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My Dad told me a story,
Its funny and it’s true.
He lived in a house with a chimney.
Back in 1952.
He didn’t have any money.
He was out of work and poor.
But he did help the little old lady
Who lived the house next door.
My mum was home from hospital.
My brother had been born.
He made the house look really nice,
He even cut the lawn.
He told my Mum” go next door and have a cup of tea.”
“Have a chat and I will come for you at three.”

He’d just sat down; there was a sound coming from the door.
One, two, three knocks or maybe even more.
“Your chimneys on fire Sir.” The fireman said “I have to put it out.”
He put the hose in the next doors chimney
My Mum came screaming out.

Her clothes and her face were covered in soot and she was pouting too.
My Dad cried with laughter, there was nothing he could do.

The old lady stood in her garden she cursed and she swore.
“Don’t come near me or my bloody door.”
“Look at my dress, look at the mess.
“I’ll give you what for.”
“Look at my face, look at my eyes,
My whites are not white any more.

My dad belly laughs, when he tells this story
There’s a twinkle in his eye.
My Mum stares, pouts and yells
“Don’t you bloody lie."

The Complete Walkies from 1 -8

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Once again I feel the waves, as tired waters flow
And once again the weary sun paints such a farewell glow,
As hours crowd so slowly on, to meet the evening’s fall
Like actors bowing as they take a cloud lace curtain call,
And then I take my evening walk along the fading shore
So many walks, so many dreams, so many times before,
While in the air, the sea birds call with melancholy pleas
Like visions dying slowly on the softly shining seas.

So thoughtfully the twilight glows in every passing shade
From countless silver nightingales the song of night is made,
And all the thoughts that nourish me are scattered like the runes
To dance upon the moonlit sands, then sleep among the dunes,
Until there comes a moment buried in the evening air
That gives to me a vision, like a dream beyond compare,
I bow my head, to shield my eyes from darkness so sublime
For every word I write, there is a reason to my rhyme.

Then every dream I ever had goes dancing to the sea
And every wish I ever made comes softly haunting me,
Like spirits of another time, or just another place
So thoughtfully to mark a shadow cross upon my face,
Reminding me of every sin, and every moment gone
A rainbow painted pentacle to build my hopes upon,
But there remained just one last wish that never came to be
So I placed it in a bottle, and I threw it to the sea..

It's been a while since I've been to writelink and lots of changes since! So... hopefully, I will get this right, and if I don't, I hope someone will let me know.

The following is new, first writing in about 4 years. Reviews are kindly welcome. Thanks!

Discarded

The walk up the driveway –
no one had taken it for a while. It was a walk;
a short walk, less than a minute,

less than thirty seconds.
No one wants to come here, I was told.
He was the only one who would –

he hadn’t taken the walk either;
not in days or since.
No one fed the animals.

As one rubbed against my leg
it was inescapable but to lean over;
utterly dreadful to touch it –

they were starving, emaciated
and crying from pain. They cried
and kept crying and were dying.

I wanted to sleep.
I sat for hours in your trailer,
called home once,

jacked up on cinder blocks,
leaning unsafely, discarded like trash.
Cats, stray cats, your cats, neighborhood cats –

they assumed it as their dwelling;
ree to live and eliminate
and claim abandoned territory.

Vile stench of urine permeated my skin,
and enclosed me in horrific shame. I rummaged
belongings, searching for a letter –

in a box of thrown about boxes.
I couldn’t tolerate the smell,
the idea of someone finding it.

Failure to tell the difference
between the odor of cat and humidity –
sweat, or tears. Absorbing every part

into me; inconceivably unremitting,
endless in time and brutally fused -
between then and now and before.

You were always the mother, always
the adult, always the adult – always
the mother. Humidity, sweat, tears;

heat, the putrid smell – unbelievably,
and remarkably easier to decipher
than to understand who you were –

or were not.