a river

Ea land-by-water

I’ll make my own way

Free, going down river

To the far-off sea.





32



Poetry is my business, my affair.

My cri-de-coeur, jongleur

Of Mercia and Elmete, Margaret,

Open your door I am heaping

Imbroglios of stars on the floor

Meet me by the Office Lock

At midnight or by the Town Hall Clock.



33



Nennius nine times have I knocked

On the door of your grave, nine times

More have I made Pilgrimage to Elmete’s

Wood where long I lay by beck and bank

Waiting for your tongue to flame

With Pentecostal fire.





34



Margaret you rode in the hollow of my hand

In the harp of my heart, searching for you

I wandered in Kirkgate Market’s midnight

Down avenues of shuttered stalls, our secrets

Kept through all the years.

From the Imperial on Beeston Hill

I watch the city spill glass towers

Of light over the horizon’s rim.





35



The railyard’s straights

Are buckled plates

Red bricks for aggregate

All lost like me

Ledsham and Ledston

Both belong to Leeds

But Ledston Luck

Is where Aire leads.



36



Held of the Crown

By seven thanes

In Saxon times

‘In regione Loidis’

Baeda scripsit

Leeds, Leeds,

You answer

All my needs.





37



A horse shoe stuck for luck

Behind a basement window:

Margaret, now we’ll see

What truth there is

In dreams and poetry!



I am at one with everyone

There is poetry

Falling from the air

And you have put it there.





38



The sign for John Eaton Street

Is planted in the back garden

Of the transport caf? between

The strands of a wire mesh fence

Straddling the cobbles of a street

That is no more, a washing line

And an abandoned caravan.



39



‘This open land to let’

Is what you get on the Hollows

Thousands of half-burned tyres

The rusty barrel of a Trumix lorry

Concrete slabs, foxgloves and condoms,

The Go-Kart Arena’s signboards,

Half the wall of Ellerby Lane School.





40



There is a mermaid singing

On East Street on an IBM poster

Her hair is lack-lustre

Her breasts are facing the camera

Her tail is like a worn-out brush.



Chimney stacks

Blind black walls

Of factories

Grimy glass

Flickering firelight

 In black-leaded grates.





41



Hunslet de Ledes

Hop-scotch, hide and seek,

Bogies-on-wheels

Not one tree in Hunslet

Except in the cemetery

The lake filled in

For fifty years,

The bluebell has rung

Its last perfumed peal.





42



I couldn’t play out on Sunday

Mam and dad thought us a cut

Above the rest, it was another

Test I failed, keeping me and

Margaret apart was like the Aztecs

Tearing the heart from the living flesh.





43



Father, your office job

Didn’t save you

From the drugs

They never gave you.





44



Isaiah, my son,

You made it back

From Balliol to Beeston

At a run via the

Playing fields of Eton.



There is a keening and a honing

And a winnowing in the wind

Winwaed’s water with red bluid blent.
Written by Paul Laurence Dunbar | Create an image from this poem

Appreciation

My muvver's ist the nicest one
'At ever lived wiz folks;
She lets you have ze mostes' fun,
An' laffs at all your jokes.
I got a ol' maid auntie, too,
The worst you ever saw;
Her eyes ist bore you through and through,—
She ain't a bit like ma.
She's ist as slim, as slim can be,
An' when you want to slide
Down on ze balusters, w'y she
Says 'at she's harrified.
She ain't as nice as Uncle Ben,
What says 'at little boys
Won't never grow to be big men
Unless they're fond of noise.
But muvver's nicer zan 'em all,
She calls you, "precious lamb,"
An' let's you roll your ten-pin ball,
An' spreads your bread wiz jam.
An' when you're bad, she ist looks sad,
You fink she's goin' to cry;
An' when she don't you're awful glad,
[Pg 248]An' den you're good, Oh, my!
At night, she takes ze softest hand,
An' lays it on your head,
An' says "Be off to Sleepy-Land
By way o' trundle-bed."
So when you fink what muvver knows
An' aunts an' uncle tan't,
It skeers a feller; ist suppose
His muvver 'd been a aunt.


Written by Robert Louis Stevenson | Create an image from this poem

Aunties Skirts

 Whenever Auntie moves around,
Her dresses make a curious sound,
They trail behind her up the floor,
And trundle after through the door.
Written by Barry Tebb | Create an image from this poem

Memories Of The Fifties

 Eggshell and Wedgwood Blue were just two

Of the range on the colour cards Dulux

Tailored to our taste in the fifties,

Brentford nylons, Formica table tops and

Fablon shelf-covering in original oak or

Spruce under neon tubes and Dayglo shades.



Wartime brown and green went out, along with

The Yorkist Range, the wire-mesh food safe

In the cellar, the scrubbed board bath lid

And marbled glass bowl over the light bulb

With its hidden hoard of dead flies and

Rusting three-tier chain.



We moved to the new estate, Airey semis

With their pebble-dash prefabricated slats,

Built-in kitchen units and made-to-measure gardens.

Every Saturday I went back to the streets,

Dinner at Auntie Nellie’s, Yorkies, mash and gravy,

Then the matinee at the Princess with Margaret,

The queen of my ten-year old heart.



Everybody was on the move, half the neighbours

To the new estates or death, newcomers with

Rough tongues from over the bridge slum clearance.

A drive-in Readymix cement works bruised the Hollows,

Ellerby Lane School closed, St. Hilda’s bulldozed.

The trams stopped for good after the Coronation Special

In purple and gold toured the city's tracks and

The red-white and blue on the cake at the street party

Crumbled to dust and the river-bank rats fed on it

Like Miss Haversham’s wedding feast all over again.



The cobbled hill past the Mansions led nowhere,

The buses ran empty, then the route closed.

I returned again and again in friends’ cars,

Now alone, on foot, again and again.
Written by Robert Louis Stevenson | Create an image from this poem

To Auntie

 "Chief of our aunts"--not only I, 
But all your dozen of nurselings cry-- 
"What did the other children do? 
And what were childhood, wanting you?"
Written by Robert Burns | Create an image from this poem

325. Song—What can a Young Lassie do wi' an Auld Man?

 WHAT can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie,
 What can a young lassie do wi’ an auld man?
Bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie
 To sell her puir Jenny for siller an’ lan’.
Bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie
 To sell her puir Jenny for siller an’ lan’!


He’s always compleenin’ frae mornin’ to e’enin’,
 He hoasts and he hirples the weary day lang;
He’s doylt and he’s dozin, his blude it is frozen,—
 O dreary’s the night wi’ a crazy auld man!
He’s doylt and he’s dozin, his blude it is frozen,
 O dreary’s the night wi’ a crazy auld man.


He hums and he hankers, he frets and he cankers,
 I never can please him do a’ that I can;
He’s peevish an’ jealous o’ a’ the young fellows,—
 O dool on the day I met wi’ an auld man!
He’s peevish an’ jealous o’ a’ the young fellows,
 O dool on the day I met wi’ an auld man.


My auld auntie Katie upon me taks pity,
 I’ll do my endeavour to follow her plan;
I’ll cross him an’ wrack him, until I heartbreak him
 And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan,
I’ll cross him an’ wrack him, until I heartbreak him,
 And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan.
Written by Barry Tebb | Create an image from this poem

Bridge Over The Aire Book 6

 THE WALK TO THE PARADISE GARDENS



1



Bonfire Night beckoned us to the bridge

By Saint Hilda’s where we started down

Knostrop to chump but I trailed behind

With Margaret when it was late September

The song of summer ceased and fires in

Blackleaded grates began and we were

Hidden from the others by the bridge’s span.

2



When you bent I saw the buds of your breasts

As you meant and I laughed at your craft when

You blushed and denied and finally cried

But there was a smile in your eyes.





3



It was the season of yo-yo’s in yellow or

Pink or pillar-box red and you spooled out

The thread as only you could and it dipped

And rose like a dancer.





4



The paddock by the tusky sheds was cropped

And polished by the horses’ hooves, their

Nostrils flared and they bared their teeth

As we passed and tossed their manes as we

Shied from the rusty fence where peg-legged

We jumped the cracks and pulled away each

Dandelion head, “Pee-the-bed! Pee-the bed!”

Rubbing the yellow dust into each other’s

Cheeks and chins as we kissed.





5



The bluebells had died and on the other side

The nettle beds were filled with broken branches

White as bone, clouds were tags of wool, the

Night sky magenta sands with bands of gold

And bright stars beckoned and burned like

Ragged robins in a ditch and rich magnolias

In East End Park.





6



I am alone in the dark

Remembering Bonfire Night

Of nineteen-fifty four

When it was early dusk

Your hair was gold

As angels’ wings.





7



From the binyard in the backstreet we brought

The dry stored branches, broken staves under

The taunting stars and we have never left

That night or that place on the Hollows

The fire we built has never gone out and

The light in your eyes is bright:

We took the road by the river with a star

Map and dream sacks on our backs.



8



The Hollows stretched into darkness

The fire burned in the frost, sparks

Crackled and jumped and floated

Stars into the invisible night and

The log glowed red and the fire we

Fed has never died.







9



The catherine-wheel pinned to the palings

Hissed and spun as we ran passed the railings

Rattling our sticks until the stars had beat retreat.





10



From the night comes a figure

Into the firelight: Margaret Gardiner

My first, my only love, the violet pools

Of your eyes, your voice still calling,

“I am here, I am waiting.”





11



Where the road turns

Past St Hilda’s

Down Knostrop

By the Black Road

By the Red Road

Interminable blue

And I remember you,

Margaret, in your

Mauve blazer standing

By the river, your

Worn-out flower patterned

Frock and black

Laceless runners





12



Into the brewer’s yard

Stumbled the drayhorses

Armoured in leather

And clashing brass

Strident as Belshazzar’s

Feast, rich as yeast

On Auntie Nellie’s

Baking board, barrels

Banked on barrels

From the cooper’s yard.





13



Margaret, are you listening?

Are your eyes still distant

And dreaming? Can you hear

My voice in Eden?

My poems are all for you

The one who never knew

Silent and most generous

Muse, eternal primavera

Under the streetlamps

Of Leeds Nine.





14



Margaret, hold my hand

As we set out into the

Land of summers lost

A day-time ghost surrenders

At the top of the steps

To the Aire where we

Looked over the Hollows

Misted with memory and

Images of summer.

We are standing on the corner of Falmouth Place

We are standing by the steps to the Aire

We are standing outside the Maypole

Falling into Eden.





15



Falling into Eden is just a beginning

Hoardings on the gable ends for household

Soap, washing is out on the lines

Falmouth Street full of children playing,

Patrick Keown, Keith Ibbotson, the Flaherty

Twins spilling over the pavements, holding

A skipping rope, whirling and twirling;

Margaret you never missed a turn

While I could never make one, out before I began.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things