20th Century Memories

Two White Doves, One Jet Trail, A Ladybird, Forget-Me-Nots, One Man Made A Mini-Meadow Starred With Ray-Collecting Daisies, I Tame And Style The Lawn And Hear That Panthers Prowl The West Country, Africa Comes Home But We Are Safe As Terraced Houses. Of All The Magics I Have Met, Mother's Is The Best, Recall: A Four Year-Old Who Gets His Kicks Rolling In A Cardboard Box, Dodging Lorries In A Yard, Forehead Scarred, Knees Grazed, He Lives And Moves In A World Of His Own And Little Knows He Always Will. Recall: A Christening, A Chocolate Cake He Hates, A Red-Cheeked Baby Sister, A Balcony From Which He Sees Big Brothers Play, A Tricycle With All Mod-Cons That One Evening, Much To Disbelief, Will Get Stolen, Or Inextricably Disappear. Recall: A Brother's Accident In A Pedal G.I. Jeep That Careers Down Concrete Stairs Leaving Him A Bruised, Unbroken Hero. Recall: A Ten-Mile Walk, Signposted By: A Derelict Windmill That Will Soon Be Gone Forever, Behind It Hides It's Fearful Pond Rumoured To Be Infinitely Deep, Its Surface Never Ripples, Flycathers Enliven Its Bank, A Ramshackle Pigsty And A Poplar-Lined Lane, A Felled Elm On Which We Pose And Rest, And Miles And Miles Of Silent Path Flanked By An Infinity Of Flat Fields That We Witness Change From Summer's Golden Wheat To Autumn's Charred Black Stubble, Scraping Our Ankles Where Nettles Used To Bite, A Little Piece Of Texas Where A Gas Or Oil Pipeline Surfaces Briefly Before Resuming Its Hidden Journey, And Pylons Giant And Revered That March Away Forever In Exaggerated Perspective Towards The Bumps Of Brentwood, We Meet Cows And Walk-On, Dad In Trad Jeans, Mum In Foot-Loop Slacks, Another Weekend's Gone, Sun Sets As We Return With Arrowroot Biscuits And Tizer Treats To Nurse Our Stings And Grazes, A Family That Will Never Grow-Up, A Time That Will Never Return, A Happiness That Only Serves To Magnify The Harsh And Lonely Winter-Worlds Of Adulthood Where Nothing More Is Shared. We Search In Vain For Love And Values Good As Those We Knew But Are Finally Resigned To What Is Lost And Un-Redeemable, Our Only Hope To Commodify Our Laments And Pray That Sorrow Buys A Pension. I'm Looking For A Devil For My Angel Me, Happiness I Spurn Bitterly, Loves I Reject as Not Good-Enough Or Too Good To Be True. Recall: A Kingfisher Skewers The Old Tunnel Bridge, A Flooded Vale Echoes A Crimson Sky In Stunning Symmetry, Once-In-A-Lifetime Events, As Priceless As The Next. Hurry Me To Heaven Where Time Stands Still, I Paint Your Car Matt Black In Mourning And Speed Mum To Devon Windows Still Taped, We Gaze Out Over Dartmoor And Roll Into Dartmouth At Dusk, Then, Navigating Dark Roads By Lightning Flashes We Fumble Our Way Back. On Golden Cap I My Sister Cried While I Shouted At Her Fears And I Swam An Icy Sea And Lay Drying While Hang-Gliders Whispered Feet-Above The Dorset Cliffs. Recall: A Hostel Populated By Guardian-Reading Families And Misfits Cycling Away Their Weekends To Justify Living, We Share Meals And Chores In A Fantasy Of Trust. Whatever The Season I Would Hurry Down To You And The Beach And The Moors, Now I don't Know What Motivated More, But Today You're The Miss I Miss The Most, Why Sacrifice All That For London's Pains I Don't Know, There's Little To Show For A Decade And More Of Stress And Regret. Sweet One, Why Did God Bless Women With Instinctive Wisdom And Curse Boys With A Lust For Fatal Glories. You Could Have Told Me Who I Was, But This Bull Would Not Have Listened, We Had It In Our Hands And Hearts, Do You Think Of Me Still, Perhaps Where Memories Coincide, I Cannot Replace Us. I Held A Steady Helm For All The Green Crew, Sight Fixed On A Winking Bouy, For Hour Upon Hour, 'Til At 4 a.m We Pushed Past It On A Surge To Silently Moor In Sark's Harbour, Glory Days Of Wind-Tanned Skin Your Finest Gift To Me, How Can I Repay You Those Or Any Days You Modestly Walked Beside Me, Never Father Always Friend And Teacher Wise And Quiet, Small And Shy With Raven Hair And Eye, Your Rare Smiles Were All The More Precious And I Have Died A Hundred Times Since You Did, The Book You Asked Me Write, The Seas You Told Me Sail, I still Try And Find Myself Governed -By And Bent Toward Your Wishes However Others May Tempt And Divert. Hawthorn And Heron You Taught Me Their Name And No-One Has Proved To Me Anything Of Greater Value. Now We Are Melancholy And Miss You All The More For Time's Flattering Frame, Deified In Memory, No Act Can Near My Love, And So I Dedicate My Years To Your Unselfish Influence In Full Respect. Recall: A Cloud Breaks On A Weeping Son, His Suit Unsuitable, An Aunt's Arms Comfort This Un-Comfort-Able One, A Willow Weeps, A Priest Speaks And A Bottomless Sorrow Begins, Limousines Whisk Us On A Stark New By-Pass Where Once We Walked A Lane, Behind The Silencing Glass Tears Roll Under Tinted Spectacles, Mother And Son, Alone Together, Tragic And Filmic As All Twentieth Century Memories Become.

©1994 Paul O'Kane

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