Midcenturyology Poems

My city had shape We ribboned past the wedding cake And the empty egg box beside it Then angled up to academic sprawl Overseen by a cuboid that tall I'll take your word for it, Octagon  Home, my tall destination The Star from the kiosk at the bus station Origami at the Horse and Lion Remember Protect and Survive?

The road goes warp to weft in green Shuttling by ditches empty of anything much The stench of hawthorn hangs In our slow-fast car We go sudden right at the old parish boundary Skirt the vanished Fawcett's Row Nettles now, a dip in the field A turn of the hedgerow  On we weave, bracketing only ghosts You might be interested in village halls

Lone spinner on the flaking Witches Hat A flashing display of skin flayed from knees On the girl with the dun hair, long and flat That barely flinches in the turning breeze She spies knitted tank tops and patched wide jeans  Proving the skill of women that know how Who look at her and know the way life leans The seeds she emerged with are splitting now Her pleated kilt is stitched tight to her vest By the nerve centre of her unfurling  Bouncing the ball of high fevered unrest Some invade the hat, it begins whirling She emerges unmoved, ready to walk The line of the hedge, bones porous on chalk Downloads and books by Sarah Miller Walters

It happened just outside the allotments On a ground baking day in late July  The top buttons of his white shirt were rent The skin underneath was burned pink and dry He lifted his straw hat, mopped his forehead With a hanky the size of a bed sheet Then dropped to his knees as if he would wed Into a puddle since dried in the heat A woman in a headscarf and sundress Clashed the wooden gate and dropped her small purse  Crouching so that her hem swept the dust excess She cradled his head and let out a curse The horses standing in the paddock plot Flicked their tails and broke out into a trot More midcentury ramblings here

I remember Edwinstowe with dry fern fronds As a flared child I was tucked, squeezed Into the open throat of the Major Oak I forced down my doubts to try to believe that Robin Hood lived here. The widespread oak is wired now Held up as a living Marionette A puppet show of our need for Robin Hood For something beyond our Ollerton Roundabout  The tiresome circle of existence The AA Illustrated Guide to Britain  More writing by Sarah Miller Walters

 I have a postcard inside One kitchen cupboard door Yellow sellotape border  It's fake primary colours Flower a flint tower Just out of sight, lens left A slatted wooden shelter and Companion concrete bench is Where I waited one day The bus subject to delay Even so, I was still first As I always am, will be Round the block, fake purpose Forever waiting it out For someone to start something Books by Sarah Miller Walters