Playing at Grownups, Summer of '76

I've a feeling this might turn into a mini Napowrimo! Today's exercise is to choose a memorable day in your life,  freewrite on it for 10-15 minutes,  then create a poem using at least 5 metaphors or similes. This is much more than I'd usually use, and felt a little forced.  I've chosen to write (with a huge dollop of hindsight) about my first wedding: as I've recently written about my second it seemed only fair. 


I tossed and turned through long hours of that night,  
kept awake by the sharp spikes of Mum's ceramic rollers,
the tap-tap-tap of rain dripping on the windowsill.

In our homemade maxi dresses, mine white, hers floral,
my big sister got me ready in our parents' bedroom; 
our roles reversed, my time to shine. 

Dad gripped my hand in the back of the hired white Jag, 
talked nonstop through the nerve-blurred maze of childhood streets
from home to the Baptist church of concrete and glass. 

You, waiting at the altar, new suit, platform shoes shining,
long hair trimmed for the photographs, wide tie thickly knotted,
nervous smile; I wanted to be yours forever.

Vows pledged to each other in a dreamlike haze,
we rushed headlong through a confetti blizzard;
no longer just students, now husband and wife.

Back home, roast dinner and wedding cake waited
on long trestle tables the length of the lounge, 
starched white linen and garden flowers; Mum did us proud.  

At the station, suitcases stuffed with bright summer clothes,
in the heatwave of summer, we hurried unprepared
towards a wet honeymoon, towards married life. 


© Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peace of mind

Day 15:  Your challenge is to write a six-line poem that has these qualities: informed by repetition, simple language, and expressing  enthusiasm . It should have a sermon/prayer-like quality, and then end with a bang.  The world is full of violence The world is full of greed  There's people out for power There's people in great need.  The answer's very simple - no matter what your views Just stop. Just stop, watching the news!  © Copyright 2025. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved
Read more

Party Piece

I haven't written any poems for quite a while,  resting after the intensity of the OU course in Creative Writing, and this year's Napowrimo which seemed to have sucked me dry.  But this morning a painting of Acker Bilk by my friend Jocelyn Gilfoyle prompted a memory of my Dad, which needed to be recorded.  He had a great love of instrumental music especially brass bands, which were unappealing to me as a child - after the first few tracks I'd usually had enough.  But I loved the novelty of him coaxing music out of his cornet, just by pursing his lips and blowing,  It only came out at Christmas, The scuffed black case with its puffy silk lining, The tarnished brass cornet nestled safe inside. Each year his girls would ask him to play His party piece at the family gathering, Amazed that his puckered lips could draw  Sweet notes from this unassuming instrument. He'd always start with an apology for being rusty, But once the first few wavering notes were tested...
Read more

Darkness

I'm beginning to question everything I write! The latest dictat is 'Show,  don't tell.'  Put enough detail in to make it vivid, but leave out details you don't need.  How much is enough? How much, too much? Our assignment is to write about a location, and place a character there, who may know the place well, or not at all. So here's one about a scary evening walk when I was on holiday with my Scottish relatives when I was a child.  I've never liked walking in the dark,  even as an adult.  The darkness between the Scots pines bleeds   onto the needle covered path,      monochromed by moonlight.  "Let's take a left then right,      left then right,       see where it takes us."  My uncle and older sister are in on the joke,    are fearless in the absence of daylight.        I follow them, gullible, trusting. A long way from home, we'd made our way    from the s...
Read more