Down The Lane - Don Walls 2008
"Don Walls reveals our local worlds afresh. Short, crafted poems of people and nature - many evoking experience of childhood - echo with humour, affection and poignancy. This generous collection is surely one to which Don's growing band of readers will want to engage." Dick Hunter, history tutor, Workers' Educational Association.
ISBN 978-0-9546937-5-6 c. Don Walls 2008, Cover Illustration Don Walls, DEADGOOD Publications England.
Chocolate Suit
I have a chocolate suit
coat dark, trousers milk
comfortable to wear
gives slightly at my body's warmth,
temperature, of course, a knawing concern:
in a heatwave a chocolate shock
viscid pools in the market, in the bank,
freezing - cumbersome armour,
hard to put on.
I never go to Lapland,
nor Africa in summer,
and I check the weather every day - you've got to -
everything could melt away, harden,
but whatever the weather it's always a risk,
walking with pride in my chocolate suit
past Maxwell and Kennedy - chocolate makers of high repute
I get knocked down, got up unscathed
but the chocolate suit in smithereens
kids eyeing the pieces
- the chocolate nightmare I'd always feared:
me in my underwear walking home
- Parliament Street, St. Sampson's Square.
coat dark, trousers milk
comfortable to wear
gives slightly at my body's warmth,
temperature, of course, a knawing concern:
in a heatwave a chocolate shock
viscid pools in the market, in the bank,
freezing - cumbersome armour,
hard to put on.
I never go to Lapland,
nor Africa in summer,
and I check the weather every day - you've got to -
everything could melt away, harden,
but whatever the weather it's always a risk,
walking with pride in my chocolate suit
past Maxwell and Kennedy - chocolate makers of high repute
I get knocked down, got up unscathed
but the chocolate suit in smithereens
kids eyeing the pieces
- the chocolate nightmare I'd always feared:
me in my underwear walking home
- Parliament Street, St. Sampson's Square.
Aspects of My Toes
They have taken a vow of silence,
obedient as monks in the nave of my shoes
prostrate in darkness.
Shoeless at night they savour the carpet,
adore the dark freedom of my bed.
Curious, emerge beyond the sheets
- primeval,
a work of art in gracelessness,
vandals in socks.
On the frontiers of sleep
I hear them marching across the steppes.
obedient as monks in the nave of my shoes
prostrate in darkness.
Shoeless at night they savour the carpet,
adore the dark freedom of my bed.
Curious, emerge beyond the sheets
- primeval,
a work of art in gracelessness,
vandals in socks.
On the frontiers of sleep
I hear them marching across the steppes.
A Spade's a Spade...
Walking in the park with Grandad,
'Mind the shit,' my little son said.
Grandad stepped asaide amazed,
not at the shit, at what he said.
'Don't say that, say filth or dirt.'
'Then how will you know it's shit,' he said.
'Mind the shit,' my little son said.
Grandad stepped asaide amazed,
not at the shit, at what he said.
'Don't say that, say filth or dirt.'
'Then how will you know it's shit,' he said.
