Tony Jolley Poems

Fire on your finger,
Fire in your eye,
Fire in your spirit,
Fire that won’t die.
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Today you’d have been a happy-go-lucky girl:
A teenager up to your eyes in make-up and Maths,
Chatting on MSN and mobile,
Reading chick-lit
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...For my daughter, upon watching her play piano and finding melodies of a beauty so far out of my reach...

Your left hand looked a lot like mine – but it wasn’t.
Your left hand moved a little like mine – but with far greater grace
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Reflection

It didn’t look good, that barely recognisable reflection –
Didn’t look at all like it should.
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What is it about your skin?
I touch you and it is as natural as breathing,
As right as being
That I don’t even have to think about it.
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The pavement waters parted…
No need for a Moses:

On one side an old man
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The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,

Loaded with significance,
Charged with a memory of a reality
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Don’t understand deliberate hurt.
Just don’t.
Never did.
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Strange.
Strange how the moments come;
Those moments upon which one’s world turns.
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The cenotaph sighs
Under weight of the words:
A marble-white marker
Bridging two worlds.
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