Tuesday Poem: Blue Disremembered Hills by Tim Jones
It was nice, but the town is so small now, the people so old, the main street as wide as time. When the bus arrived, Mum and Dad were waiting for you. You got fish and chips from the Main Street Fish Supply, went home and ate them round the old formica table. They still tasted good. You found out some more abut the war, when Mum made Rolls Royce engines for the planes. You played golf with Dad, like a good son should. You ran the rule over the garden. Then it was time to leave.
There's always that wait at the station, that anxious will-it-come I-hope-it-comes about the bus, and never an announcement. At last it turns up. Last hugs, last kisses, you climb aboard. You're in your seat and they're already receding. Sliding into the past. Sure you love them, but there's a distance there. 'Cos you're a big boy now, almost a man.
Read a book, take a nap, have a pie and a piss at Clinton. Rattle on through the Taieri Plains. Dunedin's getting closer. Woo-hoo! The Verlaines at the Empire, Sneaky Feelings at the Ori. What more could a young man want?
One last climb before you hit Dunedin, past those blue disremembered hills. Two peaks: one still whole, one torn apart for gravel to make the streets, to make the motorways, to make the roads to bear you home. As you#ve grown bigger, it's grown smaller.
you travel up to the saddle, your self-image puffing up around you. It shrinks to nothing when you hit the other side.
Tim Jones: Men Briefly Explained
Interactive Press, Brisbane
I really enjoyed Tim Jones' latest collection, Men Briefly Explained, and keep going back to it. Every time I do, I find something new that somehow didn't get noticed last time. This piece of prose-poetry really does convey that feeling of going back home for a visit once you've left and finding that you've left in more ways than you realised. Men Briefly Explained is available in both paperback and Kindle formats. Tim is also a writer of speculative fiction and has a very good blog called Books in the Trees.
Please visit the Tuesday Poem Hub for more exciting poetry from around the world posted by the Tuesday Poets.
There's always that wait at the station, that anxious will-it-come I-hope-it-comes about the bus, and never an announcement. At last it turns up. Last hugs, last kisses, you climb aboard. You're in your seat and they're already receding. Sliding into the past. Sure you love them, but there's a distance there. 'Cos you're a big boy now, almost a man.
Read a book, take a nap, have a pie and a piss at Clinton. Rattle on through the Taieri Plains. Dunedin's getting closer. Woo-hoo! The Verlaines at the Empire, Sneaky Feelings at the Ori. What more could a young man want?
One last climb before you hit Dunedin, past those blue disremembered hills. Two peaks: one still whole, one torn apart for gravel to make the streets, to make the motorways, to make the roads to bear you home. As you#ve grown bigger, it's grown smaller.
you travel up to the saddle, your self-image puffing up around you. It shrinks to nothing when you hit the other side.
Tim Jones: Men Briefly Explained
Interactive Press, Brisbane
I really enjoyed Tim Jones' latest collection, Men Briefly Explained, and keep going back to it. Every time I do, I find something new that somehow didn't get noticed last time. This piece of prose-poetry really does convey that feeling of going back home for a visit once you've left and finding that you've left in more ways than you realised. Men Briefly Explained is available in both paperback and Kindle formats. Tim is also a writer of speculative fiction and has a very good blog called Books in the Trees.
Please visit the Tuesday Poem Hub for more exciting poetry from around the world posted by the Tuesday Poets.
I love the fact that I get introductions to brilliant poetry from all round the world, thanks Kathleen.
ReplyDeleteHear, hear!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this piece by Tim.