STORY FOR HALLOWEEN.

ROOM 537.   

The ones before you.  A nice couple. As far as I could tell.  They were warned and paid no heed.  Don’t open the door I told them.  No matter what.  Don’t believe the voices on the other side.  No matter how friendly…familiar…what they offer.

They were warned and…they paid no heed.

Now I’m warning you.  That’s what I do.  I warn people.  I say to them…Look at me.  I booked into Room 537 without a care in the world.  Tired? Yes. Unhappy? No.  In fact I had never been happier.  At last I had found what I wanted to do in life.  I had worked that first day in my new life without a glance at the clock.  Only the darkness and the hunger telling me…Go home.  Home was not where I was and like I said I was hungry so I went for something to eat and by the time…Two hours to the next bus.  Home a two hour journey away. 

So I decided…I booked into Room 537.

Funny how those decisions come back to haunt you!!

And here I am and back then I lay down on that bed you sit on now.  The tiredness came and…I woke to the gloom and…the pipes rattling?

No.  The door.

Knock Knock Knock.  Then one two three and…Knock Knock Knock.

I was brought up to be polite. To not ignore things. Even in the middle of the night I open doors if someone knocks.

I was happy.  They had no need to take me.

I know you’re afraid.  Of me.  But it is far worse beyond that door.  I promise you.

What?  What happened to the others?   The others that answered the door?   Why am I the only one here?

They always leave someone.   And I am that someone.  You see they think you will be so frightened of me that…You will rush to the door when….No I don’t play games.  Yes I am lonely now.  Yes I am no longer happy.  But I don’t want to keep you here.  If you stay till beyond the time you will be safe.  They will leave.

Please.

No.

I am not lying.

Knock Knock Knock  One Two Three.  Knock Knock Knock.

Look at the clock.

5.37 am.

You must wait.

Knock Knock Knock  One Two Three.  Knock Knock Knock.

No!!

 Don't open the door.

They were warned and…they paid no heed.

Now I’m warning you.  That’s what I do.  I warn people.  I say to them…look at me.  I booked into room 537 without a care in the world. 

POEMS ABOUT MY MUM AND DAD.

WALKING OUT TOGETHER

Walking out together
Street photographer caught
Their history.
I knew them as mum and dad.
The traditional roles.
Dinner magically there.
Rattling vans on the way to the football.

Once fashionably gloved.
Confident together arm in arm.
Once Tommy and Betty.
A grand looking couple don’t you think.

Gone but not.
Even though I wasn’t there
Others share and one memory
Becomes indistinguishable from another.
I imagine I know their story
But really another chapter in mine.

                                                             
MY FATHER: 

If I could paint or draw
To save myself I would
Sit him in his favourite white leathered chair.
I would have his freckled, still hands
Drumming decreasing time on its dark stained wooden arm.

I would have him stare into his past, his face
Sagging with time, his hands though
Refusing to give up the ghost just yet.
Tense and taut along the dark stained wooden arm.
Still capable it seems to me of lifting me high
to catch the stars.

If I could paint or draw
To save myself I would do all this
And wonder.
How can it be that I have my father’s hands?
When all I do is fetch words from one place
To the next.
He lifted weights far greater than a laughing
Boy.
He heaved ten ton boxes onto work ready shoulders.
His hands marked deep into sinew that worked
Fingers to the bone.

Like Bellany I would make those hands
(If I could paint or draw)
Huge, and wonder if he too inherited his father’s hands.
And after the paint was dry, if he too hesitated on the title.
Considered:  Self-portrait.

(From a painting by John Bellany ‘My Father.)

    
A MEMORY OF DANCING--ONE

A memory of dancing
together, Mother and Son
in Blackpool Tower Ballroom.

A memory of Knickerbocker Glories
when they were ten feet tall.
Bingo callers clickety click along the promenade.
Soaked with laughter in the log flume.
Big dipper rattling skyward
salted wind nipping wide eyed eyes.

A memory of  dancing
together, Mother and Son
in Blackpool Tower Ballroom.



A MEMORY OF DANCING--TWO

A memory of dancing
together, Mother and Son
in Blackpool Tower Ballroom.

A memory of a boy forever at your side.
A memory of you singing ‘My Way’
(Frank Sinatra eat your heart out.)

A memory of  dancing
Together, Mother and Son
in Blackpool Tower Ballroom.


THE OLD FAMILIAR

It’s the old familiar
Dreams and reality rubbing each other
Up the wrong way.  Which one
Will be smoothed to nothing before the other?
Is it better to have dreamt and rudely woken
Than to sleep the dreamless night?

‘That’s it.’ Two words woke my father from his dream.
The lock on the factory door locked his dreams in the past.
 He had built it brick by brick since he was a boy.

He carried on a creaking rusty van now his factory.
He was from an age of no complain.
I think of him now and wonder what he really thought
As he drove through the familiar streets.