|
|
 |
Mayers Road
Posted: 14 April 2020
Word Count: 318
Summary: My Grandmothers house and house in Barbados
|
Font Size
|
|
Sitting on the moist top of balcony view
Fern covered, in my warddrobe I stare there at
Each station holding me fast to numbers and dominoes played in the evening
In yard - a shed with my chickens hatching and pecking fed scrumptously on corns
My feet tonight are lifted on a stool cushion
And the air is hot to the point of stifling
Fish don't come cheap these days and were told all things stop at 8pm until the Church Preachers cry out at 7
Complaints are dancing on lips of locals of ''how to enjoy this rising of Christ?, this Easter''
Mine tonight is finding happy
Lifting the glad
You stand looking up at me
Seen your gorgeous eyes
Our musket gun is held; framed on the wall
And Charlie Chaplins funny walk brings laughter to my mind and fingers jitter
I think of stitching
Hold a hanky to my nose to sniff at Lavendar
Tight stationery pens in middle of the table as a grandchild softly sleeps beneath a concrete roof
The tin of my own is all hot and heated and I wonder if the cockrel crow
Will know there is nowehere to go
Sweat drips down my throat line and lies inside a wrinkle
No flights out to sunny boy in Canada!
Frog jumps and bay leaf trees suggest to flooded vases
We see each house little and frail almost as my agile yet ageing body
Behind shutters painted a blue, green, purple or red or yellow
As if sea huts on a beach
Another grandchild tells me after her dissapointments in city and finance that her success
Succseeded her and this is her destination of respite
My lap and land
We each our community close
Hold hands in prayer that are invisible and I reach clutch and reach
As if each child is there
Reach not to be entwined or dictated to.
|
Comments by other Members
| |
 crowspark at 16:41 on 15 April 2020
 Report this post
|
Hi Aisha, what a rich and exhuberant poem and a pleasure to read.
Sitting on the moist top of balcony view
Fern covered, in my warddrobe I stare there at
Each station holding me fast to numbers and dominoes played in the evening
Sensations rich and jumbled; ferns, wardrobes, stations and dominoes and the left over images from game playing. (I wondered what the stations were but enjoyed the overall sensation)
This is wonderful:
Fish don't come cheap these days and were told all things stop at 8pm until the Church Preachers cry out at 7
Complaints are dancing on lips of locals of ''how to enjoy this rising of Christ?, this Easter''
So much to enjoy and unpack in your poem.
It is difficult to highlight individual lines as I end up highlighting whole chunks of them!
My lap and land
We each our community close
Hold hands in prayer that are invisible and I reach clutch and reach
As if each child is there
Reach not to be entwined or dictated to.
I look forward to reading more of your poems.
Thanks for sharing.
Bill
| |
 Novy123 at 17:53 on 17 April 2020
Report this post
|
Hi Bill,
Thank you very much. I feel quite privilged getting a good response from you, given all the points you have. There actually aren't actual train stations there in BIM as locals call Barbados. But when I visited I was told that each Dominoe game was named a ''station'' Just small little tables where people set up games and played until dawn sometimes, particuarly popular with the elders. I totally welcome your readings fabulous actually.
Thanks Bill
| |
 michwo at 18:59 on 18 April 2020
Report this post
|
Welcome to the Flash Poetry group, Aisha. There was too a Poetry Writers Group, but, if you want your poems to be read, my own advice would be to post to this group. The other group I've mentioned was very dependent on a published poet called James Graham who gave his all to poetry and to encouraging those who write it, but, very sadly, he died last year and is still much missed, especially his ability to nurture all contributors to the website without exception. Bill is probably the nearest person we have to being a replacement for him.
Your poem is very exotic, especially for someone like myself who only knows BIM (really?) through the one hit wonder of the pop duo Typically Tropical in 1975 - Woah, I'm going to Barbados. I'm a great fan of three minute pop songs of the 60s, 70s and 80s but not a fan of more recent stars like Rhianna, born apparently in Saint Michael's Parish in Barbados (I looked her up on Wikipedia) and to me it seems more interested in selling her body than her music.
How far is Barbados from Trinidad and Tobago? I've heard of V.S. Naipaul who died in 2018 and have tried - unsuccessfully! - to read "A House for Mr Biswas". I have to say I can't draw on anywhere near the experience of life that you seem to have. I take it this poem "Mayers Road" is firmly rooted in your own experience. What relation is 'sonny boy in Canada' to you? Having said this if you were born in 1980 you must be a very young mother/grandmother!
Keep up the good work and I hope you'll be encouraged to.
| |
Novy123 at 19:30 on 18 April 2020
Report this post
|
Hello Michwo,
Thank you for accepting me into FlashGroup. Yes I had just posted the poem in the general section. So I thought I would post it to the Flash Group to get more comments. I am sorry for everyones loss of James Graham. I read earlier that to be a poet or a writer is to ''save lives whilst experiencing the life of your own in saving your own.'' When did you start writing? I'll have a read of some of your pieces. I find it so fascinating all the different comings together of different people. I myself did not have actual experience of being in the Carribean until I hit my twenty's. I am 40 now only through family who live here. Not sure of the distance between Trinidad and Tobago to Barbados but all the Islands are fairly close, some you can 'Island hop' just jump on a boat, it is fabulous to do flying around all the caves and chogging across the sea. I'ma Rhianna fan actually I agree there is way to much flesh exposed these days in celebrity but she is a National and does great things for education and the community. The exposure of flesh is definitely not good for the youths. Iv'e not heard of VS Naipur I'll have to look that author up. No I am unfortunate not to have children, however I was writing from my grandmothers perspective, she passed sadly 5 years ago now. Sonny Boy is my grandmothers favourite grandchild a cricket player for Barbados. She didn't get to see him make it sadly. And sadly my life is not thta exotic. Good old London!! Look forward to reading your work X
| |
michwo at 20:09 on 18 April 2020
Report this post
|
Thanks for the prompt response, Aisha.
Do you live in the centre of London or outside London? I live in Tameside, Greater Manchester but think of myself as an Ashtonian rather than a Mancunian as I was born and, after a period of instability, have now returned to live in a small town east of Manchester called Ashton-under-Lyne
Believe it or not my first poems were in French as I was good at French at school and wanted in one poem in particular to try to jot down one or two experiences I'd had while spending a year in Lyon as part of my four-year first degree course back in 1967 to 1971 - 'emotion recollected in tranquillity' as Wordsworth would have put it and in a foreign language too! I have to say a lot of my poems now are sonnets - how boring I know, but I like the form and have been known to translate the odd one from French, e.g. "The Creole" which you ought to find in poems posted by me previously to probably in my case the Poetry Writers Group. I remember it as being one James Graham took the time to comment on. I took him for granted when he was alive, but now he isn't there to comment I miss him a lot.
It's V.S. Naipaul by the way rather than Naipur.
| |
| |
Comments by other Members
