Pack of Cards (Day 10)

Even now every time I hear trains
Staggering from Oxford Road to Llandudno
I still see you minus your grey beard
Panting green faced behind me
In the tunnels between platforms
Before both of our suitcases
Fly through the air
Like drunken swallows.

Even now I am 6 foot 2

And no longer wear He Man t-shirts

I can still see you ‘slow down, slow down’

Turning the sky red

With your burbled threats

To the conductor

Who stood there like

A prized boxer minus opposition.

Even now when my thoughts

Race across the line

And the train rattles with the wind

Blowing leaves under its wheels.

Even now when the memory

Shuffles like a pack of cards

And I hear the Rolling Stones

Blair out ‘Start Me up’

And this time the train does stop.

(Inspired by Hugo Williams’s ‘Day Return’)


(Day 10 off NapoWrimo asked us ' tick to plain old stealing today by writing poems with their first lines lifted from other poems. You can pick a favorite poem of yours to take a line from. If that doesn’t appeal, famous sonnets are always a good way to go. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, perhaps? Maybe try a little “biblomancy” — get a big book of poetry, an anthology for preference, and open it randomly and use the first line from a poem on the page you hit upon. That’s a good tactic if you don’t want to be too influenced by the poem you’re working from — it can be hard to write a completely different poem using a line from a piece you know well. Anyway, happy thieving!' My thieving came across as inspiration really with a piece from one of my favourite Hugo Williams poems 'Billys Rain' called 'Day Return')