Long Bakelite Poems

I

I am disinfected, sanitised from touch and eyes
Do not hold me. I am Bakelite and you smolder
Sat solid, the wall cold against my spine. A back-rest 
To concrete electrocution. 
I am distilled from Suburbia and...

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Ambered hues in faded frames, a bygone era's smile,
Bakelite whispers of forgotten songs, on a crackling vinyl isle.
Daguerreotypes, ghosts of laughter, dance in sepia light,
Embers of a childhood fire, casting warmth in the night.
Flickering candlelight...

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"At the Third Stroke.
It will be four, four, and 40 seconds, precisely."
"At the Third Stroke.
It will be four, four, and 55 seconds, precisely."
Old timers like me can remember
when time was voiced on the telephone when...

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He leads me through East London, docks, pubs and stray dogs, the 
Thames lapping at low clouds.
We find the second-hand player in a street where the shops
are dusty holes under viaducts.
Carrying the Dansette portable record...

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The bakelite disc revolved at seventy-eight
To end up in shards shattered, an inevitable fate
Heavy and brittle and full of opera
Was replaced with a vinyl at thirty-three
With covers a delight to see
Light and supple full of...

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Our first TV, a Mullard, maybe Murphy, black and white
five minutes for it to warm up, and it smelt of Bakelite,
the back was made of hardboard punched with rows of tiny slots
which cast a reddish...

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They are under the hedge, the elderly,
the silver whiskered. Threadbare possums,
frail chipmunks. The feeble,
squeezed into narrow parts of the day.

Her apartment is hedged in.
Her telephone is black, silent and Bakelite.

A groundhog comes out to gaze...

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You hand me the bracelet without meeting my eyes -
A wordless expression that betrays the casualness between us. 
It's a symbol, a sign
That you haven't forgotten.

My face burns with emotion and I quickly turn to...

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The moon had got itself tangled up
in a glass telephone kiosk.
Tricks of light do not apply to moonlight,
for it is a ghost
haunting its face only through earthy reflections.
It looks to us to see it.

The city...

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A curly corded telephone rings in a distant room,
its black Bakelite bulk vibrates behind closed eyes.
An old-time fire-engine parks its flame and brass chassis
inside a cavernous skull, though no conflagration
sets the dark alight.

It is that...

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My Bakelite Moonglow Clock
David J Walker 

My Bakelite  Moonglow Clock 
Circa 1946
Is not just an antique 
It is Unique 

Exclusively made to offer
The time at a glance 

At night spreading a soft glow of
Moonlight...

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