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| Ricky and me... He always looked better in my school shirt... |
Mum’s Wardrobe At Christmas
It had hidden depths.
Was it mahogany?
Dark and foreboding, anyway.
Huge, heavy, hulking,
With a small key.
But I knew with certainty
Where some of my Christmas presents would be…
They were hidden beneath
A clothing miscellany.
Hands were fumbling, anyway.
Quiet, quick, quaking,
New annuals to spy.
But I savoured the opportunity
Then withdrew hastily, quite nervous and spry…
Pete Ray
December 2015
It was always the same.
The ‘Roy of the Rovers’ annual and the ‘Charles Buchan’s Football Annual’ would be bought by my parents some weeks before Christmas and I usually found them hidden in mum’s dark and huge wardrobe, when she had popped to the shops on Saturday mornings.
I would check they were still there at every opportunity.
Never though, would I peek inside. Just touch and hold them, before replacing them beneath the material and clothing at the bottom of the wardrobe.
And still I showed surprise when the wrapped books were opened on Christmas morning…
Going To Sleep In Shard End, Birmingham, 1960
Motionless.
It’s too cold to move
In all honesty.
Stiff, straight,
Hapless, feckless
Between rigid linen sheets.
Wardrobes, two monstrous sentinels,
Prodigious,
Loom like boulders,
Shadowing the night,
Like horrors,
Ominous.
And soon, the river’s stink
Is nudged in by a breeze
Through a window, ajar,
Its vile rancour that of stale plasticine…
Thus wide awake, on the brink
Of fear and ill at ease
Amid rare night sounds near and far,
Senses become alert but imagination too keen…
Fretful.
It’s too silent too sleep,
In this cell.
Still, taut,
Disdainful, remorseful
Between pallid starched sheets.
Curtains, two animated wraiths,
Ponderous,
Reach like arms,
Enfolding the night,
Like spooks,
Portentous.
And then the engine’s roar
Is echoed within the still,
Through the window, ajar,
Its clamour that of vehement thunder…
Thus, wide awake, as in war,
In fear and losing will
Amid the smells and sounds from afar,
Nerves become strained, tranquility rent asunder…
Pete Ray
December 2015
As a kid living on the Shard End Estate in Birmingham, lying in a cold room with two enormous wardrobes and a tallboy at night offered unpleasant experiences.
The few vehicles on the road would rattle across the wooden Bailey bridge, built by the army in WW2 and fill the air with machine gun sounds.
The bad odour from the River Cole, if the wind was in an unfortunate direction, was horrible to put up with but then, after midnight, at Elmdon, now Birmingham Airport, a solitary airliner would rev up, like the god Thor yelling out his anger…
Happy days.
The Brickman Delivers
Coloured bricks,
Wooden blocks.
Spelled ‘construction’ to my impatient mind.
But a lack of imagination, bordering on destruction,
Led to the shapes being confined
By my frowns and exasperation,
To a large and ignored storage box.
Coloured bricks,
Wooden box.
Became bottles of delivered milk to chairs.
Picked up and deposited at,
Despite Ricky the cat’s inquisitiveness and despair,
Then being paid at ‘the door’, enjoying a chat…
Wood brick bottles for neighbouring blocks.
Pete Ray
December 2015
Fascinated by the Co-op milkman’s ability to carry three full or empty milk bottles in each hand, I finally dragged a boring box of coloured wooden shapes from the bottom of a storage cupboard, for the cuboid blocks would make acceptable ‘bottles’.
For a few days only, I would ‘deliver’ them, jammed between fingers to various chairs in the lounge/dining-room, collect them again and pretend to be paid and pass the time of day with customers on their doorsteps.
Sad, really.
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