Resignation

This is the third and final part of a little Liverpool trilogy from 2010. I called them Mossley Moods after the Liverpool district my dad lived in. Happily we moved him up to Edinburgh after his operations. He is 81 years old now and counting..

These serve as a chilly reminder.

When life leads you to question

how you hope?

When wished desire and its reality turn and bite you

how do you cope?

When love is not the answer however much you try

When pain, deep set, obscures all clarity and tears cloud the eyes

A misty secret suitor bides between you both untill it’s time

They  elope!

Welcoming, wishing, lost and sad;

Empty, stripped of all that was our nurture across the busy years.

Echo’s of their memories holding forth calling through the fears

With pain comes wisdom and through tears comes the spring.

 © 2010 S Evans All Rights Reserved

Valentine

This little ode was also written in Liverpool, February 2010. It was coming up to Valentines and I bought my wife a card to send her. She was up in Edinburgh, I was down in Liverpool (literally). 

What do you put on a valentines card after 20 odd years of marriage? It was while I was wondering that, that I started to write this. This isn't the first poem I had written her, there have been a couple of others over those years but they are never well received. She doesn't really do romantic, in fact she sees it as a weakness and she doesn't like weakness.

What to say that you’ll believe,

And per chance might take to heart

Just how may I explain?

I thought I’d write a poem...

Paint feelings with words

I thought I’d spell it out

Like some musical refrain.

You’re nearly all that matters to me

When I close my eyes

You’re nearly all I see

And it makes me smile to think

How quick you’ll skip through this

 

But I’ve said it now 
You’ve read it 
And if words indeed are cheap 
Then you and I, my love, should only spend a kiss.

Mossley Moods

My first blog was a poem to my big cousin. It's not been uncommon over the years to write these things. When there are feelings inside me, I sometimes sit and try to write them out.

I've never really known what to do with them once they are finished, just the cathartic action of writing it has usually been enough. But some of them lay about, I don't normally look at them because they are still real for the moment they came from. They aren't always sad or gloomy either even though these two carry sadness and gloom.

This one I wrote early in 2010. I was down in Liverpool looking after my dad, he had just been diagnosed with stomach cancer. He was 79 at the time and his prospects were very limited. He had lost weight, he was under 7 stone and because of his weakened condition there was no chemo or radio therapy for him because the doctors thought it would do more harm than good. So straight for the operation to cut it out, along with his stomach.

I really thought I was there to care for him while he died but he didn't. He came through the operation and he is still here to tell the tale today. While I was there and in between trying to do all the things I could to show him I loved him (apart from just saying that to him) I went for walks. My mother, his wife. had died 6 years before and there were no other siblings to share this time with.

These were the silly thoughts that went through my mind;

From a little family of three,

My mum my dad and me.

Hangs a broken little branch

From an ancient old tree,

Whose whispered little promise

From their mammies knee,

Sends a tiny little ripple

Across a ripple-less sea.

A wounded little face

Steps back from the race.

A frozen little smile,

Stands aside from the chase.

A breathless little pause,

A stinging little tear,

A desperate little prayer,

Begs the lord to be near.

 © 2010 S Evans All Rights Reserved


      ____________

Thank You For The Days

My cousin died in October 2011. 

We were very close when we were young. He was Glaswegian and he grew up in the gang culture of the 60’s and 70’s. 

Thinking about him after he died I wrote down these words, they were the images of him that came into my mind. He was called Roy and he helped me to grow up stronger and more confident than I might otherwise have been.

His gang in Cathcart, Glasgow was called CODY, he was older than me, by a few years, and he taught me loads.

I'll never see him again but I will never ever lose sight of him.

Come Or Die Young (CODY)

You were always a hero in my heart 

And I’m so sorry if I let you down.
You made my eyes water for all the reasons they do
We laughed, I cried, we played, you died.

You opened my eyes and made me strong
My life’s adventures began with you.
You were the captain, the expedition leader
You were the chief explorer, the story reader.

Two boys in the wilderness of youth,
Dreaming their dreams as they do.
Looking for their fun in the mysteries of imaginations,
Playing their games in sun filled vacations.

One summer you bought a three piece suit
And I spent those lonely days on the loch alone.
Gangland wars and coffee bars,
Fruity girls and trophy scars.

But you always protected me from that.
Later we walked through Glasgow nights together,
Me still following my hero, my big cousin,
The leader of the dirty dozen.

© 2010 S Evans All Rights Reserved

This song will always remind me of him, he bought it and I remember him playing it many times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzpShIhvrjU

The Kinks; Days from 1969