Midcenturyology Poems

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

 Sea frets Tides mither clinker Beneath the road that might end, or Might be lost to view in Water spray-studded web Wheels break Tarmac Pushchairs and scooters Taking air that is thrown up To make wrapping sky Bells strive Behind or aside from view They could be summoning Further the sea The AA Guide to Britain - East Yorkshire  Books by The History Usherette

Will I cross Bakewell Bridge this year When daffodil heads are crisp crepe And the ducks keep their velvet brood From the eddys of the Wye Weir Where my memories hang and swirl Among the catkin ticker tape Books by The History Usherette

Sewing at the window in high daylight Hood eyes, calloused fingers endure neat rows That track out tradition in time and taste Ask her if she can sew gloves with eyes closed She shifts her head once to the side, eyes low The AA Guide to Britain - Oxfordshire 

A stone bookmark in the holiday  By annexed unmade car park I slid along my back seat domain Wondering what to look for Sun bleached information boards Moated by Wind-whipped oily water Say nothing I have damp feet Numb fingers But there’s time, yet Books by The History Usherette

The stone tower sunk back into the bed It lies under numbing sheets of water Is draped in a green weed blanket Knitted close to worked apart blocks The tower knelt into silt and sleeps Twitching only under a swan wash The fanned                          fingers will       never                       wake up     And the    earth                reclaims It’s own            fabric                                           Again. The AA Illustrated Guide to Britain ...

Only just fallen and still green smooth She was moved and covered in By the fenced off ditch Cupping loose shallow seeping water Her toes sunk in, fused anchor Pushing shoulders locked Arms possessed the ditch, fence absorbed One year she threw acorns out Landing wide, leaving The AA Illustrated Guide to Britain- New Forest

 He leaves his family on the thrumming beach Where waves are drowned by the thud of beach balls And the ice cream frenzied cries overreach Patterned socks and deck shoes protect old soles And they foot him over storm altered rocks Until he notices the only sound The salted foam as it eddies and docks He pauses now at the grey wave smoothed mound When they asked what he was doing out there They put it down to the AA guidebook His dedication to the tour so rare He had ignored the turn that the tide took No one had known about the time before That drew his end in a tidal wave roar The AA Illustrated Guide to Britain - Cornwall  Books by The History Usherette

Throwing back my neck Beneath cartwheel curves Freight wagons thump over Over, over No joint to bend But an even weight Now, up on a parapet A stone ledge so low There is only Leaning over Over, over The marsh captures below The AA Illustrated Guide to Britain - p186 Harringworth Viaduct