"sitters" poems
Handbag~ 1994
exam timetable
£5 from my Mum
shiny key for the front door
fresh-mint chewing gum
Handbag~ 1998
keys for work
keys for home
£20 and a bit of change
photo of my best mate
and a bloke that's twice my age
lipstick~ lacy knickers
condoms~ ID card
ticket for a bus to town
UV sparkly stars
Handbag~ 1999
keys for work
keys for home
spare key for his flat
condoms~ contraceptive pills
No.7 powder-ivory/matt
VISA/Delta debit card
paper
gel ink pens
number of a bloke
who says our love
will never end
Handbag~ 2000
keys for work
keys for home
key for the gas meter
Teletubbies picture book
list of baby-sitters
new mobile phone
herbal teething gel
lipstick~ Anadin
vanilla impulse body spray
children's Nurofen
photo of my baby boy
really tiny socks
under-eye concealer
secret stash of chocs
Handbag~ 2002
keys for work
keys for home
pull-back-and-go car
baby wipes
mobile phone
estate agents' cards
picture of my little boy
list of things to do
Boots own brand pregnancy test
both windows coloured blue
Handbag~ 2005
keys for home
card from work
tissue full of tears
photo of my boy in school
that shows his gappy teeth
photo of my baby girl
and one of both of them
a ring that used to be my Mum's
Pro-Plus~ Diazepam
Handbag~ 2009
keys for work
keys for home
one SLIM~FAST bar
one Cadbury's wrapper
Haribo~ Calpol~ tissues
assorted Disney plasters
treasured stones~ special shells
sand and bits of twig
money to buy ice creams
photos of my kids
Oct 14, 2011
Oct 14, 2011 at 4:52 PM UTC
Sitting calmly aligning in-between the three sitters
Adorn with a silk from milk
Thinking about the libido of her crown
Like a star lost in the galaxy
After seeing a Ghanaian movie
A sudden push through her opening
as placenta push through during birth,
as water break through from underground
a cloth of blood, fought through
She felt it,
she saw it,
But what to do? What not to do? and how?
Was a question demanding an answer,
Like a man lost on the crossroad
On his wedding night,
On his bed
Close to the bride like a ****** bird
To be and not to be like Shakespeare
She shouted
What is this?
Blood!!!
This is the making of a woman
An end to her holiness
A new spring of emotion and pain
No more daddy and mummy play
Remember "Always" always
When the visitor is around
you are now a woman
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 4:45 AM UTC
Watching night step-sitters staring at each passerby
abiding time as if counting sheep stepping with the city's cadence
Hearing sirens alarming in their BEWARE BLARING;
persistent fearfulness for evil and citizens securities
Staring-walking-bodies searching a barren land prostrating
before the great needle
Patched streets and decaying sidewalks by flooding night lights lay surreal
DECAYING fingers of poverty playing its fingers into every crack, crevice; into every pore, into every cell member
into one's whole being
Sounding the hip-hop generation street corners of hustlers
jiving away the night
The hustled and hustlers' overwhelming struggling for power; being surrounded by red brick and stone; being incased in poverty
Pounding city hysteria;
at times laying silent in sleepless depth
by the waning gradualness;
anytime readying itself to ERUPT
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 9:39 AM UTC
some times I believe,
not think,
but believe,
that there are indeed little figures in the grass,
brushing my ankles with tickles and laughs
sometimes in mid of velvet black,
can see them waving their six fingered hands
in front of the lights across the bay,
for the twinkles are different, their winkles,
semaphoric, euphoric, random but patterned
every know and every then,
could they be inside me,
inciting riots, sugar sharp pains,
in places where pain has no place purposed,
feel them lifting my-back-of-the-neck hairs,
at scary movies, making an ear itchy, why?
these elusives
are fairie godmothers,
personal angels,
hobgoblins,
shoulder sitters,
amusing muses
ear whisperers,
of new poem titles
sock stealers,
shoelace knoters,
giggling self-amusers,
ever present, ever invisible,
hat hiders, wet spot slider installers
you say you know them too?
cousins perhaps, for my elusives,
could not be here and there,
for they are:
as I write,
as I speak,
this very second
fluttering my eyelids,
those rascals,
to lay me down to sleep,
in cherishing tenderness me to keep
for they know too well,
sleep,
is an elusive of a different kind,
like peace of mind,
but they do their best,
to distract me unto rest
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 11:15 PM UTC
*The most broken people live on earth.
Not even a good poet and wont pretend to be.
I fell asleep at my desk reading boring poems in school.
I failed the test on how many stanza in a poem.
Writing about broke people makes me feel good.
It's a long *** poem so read it or not read it. Word up!*
Call me white boy playing black hipster like the broken record Miley.
I can't type twerk on my keyboard but turning all ghetto on y'all.
Lady done done all she can to shock and mess with our minds.
What she gone do next, buy a house in a black hood and live there?
That's messed up and so I'm dumb and I love attention.
I live in a big town population less than sixteen thousand.
We listed on the map as a god ****** city. Word up!
I need to be a hipster and I'm going hood on y'all.
In my hood I see houses needing fixing and painting.
Got a friend who lives in a trailer park
metal piece that goes around the bottom of his trailer
fell off and his pipes froze during that weather deep freeze.
He's renting that trailer that should be condemned
like most trailers in that park but who the **** cares?
He's got a roof over his head and he should be grateful
he ain't homeless like the rest of the trailer park dwellers.
Landlords don't give a **** they care about collecting rent.
We got men and women living on internet trolling Craigslist.
Most trolling hoping to find dates are married.
Single men and women seeking sugar daddies and mommies.
They are broken people.
I walk down streets and our old and newer malls.
Same weird *** people shop at both.
I see women yelling at kids with ****** diapers that smell bad.
One used the back of her hand to wipe a snot nose
then went back to talking and texting.
Women with babies at home meeting men they met on personals.
Good place to hide when they married or got men.
Leave the babies at home with sitters or family and find new men.
Hanging out at malls is a fake.
"Meet me at my pickup in a half hour and don't wear ******
Read that message on a burner cell I found at the new mall.
It's a burner so it don't need to be returned.
Read the rest and she is married and has more than one lover
she met off personals.
Work it girl and keep the sugar daddies coming!
How many broken moms who should not be moms exist?
There are too many broken people who exist.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 6:38 PM UTC
In the waking, in the wrong,
I stumble -- spitting synonyms for love
daring the scattershot night to take control
to steer me into the early morning bedroom
of anyone other than my own,
and over the phone breaking, over with biting
the mimicking face of former promise ring holders
and front pew sitters I ask the sun to emerge gently,
to kiss my forehead, scramble up eggs--
wearing my oversized t-shirt, cotton underwear, and
an apron left behind by the sun's mother,
but as night turns and walks away,
no bright sun replaces--
instead it is that grey, it is that gaunt
overcast haze that never shows teeth,
only hisses, "How's the routine going?"
In the waking, in the wrong,
hands pull denim and throat itches for shouting rebuttal,
but a man never won against the eternity of the sky,
so I lower my eyes, spin madly into why why whys,
a beautiful woman between pavement and sky jogs past
and I see myself drinking coffee with her and grinning
at what our elderly parents don't know,
but before the words fall from lips,
her feet, legs, and hips wisp
into the early morning mist,
the overcast sky whispers to the meadowlark
above my head,
I open the door to my home as the meadowlark begins to laugh.
Jun 2, 2012
Jun 2, 2012 at 7:55 PM UTC
The Struggle of the
American
It's Heaven”
Mr. Buetti,
“Or this is Hell”
Who is 51 and lives
“It's a choose your own adventure”
Standardized,
Mass Produced, Vessels.
Missing some deeper substance
Southern farmers, Harlem stoop sitters,
Musicians, builders, athletes,
Liberians, and sailors
A
Dormant
Theater Set
Waiting
For Actors' or super models'
To bring it back to life
Wealth displaces grief.
From Here
I Saw
What Happened and Cried.
Just another day in the life of
Secret Americana.
Oct 12, 2010
Oct 12, 2010 at 5:39 PM UTC
The seats are aging
Orange leather with
Cracked faces the
Lines of wisdom
Of ninety
Thousand sitters.
Entire ecosystems
Live on the shining
Polished silver of
Handles dulled
By sweaty palms.
Sightline through
A window
A passing loco
Blurred brief
Images of
Unknown faces.
Sightline to the
Chamber behind
The metal snake
Winds down the track
A touch of vertigo
From uneven motion.
Sightline to
Cascades of light
Brown curls
Flowing over
Porcelain shoulders.
Smooth skin
Sweet as aspartame
Skii slope neckline
Heavenly form
Yellow dress
Slight movement
To the heavenly forms
Pouring through
White earbuds.
Sightline to Sightline
Meet in the air
Muddy brown
Graced by
Kaleidoscope
Greens yellows hazels browns
Electric charge
No other passengers
Perceive.
The doubled thump
Wump
Picks up speed with a
Coy smile
A sunrise blossoming
Over Eden
The birth of an
Angel
The thirst of desert
Sands
Quenched.
Beauty erupts
From the shared gaze
Held 6 stops
Past hoyt-schermerhorn.
Immediate
Immaculate
Connection
Fire through the air
Static charge
Primal lust
Infinite joy
If I could just
Say hello
Hi
You've enraptured
My soul
The epitome of
Beauty.
I sit instead
Stuck
Deer in headlights
****
My twisting insides
The grey says
Such monstrous
Things to itself.
Her stop.
****
Broken gaze,
Disconnected
From the maze
Of her eyes.
I lament.
Sightline back
To page:
"Those that have crossed paths are not memories
Nor is the yellowish dove that sleeps in oblivion..."
I lament some more
At the poignancy
And the loss of a stranger
Made just for me.
She probably would've
Broken my pumping
Gears anyway,
Sayonara, c'est la vie.
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 10:48 PM UTC
An aesthetic storm settled in the
wee hours of creation.
What of it strikes favor or disfavor?
Beauty's immediacy comes with
fatalistic sweep--demanding
principle, demanding ground.
Unveiled beyond time constraint
all over our world--in praise, in
revulsion, eyes score the gamut.
As if image begs love, to be so...
or unrequited.
What's plain of light exposes all
flaw or beauty in a single sitting.
The sitters vary the material world,
with eyes creation asks us to paint
what we see.
The eyes paint the sitter if the sitter
be deemed beautiful, instantaneously
sight's canvas may be left cold...
burdened.
Beauty aspires to affirmation of being,
to have it echoed.
Beauty's lain raw, holds what's held it--
as such...desolation is easy.
Eyes bespeak their volumes...beautiful
or ugly?
A sightly, unsightly moment given to the perpetual.
Epidemic pageantry--ordered by creation
make due...irregardless.
If beauty--eyes are for you--if ugly...eyes
are not.
Thus...of being, of affirmation, of visible,
of invisible--you...beauty are.
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 6:21 PM UTC
We were ledge-sitters.
We understood why birds perch themselves on penthouse patio rails
And why airplanes sigh with breaths of relief when they are defying gravity.
We would hold the crooked hems of our dresses while we climbed metal stairs like mountains.
The urge for heightened perception of depths, distances, and the disarranged built in us like skyscrapers we hung ourselves over.
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 8:14 PM UTC
1: “could you not pick your nose in front of me?”
2: “I'm not picking, I'm scratching.”
And then, utter silence.
The hourly routine of the sitters.
Warm and clear or humid and foggy,
their day always manages to be bare and cold.
With their unpleasant sets of ashy, unwashed heels, broken through the years, the numbers untold.
Watching all that is theirs.
For a benchwarmer is a proprietor of anything that keeps abet, his deepest fears.
The greatest fear, failure, being the most aggressive,
jabs and hammers on his itchy, small, frictionless small back like an overturned adhesive.
For once upon a memory so distant ago that its credibility is askew,
Were men who had dreams and hopes, to awake to the feel of the morn’ dew.
Men who, have long since settled into their nichey existence.
Men who were once the go-to for persistent consistence.
Jan 19, 2016
Jan 19, 2016 at 1:24 AM UTC
Trip Sitter Poem by Rob Sandman
We’ve all got a friend like this of course,
Istabraq, Seabiscuit the ould warhorse,
Snortin like a whale inhaling at the surface,
Smokes til just lookin’ at them makes your lungs hurt its-
Amazing grace while you’re off your face messed up,
They’re in the corner laughin' - not a hair mussed up,
**Not out of place in the place to be,
The opposite in fact a life saver to see,
Always at your back with a friendly shoulder,
A spliff, skins smokes-well timed glass of water**
Not immune or a ****** just seasoned,
When you’re lost-beyond all reason,
Lost the end of your sentence?-they’ve got it,
a well tuned part in the heart of the party chaotic,
The calm center of the whirlpool, Deadpool-
Quick with a line, not too cuttin’ but nobodies fool,
trip sitter, designated brain at the sesh,
A little OCD maybe, but nonetheless,
We’re all thankful with a full tankful
Its gas havin' a laugh knowin' you can bank full-
Confidence in your mates if you trip,
*But no mercy with the quips, quick! zip your lips
If you’re not in full control of the tongue,
They’ll be followin’ the slips and zip down your lungs
You’re a wounded gazelle on the plains and they’ll lunge,
Like a cheetah once you’ve taken the plunge*
I’m not talkin of only one person of course,
We all take turns as the tour de force-
goes round
**Like a Merry go round sound friends abound
While you’re bewildered the wildebeest takes the crown,
Don’t know about you, but I’m blessed with a few true-
Trip sitters babysitters life fitters diametrically opposed to bullshitters**
*Sideplitters with one liners that leave you gaspin’
For air beyond compare got the grasp and flavor
Best savour the moments-they’re all too few ,
Best friends are saviours who help you pull through,
So lets all give thanks to the big hitters,
Thanks lads and lasses I’m always grateful for me trip sitters!*
Jun 7, 2017
Jun 7, 2017 at 12:37 AM UTC
Said the world, “Sorry, I’ve got too much feel."
So she gave me twice as much, told me to deal.
Said I, “I’m sorry, it’s just too much."
And said the world, “Well, that’s too bad, and you can blame the world," and such.
So I waited it out a little bit longer.
Said the world, as I advanced in a rage, “It’ll make you stronger."
So I waited and waited, learned to want to live still, learned to want to die.
"Oh goodness, you can do it, please, please" said the world with a sigh.
And so that’s what it’s like, being an empath of the earth.
Having in my heart, all foreign emotions pure and swirled.
And I sift them like flour,
Keep the sweet and some of the sour,
But underneath I am bitter,
Not the first in a long line of “deal with it" emotion sitters.
So it’s been years, and what I’ve learned is never desired or simply yearned,
Don’t let yourself get burned.
Peel the world, let aching fingers soothe,
find the truth,
Don’t let your thoughts and words babble out uncouth.
So you harden and you crack,
Cave your stomach, arch your back.
Find its easier to hate than love.
But world, its worth it if you try.
Jul 17, 2013
Jul 17, 2013 at 12:01 PM UTC
On a painter's easel
is a double portrait
just a sketch at present
The artist feels he hasn't
got the sense yet of his sitters
or of their relationship
What was the grievance
causing such a ferment?
Was there a fracture
behind the smooth facade?
The painter pondered
and went on with his painting
Sep 13, 2019
Sep 13, 2019 at 6:31 AM UTC
Bottle opener
Cracked vermouth
Naked lady
The kids grip their
Hearts
Like newly stolen candy
I'm a leaflet notebook
Fire parade
Fortune teller dressed in secrets
Kimono headdress
Ketamine lines
Upside down caligrpahy
Apple wine
Summer time
Open faced hamburgers
With the moon
On the infinite rise
Trickling melancholy
Purple moon
Hustlers under mailboxes
While grandma's line-up
To do the
Foxtrot
Sinister balloon
Of heavy-metal persuasion
Big titted foul players
Of foreign speaking
Soothsayers
Can it be that we
Are all out of players?
The ***** are in
The goals are scored
There's not a hand
Manning the board
Usurp the direction
Upend the powers that be
Peek through the keyhole
Discover the lies
Behind the masks of men
Who wear brightly colored ties
Music moves through
The meek feet of the weak
What're we all looking for
But the big vote
To take us all the way through.
Better butter down Sutter
Baby sitters been broken
The kids have gone missing
Instead of doves
We've got pigeons
Jul 18, 2014
Jul 18, 2014 at 5:55 PM UTC
I Hear America sniveling
A nod to Walt Whitman,
I hear America sniveling, life of hardships
Those are the nurse’s aide, each sniveling
looking tired and worn out
Petrified of being on the morning shift
The Porter sniveling as he drags
the fifthly mop down the corridor
The “Don’t walk signs.
Which everyone seems to ignore
The cooks crying as he wakes up early searching for dietary old ladle
Just to meet the breakfast rush, with sleep still in his eyes: his life seem to be a lie
The doorman sniveling as the workers rush through the doors
The looks on their faces, his hands stay closer to the company Tasers
The foreigner taxi cabs drivers speed a headed of each other for two dollars ride
As they tries their best to form a complete sentence..
Knowingly, that his spoken words is grammatically incorrect
The babies sniveling as they mother drop them off at the sitters,
Poor babies wish they could stay all day in their mother’s arm
The poor man sniveling, can be heard through the land, America
The rich man broad smiles as he killed another elephant for their ivory
Takes images proclaiming victory
The sadness of the hardest workers, or the elderly folks in pain
Shows an undivided world of tough hardships and poor leaderships
Each one to his or her own self, like homeless man Robert in the rain
We wakes up each day under the same sun, the same cruelty and injustice
the testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere since 1945 and just recently another test
And we continues this repeat, and the more we feel and see or smile turn into frowns
I heard America sniveling:
*Even in hardship, God’s goodness prevails.” E
― Todd Stocker, *
Jul 5, 2017
Jul 5, 2017 at 8:39 AM UTC
ready for the tripp that cant be traveled by conventional means
i shipped myself to an outer planes of a new dimension with lucid stamps . the night began and i was born again . the lights surrounded me dancing for me in a insatiable pattern that hummed and murdered indescribably. my two sitters of for the night where more like Jekyll and Hyde saving me and hating me destroying me and building me i was liquid.as the world spun i looked and i teared and i tried to know why i didn't know. A state of utter confusion that i hope never to go through again.that confusion and was just the beginning but it taught me so much.
May 14, 2010
May 14, 2010 at 6:52 PM UTC
Salute to the teachers that don't let one of their student falls to the sideline.
Salute to the teachers that's determine to find out, what's bothering a child?
If they shy, many hates to read before the class.
While others soaks in the joy of it.
Salute to the teachers that's determine educating a child.
You won't fail because of her/him.
It's not an option you have the permission to turn down.
Yes, all instructors know you can give them a book.
And can't force them to read.
Except, in your class you're determine to know the various reasons.
Salute to those teachers determine in educating a child.
Oh, we see the politicians speaking.
And talking before the cameras.
But many of them could stand a little more education.
Even I , as I write this poem.
But you must respect the baby sitters for parents.
Who assigned to watch them learn and grown?
When the score of students learning comes upon the news.
A teacher should take pride in knowing they're not talking about you..
Because you took pride in educating a child.
You wasn't pushing to be a private school instructor.
You wasn't complaining about being a public school educator.
Because when you pay close attention to facts.
One is no better than the other.
One just has more parents pretending to be wealthy,,
A teacher is a motivator.
A promoter too.
And all they ever need is a child determine to be something.
And with that determination many will leave a great impression upon their parents.
Jan 25, 2014
Jan 25, 2014 at 11:01 AM UTC
Under the beating tickled sun
The shackles sting as they twinkle
No heart beat is near that I can hear
Only one more moment I can bear
At the hour of one's finest moment
Where all time stops for Him
And the birds stop chirping, dogs cease barking
The one trips over His own two feet
Either the greeting cards are colored wrong
Or I am in another song
Either my smile has grown down and crooked
Or I am naked and looking spooky
Fish me a riddle from the greatest lake you can find
Where they shiver either when they say their warm
Whistle through the thick green brush
Where bugs lay quiet for to speak don't mean much
Could it be that we were never meant to see?
Blind and fame both seem to be the same thing
Swiveling chairs make the sitters hair stand on end
So don't worry darling were bout' round the bend
A year passes through a ring made of pure steel
And I'm pricking myself to see if I can still feel
Fiery foreman's pound their pencils to pieces
And each daughter will soon scold their French nieces
Ill from the sight of a love that didn't want to work
Now I feel like a dusty road bound turk
Feet are twisted as the sisters pray fast away
The blur of this world is an unsolvable swirl
Nightly knights clad in robes of purple gold
Bounce around by orders that they are told
Now the times seem to be all the same
And to deny it would bring a guilt elusive and lame
Memories mourn their masters for now they've nowhere to go
Mothers whine and cry after their children who only say "so...?"
Fathers lay staring at a ceiling that isn't even theirs
And I'm all outta' money, can you spot on this fare?
Jun 26, 2011
Jun 26, 2011 at 8:40 AM UTC
Romance and desire, such a thin line
Falls between right and wrong
No fence sitters here, either is the call
With penalties built in to both.
Romance price; a life, most likely your own
With all you have given it
Forever you carry a piece in your heart
Never shed, can you be, of its grip.
Desire is more; you choose who you ****
Who will suffer from false hopes and whims
Who will make the mistake of false hung romance
And invest more than they want to give.
Desire is a shell, false throughout
An empty satisfaction at best
While romance can hold and comfort
And be the companion through this earthly life.
Feb 9, 2012
Feb 9, 2012 at 9:33 AM UTC
You had the children
So you are responsible.
Make your weak excuses;
Character is discernible.
We can look at behavior
Of even a grown adult
To see bad parenting
And what is the result.
A child must have approval
And some loving discipline
To prepare them for the quirks
Of this tricky life they’re in.
They must believe they can
Grow up wise and succeed.
Along with love and discipline
Approval is also a need.
We can’t let television
And hired baby sitters be
The be-all of their rearing.
They all have to learn to see
Their parents really love them
And they have parental respect.
This message cannot arrive
If they are raised by neglect.
If they learn nothing of heritage
And their own family pride
What message can they convey
When they are alone outside?
Will they learn only to care
For themselves and what the get?
After all, there won’t be much of
Family life for them to forget.
And for those of you who fear
Your child won’t think you a buddy
That is not what the kid needs.
He can get that from anybody.
And he or she will because
They never will have learned
That life offers far too many
Bridges selfishness can burn.
Apr 22, 2018
Apr 22, 2018 at 4:40 PM UTC
Zach,
I know things have been rough.
People dont understand. Period.
I want you to know that you are worth something, despite what everyone tells you.
You are going to find someone.
You really will.
And when you do,
You wont remember what loneliness is
You will love her
You wont want to leave her
Because she is
just that great
Dont ever believe you are ugly
people are mean and you know who you are.
Dont let them get into your head.
One person saying you are handsome and meaning it is way better than a million people saying it out of pitty.
Don't let them controll you
You are better than drugs
Better than alcohol..
You will survive
You will grow up to be a fine young man with a goal in life.
Dont let dad **** dreams
Dont let mom **** you into a life not meant for you.
Dont loose that goofy smile.
Dont ever stop your passion for music
Dont be afraid to cry
Dont be afraid to stand up
Because the world needs standers,
Not sitters.
Dont choose to let others walk on you.
Dont stop watching star wars
And humming the theme song on the walk to school.
Zach,
I know not many people tell you this,
But you are awesome.
You are important
Silly
And honest.
Dont disregard those traits.
I am not trying to be concideded
But you...we need this.
Especially when we feel so low
While others are living so high.
Zach,
Dont listsn to the haters.
Believe in yourself,
And never stop trying
Jul 8, 2016
Jul 8, 2016 at 4:43 PM UTC
Heaven must be black.
a shadow stretching from some great eclipse;
wherein we are students,
from which we are teachers.
all of us bright lights
in the dark.
Hell is ablaze
with color, more than before,
flooding the space
with waves, crashing to shore;
One
on top of
the next
until every corner of darkness left unlit
is burning!
Every corner but the one
in which you sit.
a speck of void
in endless white.
fence sitters,
on the line between blurring,
and stark separation.
sigh because the grass is always greener.
if you don't like what you're seeing,
turn around.
if you don't like what you're seeing,
close your eyes.
Apr 26, 2012
Apr 26, 2012 at 12:27 PM UTC
there once was a time
when love was the greatest mystery known to man
when husbands and wives
didn't **** their baby sitters and ruin their children's lives
when flowers were given as a token of flattery and not an excuse for an apology
there once was a time
when you and i, partook in this mystery
where our hands were intertwined
and our hearts fluttered at the same time
but that was a long time ago
and i know
all the secrets.
Jul 16, 2017
Jul 16, 2017 at 11:39 PM UTC
It's 2015, summertime, with
an afternoon sunshine
gently roasting the cheeks
of a little girl into a
healthy flush. The sweet
sanctuary of the cafe after
school; a fresh playground
amidst the summer heat.
Familiarity, an endless finality of
every poster and notice
memorised through timeless
hours, teaching her
how to read through adverts for
baby sitters
ballet instructors
late-night knitting groups.
School tie discarded, slung
over the back of a squeaky
cafe chair, the usual, she drags
her mum to the counter,
towards the fiery face smiling
behind the till. Warm eyes,
sparkling with stories and life,
already talking to her mum about
her new school teacher
the new muffin recipe
her dad's latest gig.
Her face, bronzed by foreign heat
folds as she guffaws across the cafe,
careless, laughing , at a joke
the little girl doesn't yet
understand. Handfuls
of pink marshmallows,
sweet and pure, exchange hands
with a wink and a 'don't tell your mum'.
The girl sticks two together and calls them butterflies.
The broken clock near the door
shows the same time
as it did an hour ago, hands suspended, never-ending.
I carry flowers, an expensive bunch
of lilies and roses,
tilted in towards my chest - like
a child in a green paper blanket - to protect
them against the gale as
I carry sympathy home. The rain
soaks through the paper. I nip
off a dead leaf between my forefinger
and thumb, thoughts lingering,
nose turning numb. Four years
since I spoke to Mandy, at
'Mandy's Cafe!'
whisked away by time briskly slipping.
Moving house, growing up.
And yet, when
the sun comes out later today,
I see a little girl with scooter-hit
ankles, and glitter in her hair
reaching out a tiny ink-stained hand
for a warm buttered roll
from a hand memorised
through timeless hours.
Feb 23, 2025
Feb 23, 2025 at 2:43 PM UTC