Ballad of Pittencrieff Park

Will it still be as in my childhood memories?…..

Behind the wrought iron gates
lush lawns, open spaces, playful parks
of gala days
tartan rugs laid down
and sandwiches shared.

Peacocks strutting
spreading tails wide and high
their blue green feathers
banned from houses
for fear of bad luck and death.

Hidden nooks and crannies
amidst the granite stones
Queen Margaret’s Bower
dank, dark, dismal remembrances
of love and religion

Ruins laid bare
rebuilt like Lego
to create a vision of past Abbeys
in front of the new

Only later did I know the story
the activist’s son, Carnegie as in the Halls,
who made good on the backs of workers
bought it for his mother
and gifted it for all, for all time,
to the people free from the landowner’s ban.

© Sheila Ash 19^th March 2016

The Shape of Life’s Signatures

It was the letter A that caused the problem
Large or small case variant as a first letter?
Connecting, or not, my new surname to my old first?
It took me months to decide how to write it
now as familiar as the prior one
it flows naturally from my pen.
Years later, deciding not to make a further change,
I kept the name, the signature, and discarded the life
Comfortable in my choice of uppercase A.
Still haunted by another life,
prematurely discarded without consent
before I even had time to write its name
to shape its signature.
The final Y of that unused first name
would it have have the straight lines of neoplasticism
or curvaceously baroque curls?

© Sheila Ash 19^th March 2016

No touch

No hands to hold me
No arms to embrace me
my body alone like never before
waits and waits for touch.

No tickles to make me laugh
and squirm up into a ball of glorious childish giggles.
No feathers float in my bedroom
now pillows are only used as headrests.
No one to share dessert with
Only memories to share with myself

© Sheila Ash 19th March 2016

Pleasingly affective

Encapsulated in pink and orange
the plastic dolly mixture
sits on my tongue
going nowhere fast.
The taste of toys, of rainmacs
fills my fungiform papillae
dry without saliva
awaiting helpful water.
I gulp and gulp again
to ease its passage
but sticking fast
it releases the gag reflex
like a blocked sink
another vacuum punches delivery down my throat
to settle in the quagmire of stomach acid.
Coatings collapse, digested, dissolved,
time controlled release
distributes its hidden particles
into my bloodstream
pleasingly affective over time.

© Sheila Ash 19^th March 2016

If I wasn’t awake I’d miss…..

Pencils scratching paper
ruffles of armed sleeves
softy shuffling sighs
Aires of composed concentration
broken by unseen beads of sweat dripping
as tense foreheads line up
Coffees interrupt.

Fumbling fingers
play with uncooperative pens
find mouths and jersey necks to suckle absentmindedly
hands supporting heads dropping
forearms guarding pages
onto which ink floods
in a blue black alphabet soup
jumbled like the fridge door magnets
slowly shaping into stanzas.

© Sheila Ash 19^th March 2016

A friend

I have lost more lovers than I care to remember

but only once did I find a friend.

 

© Sheila Ash 19th March 2016

Loss of perspective

I lost my sense of perspective

- under the influence of too many martinis

- in a field of Henry Moore’s

- listening to Donald Trump

 

© Sheila Ash 19th March 2016

My mother’s hand

I lost my mother’s hand the day I was born
but another reached out for mine and held me dear.
I lost her hand in Woolworths
amongst the monstrous mahogany counters
of broken biscuits and loose buttons.
When I lost my footing on the garden wall
her lost hand warmed the bump I still have on the head.
I lost my mother’s hand as a teenager in spite….
In spite of which it was always there.
There until the final last loss with death
and its rediscovery in a box of old photographs.

© Sheila Ash 19 March 2016