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Red Wine

Red, red wine
An inspiration to cogitation,
When bless-ed
Transforms to blood of Christ.
No Finer
Drink for man or king has been discovered.

Origins
Of vinification predate 4000BC.
Did Roman
Or Greek perfect the secrets of fermentation, barrel aging,
And by what
Vintners art did it become modern Bordeaux?

French breeding
Produced fine root-stocks of AOC class.
1860s
Phylloxera invasion devastated them.
American
Resistant roots were cause and solution, grafted-on.

When we send
Our children out into the world, will they return as scourge -
Saviour -
Our purgative and our salve against old age, their
Bitterness
Ripened to sweet honey like an old bottle of Sauternes.

Labels: poetry, syko

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My Grandmother

My mother's mother lived Coronation Street style,
Two up, two down, coal hole over cellar,
Parlour, living room, scullery, back alley,
Privy in the back yard...that was Keswick Grove.

My brother was born when I was aged seven.
They tagged him with my fathers name until we decided.
Grandmother asked me, aside, "What name do you like?"
"David", I replied...and so he became David Alexander Sykes.

We grew up in a three bed semi with garden,
Overlooked by flats where my schoolmates lived.
An older girl spied me dancing naked on my bed,
So I curtailed that activity...that was Wyville Drive.

We lived at number ten, top of the shop,
My fathers parents, Harry and Martha, lived at number five,
We went to whist drives at my aunts house on the corner,
In 1977, we held a street party for the Queen's silver jubilee.

Grandmother took a tumble down unlit cellar steps.
Ambulancemen packed two broken arms and one leg into balloons.
She came to live with us but missed her independence.
I carried her Saturday dinners over to her new flat by Buile Hill Park.

My mother took a job as warden of an OAP estate.
Fifty-five flats, intercom, community centre, laundry.
Some tenants became our extended family - bonus aunts and uncles,
Some had to go into care or died...that was Shelmerdine Gardens.

My grandmother spent her last years in a nursing home.
She worried about them mixing different false teeth sets.
She had long white hair, which she never cut, only brushed.
She is buried in a family plot...Peel Green cemetery.

November 2005, (S4 ward)

Labels: poetry, syko

Spirit

You'll find me where the river runs deep.
And where the frost is settling.
Where the wind soars in the trees
But I will not be seen.
I am the spirit
That goes from land to land
The spirit of an Angel.
The person who touches you
With gentle feather I touch you
Whichever way I look, wherever I turn
You are there with your wonder and care
You whisper so tender a word
And take care of my spirit.
The earth is still alive
And my spirit still soars.

Vicky Mc


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Labels: poetry, Vicky Mc

Ageism

You're too old
Don't you think you should cut your hair?
Don't you think you should dress more conventionally?
Don't you think you should try some make up to hide under?
Don't you think you need a face-lift?
Don't you think you need a boob job?
Don't you think you need a bum lift?
Don't you think you need to grow up?
Don't you think you need?
Don't you think you need to get rid of those lines?
Your age is showing.
Don't you think you should have botox?
Don't you think you should cover that grey?
Don't you think you should give up dancing?
Don't you think you should give up pubs?
Don't you think you should get a bus pass?
Don't you think you should give up your bicycle?
Oh! You look like a poet!
Don't you think you should go to Bingo?
It's almost time to give up who you are
And move to a flat or a bungalow even?

Vicky Mc


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Labels: poetry, Vicky Mc

A poem by Cate Williams

The Moon World and the Town

A half full moon shone with a gently rainbow light
Through clouds that were high and not dense
Creating a calm and gauzy marbled effect.
The light was white
With slight lavender and faintest gold tints.
Below were the colours of an urban city night
Orange street lamps, red and green traffic lights
White and red car head lamps.
There was a distinction
And a connection
Between the two lighted worlds.
One so down here, so of this place and town
One so ageless and eternal
That it asked for rolling hills
Or a still sea below
But the moon was with the city night
And so it had to be
Two worlds existing at one and the same time
The moon world and the town.

13.03.2003


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Labels: Cate Williams, poetry

A poem by Vicky Mc



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Labels: poetry, Vicky Mc