Tony Jolley Poems

The funeral was an ‘event’:
Carefully catered and choreographed –
A place for everyone
And every one, most assuredly, in his allotted place.
...

My mother had an older brother –
Name of Charles: ‘Chuck’.
Think she must have adored him all the more
As her feckless father had upped-sticks
...

At times a whale tail, diving slowly, elegantly,
Sliding through the surface tension to a ripple, barely.
At others, flashing fast as a Hummingbird wing:
A red-black blur of will she / won’t she seduction activity;
...

[Reader: you may find it helpful to read ‘The Old One’ first! ]


Haven’t seen hide nor hair of his familiar stoop
...

Just five or six still standing.
Five or six from fifty or sixty thousand.
The rest? –
Mown down mercilessly
...

He came back last week.
Seemed as if he’d changed his coat and his tune,
Having worn terribly,
And faded four or more shades the deeper
...

Gabardine neatly folded and draped,
Public school-style,
Over my left forearm;
Cap in hand,
...

In their impatience,
In their petulance,
And with eider elbows flashing fit to fly,
They jostled and jousted
...

Wonder what she knows:
Whether she hears what we hear,
...

Saw your picture
From a year,
A country,
An imagination away.
...