Richard Macwilliam » Sad Poems

Everyone grows up

admin — Sun, 23 May 2010 19:41:13 +0000

Everyone grows up,
And your adventure is just beginning -
Manhood beckons the child, and the child sighs,
And the comfort of the years brings sadness to his eyes,
For who wants to leave love and family?

But love goes beyond walls,
And though inside I cry
I tell him gently that I understand,
And tell him I love him when he says, ‘I’m going to miss you.’

Oh, for the wisdom of the heavens,
And the wide stretch of the stars,
And a land where no pain exists and all is light!

But here there are shadows
And my heart breaks,
And so I dream and hope a little,
And fancy myself to the future,
And – fighting – accept,
And nudge him to a smile,
And try, between us, to make his world a better place.

26/2/2007

Every child gets to an age when the realisation that they’re going to have to leave home one day hits them.

The World was her world

admin — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 18:34:31 +0000

The world was her world -
Spangled lights,
Glitter,
Smiles on empty faces
Crowded in to eat her breath:

She held it all at bay
With bitter-sweet song,
Defined its limits
With her own limits -

Wouldn’t go that far,
Wouldn’t give money,
Wouldn’t smile at strangers,
Wouldn’t talk on buses,
Wouldn’t walk in the leaves,
Wouldn’t hold his hand,
Wouldn’t sit at THAT table
Eat foreign food
Wear the wrong kind of makeup
Those clothes
Drive in that car
Be civil to that person
Read those sorts of books
Go dirty
Go native
Go bad
Go insane -

She was that sort of girl,
Wouldn’t do nuffink -
Wouldn’t do well:

Go to hell !

5/5/00

Cynical poem about an ex-girlfriend trapped in conformity

Relic

admin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:54:34 +0000

Stolen out of her era to live here,
Of hers but a dim reflection,
She dwells upon nothing
But her own small part in the world,

Hears no drumbeat but the one that propelled her,
Vigorous and thick-blooded,
Through her youth and, slower now with the years,
Lets her spite take hold,
Driving her to distraction -

She would have them all shot,
And civilisation put to rights!
From a harsher age she sets her sights
And fires off all her rages:

“Let the blacks go home!” she cries,
This petal-perfect, shrivelled woman
With the glaring eyes.

A bitter old lady who I once knew, born at the turn of the century, Victorian values and a seething hatred under a prissy exterior.

Old Times

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:09:09 +0000

When she said she wanted to see him
He was pleased – at first.
‘Can’t we talk of other things?’ he asked, but she said ‘No’.
The long day had held down light as they’d struggled to communicate in near-shadow,
Close – but not too close.

Sometimes talking’s easier done apart,
Detached, perhaps,
How on a windy day with the sun in her hair he’d loved her,
How she’d seen in him a God as he moved,
So blithe and light.

Those were past days,
But past days count,
And now in their disunion there was nothing to remind them of each other,
Except those past days.

‘Can’t we talk of other things?’ he’d asked,
But he knew (now) that memory was all that they had left.

Talking things over with an ex-.

Nan’s funeral

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:12:06 +0000

In the cold aloofness of death and the silence of the half-hour tale completed
We rode into the graveyard of winter mourning
Dressed in a lace veil white
Towards the snow-casked car park
Caked in gritty ice
And the damning chimney on the rose-bud cottage.

Inside, a hall of heavy discretion, redolent of wood:
Thumbnail greetings sent on cards of air and quiet,
Anxious to be forwarned of emotional disturbance.

Subdued voices clicked their mantras of meaningless quotation
And sombre thought,
The circling of bodies as eddies in the night,
Not quite touching.

Red-eyed, grimy, Grandad greeted us and smiled,
Confabulating,
Shrunk into a too-tight suit of black,
Frightened:

Led away to the prayer room
He left a whirl of hush behind.

Our turn, picked, we followed on,
Trooping round the open coffin
In respectful dismay.

Behold! A waxwork, gaunt, mere model,
Nothing,
Without life ,
A cipher to occupy the eyes
Without touching the brain.

In an effort to comprehend I reached out and felt
Solid, chill, dead flesh.

Myself, one day, so soulless.

Then back to the wooden room where everyone’s uneasy,
And time for the final grace.

We file in carrying our careful patterns of sorrow,
And wait for the angel-dressed prelate to arrive.

In solemn theatricality he intones his divine rights and blessings,
Rattling off the bread and butter platitudes
Like fish swimming from the mud of his mouth,
Sincere grief like the pious retching of a raven delicately crunching bones,
Until laughter tempts my throat and I sigh and look down.

Reality becomes a farce and my dazed mind skips from his sermon.

He calls my Grandad by the wrong name and nobody shouts out.

On the grand stage this mouse-tempered man struts and washes his whiskers,
Until all the noise has left and his parody is completed….

Outside we eye the line of wreaths,
And marvel at the mendacious speed of the set-up -
The fakes!
Fifteen minutes flat, and the next ones are arriving,
Seen through the veil of mices’ concern.

By the cars and the crisp snowballs,
The dark tumbles and glee,
Confused between grief and cheer,
A kaleidoscope of images,
We stand and take photographs to preserve memories,
Linger and drift to the wake,
Driving through a moon-picture to the sun,
A stretched mirror of soft-breath,
A smoothly eerie shared solitude
On a bitter-sky’ed bleak day.

1989?

This poem describes my Nan’s funeral, held in winter, and the journey in silence to the snow-covered crematorium.

I am no stranger to these people

admin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:37:35 +0000

I am no stranger to these people
But we walk as ghosts
Down the long dryness of our lives
Where the sunshine of children
Throws up our shadows
And the calling of birds
Makes an empty mockery of our speech -
‘How is he? And you? You don’t say!’
Echoes with the chill wind round the still houses.

I am no stranger to these people,
But we have nothing to say
And the smiles freeze on our faces
In brief salutation
As our minds stay numb
And we walk on by.

Jan. 2002

Suburbia, and our isolation thrown into sharp relief by the joy and playfulness of children with their friends, and by the calling birds mocking our empty speech.