Sunday Poem – Due to disorganisation, you’ll have to put up with a poem from yours truly

Hello everyone – I’ve had a bit of a busy weekend – reading at Lancaster Spotlight on Friday evening, reading at Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake on Saturday afternoon, and then off to Poem and A Pint with the lovely Carola Luther as the guest poet and then it was suddenly Sunday, and I realised I haven’t sorted out a Sunday poem…

So I thought I could get away with it by giving you one of mine.  This poem was out in the last Rialto – No 75 – which was a brilliant issue with lots of my favourite poets in – I would definately recommend getting your hands on a copy from www.therialto.co.uk

Anyway, here is the poem. 

I”m Thinking Of My Father

I’m thinking of my father in the backyard
throwing more and more wood on the fire
as the slow dusk of summer descends
he’s throwing more wood on the fire

as his brother lies dying, but then I think
aren’t we all dying, but he knows,
my uncle, he knows what will kill him,
a tumour the size of a fist and growing

and still my father throws wood on the fire
as the new cherry blossom tree waits
to be planted, he throws wood on the fire
while my mother sits and watches TV

and outside the fire gets higher.  My father
cuts wood with a saw that screams as if someon
is dying and he doesn’t care about splinters
or safety as long as the fire gets higher.

And all the stone lions and grave little gnomes
in their cheerful red breeches are waiting
for the fire to falter, and the lamp that’s addicted
to heat flickers on, flickers off and the lawn sits

in its shadows and dark and its falsehoods
and the ending begins with its terrible face,
its strange way of being, its short way of living
and my father stops throwing wood on the fire.