Tony Jolley Poems

The Crack of Dawn
Rent the sky’s heavy grey winter greatcoat
From seam to boring seam,
Tore it the hard way:
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Sometimes,
Sprawled in bed,
When we’ve tumbled
Into a tired tangle of arms and legs,
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“What if there ever comes a day
When you no longer feel this way………”
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Gate 13 wasn’t overly busy:
Just one or two persons per row of seats;
Still there were some 50 of us
And still there would be
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Saw you when I least expected to:
There in the front row of Obama’s election celebrations,
Your face full of exultation and expectation,
Cheering and waving
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She’s still there, thirty years on,
Smiling and glinting from the mother o’ pearl fretboard inlays
Of my 21st birthday Ibanez Vintage acoustic guitar:
Though gone twenty-five summer seasons now - my mum.
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They'd been waiting, moments, minutes or hours
After their air-borne journey down.
Dressed in their finery:
Every conceivable shade, fashionable and seasonal:
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Sometimes it used to get me like that:
Hung me up,
Wrung me out,
Seemed to stop me doing what I knew I should
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Bought a bottle from our local supermarket –
They were clearing their cellar
Of the odds and sods forgotten and forsaken
At the bottom of their bins.
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So large in life
He
Bestrode your childhood
To motherhood:
...