I spent time over Christmas detailing my genealogy, digging out dates and places, with one of my sons. Which, of course, set me looking back and remembering. The result is a potted autobiography, great fun to write …
THE PROSE OF MY LIFE
sentences of Teynham
strung through paragraphs
of Shrewsbury home
and school separated
by period or line-break
of trains and stations
where I wept and laughed
the occasional comma
of half-term or illness
then a short Maidstone chapter
part 2 titled Canada
with Ancaster Ottawa
in carefully parsed phrases
then a long sentence
that became the West Coast where
the book ends if it weren’t
for the Saskatchewan
short story with exclamations
dance on a bridge
and one last word Pacific
A Summer Father … poems as deceptively simple and cunning as a sniper’s bullet. This book is a Remembrance Day poppy. Dave Margoshes