(based on suggestions from @realnixwilliams, @pinknantucket, @slimejam)
Reading back over old photo albums
peels the skin off memory and tastebuds.
Crackle of transparent static across time
squares decades with rounded corners.
Chocolate icecream white t-shirt
early Pollock talents in evidence.
Pale long feet tucked to the ankles
in off-clear
Invisible sharks butt against toes
splitting maul boats in choppy harbours.
The tall mast of the bath boat
gets a real-world wind whipping.
Adults pour Mateus rosé, guitars emerge.
Strains of ‘If I had a hammer’ harmonise
hippie parents and friends at dusk.
‘Gone the rainbow’ up next, my lullaby.
It was probably a carob icecream.
None of this Sarah Lee ultra-chocolate.
I can taste my childhood in natural
peanut butter, brown rice pie-crusts.
Mason Pearson brush smooths
hair towards bedtime. Side part,
never interrupted by wispy fringe or
hid behind heavy
Goldfields summer. Hayfever air
of dry grass staggers to evening.
Flavours of Moosewood Cookbook
fade from Colgate milk teeth.
Turn the page, weaken the taste.
Remember this in the nick of time,
catch events like an early bus.
Polaroid an era in an instant.
______________________________________________
Today's poem is based on suggestions from three peeps:
- @realnixwilliams: “tall ships and boats in the bath”
- @pinknantucket: “How about ultra-chocoalte?”
- @slimejam: “Hammerhead sharks. Catching a bus in the nick of time. The difference between a ‘fringe ‘and bangs’ (if there is one)”
There’s a photo of me somewhere, aged about four I think, standing in a paddling pool in our
My years of Baby-Sitters Club reading suggests to me that a ‘fringe’ is messier and less heavy than straight-cut ‘bangs’. But I think at base ‘fringe’ is
Please note: if you start googling different types of hammers, you may get the giggles. Not that I’m immature.
2 comments:
OMG I REMEMBER THOSE PEANUT BUTTER MACHINES. i loved watching the 'poo' come out!
I thought you might know those machines! Best fun ever.
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