Sep 20
Lurking
in the corner of
Greenhead park’s playground
balancing on a fifteen-foot pole – the precarious witch’s hat.
Tom
and I
grab the iron bars
that descend from
the wicked cap’s conical apex,
run round fast as we can and jump
onto the centrifugal circular oak brim of the whirling witch’s hat.
Tom,
two years braver
than me, climbs up the
Satanic bonnet’s metal ribs.
He stands akimbo with his feet
on the crossbar and arms grasping
the spinning steel triangle at the top of the bucking witch’s hat.
A
couple of
seasons less assured,
I see danger in the motion
of this malevolent millinery, and cautiously cling
to the ferrous frame and solid wooden base of the gyrating witch’s hat.
Rapidly
revolving,
seesawing and spinning,
the heinous headpiece tries
to crush our legs against the pole
or fling us up into the air to fall onto
a black, hard and sharp cinder surface; victim of the venomous witch’s hat.
We
spring off the slowing
death cap, safe and exhilarated
by the swirling danger of Greenhead park’s wild witch’s hat.
in the corner of
Greenhead park’s playground
balancing on a fifteen-foot pole – the precarious witch’s hat.
Tom
and I
grab the iron bars
that descend from
the wicked cap’s conical apex,
run round fast as we can and jump
onto the centrifugal circular oak brim of the whirling witch’s hat.
Tom,
two years braver
than me, climbs up the
Satanic bonnet’s metal ribs.
He stands akimbo with his feet
on the crossbar and arms grasping
the spinning steel triangle at the top of the bucking witch’s hat.
A
couple of
seasons less assured,
I see danger in the motion
of this malevolent millinery, and cautiously cling
to the ferrous frame and solid wooden base of the gyrating witch’s hat.
Rapidly
revolving,
seesawing and spinning,
the heinous headpiece tries
to crush our legs against the pole
or fling us up into the air to fall onto
a black, hard and sharp cinder surface; victim of the venomous witch’s hat.
We
spring off the slowing
death cap, safe and exhilarated
by the swirling danger of Greenhead park’s wild witch’s hat.
he witches hat was a conical roundabout that turned and swung while balanced on a tall pole. Along with many playground items it has disappeared because of health and safety regulations ( it really did cause many injuries). A safe version has been reintroduced at Wicksteed Park that has a mechanism to prevent limbs getting crushed against the central pole.
The form of this poem might not come out well on a mobile phone as the final line of each stanza is long to look like the brim of a witches hat.
The form of this poem might not come out well on a mobile phone as the final line of each stanza is long to look like the brim of a witches hat.
(66/M)
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