Busted

BUSTED

I was parking the car in the garage

When you tapped at the window,

Making me skin-jump-heart-pop fast

At the handbrake. Surprise coming

Before that washing of hands, gum

And deodorant had hid my dog-end frame

To made me feel your good girl again.

With measures of love in your eyes,

And disappointment and truth 

You said: "Give it up now Hannage,

Before it really gets too hard to stop,

While you have a choice."

You walked away, your truth entrusted

To the student daughter:

She had been busted.

Guilt and shame before that shrug

Denial: "But I am no addict,

So what harm Dad, in one more packet?"

Brief years on, I didn't even bother

Climbing out of the window at midnight

For my moonlit puff. 

Didn't bother hiding the packets

Or the lighters from you. Gradually,

Even your purchase from Jersey trips

Was tobacco tips from Duty Free.

My "Things" joined your pipe -

Sanctioned tools for us thinking types.

I have stopped now. Several attempts first and misery,

Always reminding me of you by the car,

Cautioning me of the difficulty and the pain.

I wished many times I had heeded,

Took on trust this truth: that seeded addiction

Grows fast and steely in our breasts

And that we can't act easy after early arrest.

And I wonder. Was there a time, father

A glass, or a bottle you poured,

Where I could have skin jumped you,

Stopped you in your tracks,

And said: "Give up now Dad, before it controls you"?

Did I foresee this future: the blackouts, the nerve damage,

The sweet bully guarding all life to ensure the next 

Sauvignon delivery to your bloated liver?

And do I have to watch this? 

Really, tell me. Do I have to watch?

I let my mind go back through time,

And grief makes a scream, a claw for a window,

That magic handbrake

That might time travel

To a different outcome.

You are busted. 

Too late busted.

And you don't care.

May Day Poetry

May Day Project - A poem a day throughout the month of May.

For those of you who do follow this blog, I thought I would let you know that I have been writing another blog - which is really an extension of this one. Every day this month, I am going to be writing and uploading a poem. I am also making audio recordings of these poems wherever possible, although some days I imagine I might have to do this a little later on.

You can find the poems here:

http://therapysandwichpoetry.blogspot.co.uk/

and you can find my Soundcloud page here:

http://soundcloud.com/hanjan

I am attempting this for quite a few reasons, the main one being to keep AWM (Wes Martin) company as he completes a project this month to produce a painting a day. His paintings are available for auction and his blog can be found here:

http://awmartist.blogspot.co.uk/

His confidence in my poetry and his desire to see me write more have tipped the edge for me. Rather than just write when I can't hold a poem in, I am getting used to the discipline of finding a subject and writing, even when I don't feel like it. It is HARD work, I am finding! But immensely rewarding. Hopefully, I will also start to get better at it as the month passes. Certainly, I will have 31 poems to remember this month by.

Any comments or gentle observations would be appreciated. Thank you.

HanJan.

The School Trip

The School Trip

The tears that loomed

All day, have finally spilled.

And over a lost page -

A checklist of what she will need

As she goes away.

Who is more anxious at separation? 

I am the one sitting up after midnight

Checking labels on luggage

And praying over folded clothes

That she will be OK.

Slipping notes into the washbag,

Pondering which shoes

To squeeze into the bag.

The trigger for the spill

Something quite different though:

The fear of another looming separation

Possibly to be made in defence of the vulnerable.

That part in me, that part in her.

The realisation that this life

Just gets more and more complicated.

And the tangle of relationship

Can pull you up mountains

And rip you from trees.

That loving another

Can bring you back down to your knees

To that bleakest place -

Of feeling 8 years old

And just wanting to find home again.