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Thread: Poems for Douglas and Lulie (CTG)

  1. #1
    Senior Member ChrisGeorge's Avatar
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    Default Poems for Douglas and Lulie (CTG)

    My uncle, Douglas Matchett, ex of Bootle, Garston, and Mossley Hill, died Friday morning in Alderney Hospital, Poole, Dorset. He had lived in Dorset and Germany for many years and finally died age 92 after being admitted for pneumonia a few weeks ago, from which he had rallied and seemed better but then had a massive stroke late last week which put him in a coma. The following poems reference both Douglas and my mother, Yoria C. George, nicknamed "Lule" by a cousin as a child, who is now age 86 and becoming quite frail, herself ailing memorywise. . .


    To My Uncle Douglas, in a Coma

    Now they call to tell me you've suffered
    a massive stroke, cocooned in a coma
    at ninety-two, an ocean-width from me.

    In the sea off the pine-filled chine
    of Canford Cliffs, I will prepare
    to scatter your ashes. We sat by

    the bowling green, sipped tea; a magpie
    floated down from the pines, strutted
    among the shiny black bowling balls.

    You will never write your life story.

    Christopher T. George



    Grieving

    Isolated in my grief, I drive downtown
    to pick up Mom's prescription, decide
    not to say her brother passed yesterday,
    don't wish to spoil tonight's wedding
    of the granddaughter of a late friend,
    in which Mom will stand in for grandma.

    Now, I am driving home. I'm wearing two
    red baseball caps, in honor of my uncle,
    famous for wearing two ties to a funeral.
    The world's shot; it's all bad news today.
    Yet, on a streetcorner, a poet passes
    out fresh copies of The Daily Word.

    Christopher T. George



    Bluebells for Lulie

    I see a patch of bluebells in bloom,
    am reminded of Mum's "Boo Bell Woods"
    near her Garston, Liverpool council house.

    On Saturday, I purposely delayed telling her
    that her 92-year-old brother Douglas died
    on Friday morning; we took her to a bayside

    wedding. We heard sandpipers' high sounds
    overhead; Chesapeake breeze cooled our cheeks.
    The happy couple mixed sand, exchanged rings.



    A white rose tied to my mother's thin wrist,
    her brown and pink dress almost falling off:
    I'd cut her shoe to fit her swollen foot.

    Sunday morning, I break the news as I drive
    for Royal Farms java and to view azaleas,
    rhodos, dogwoods, and lakes of "duckies."

    She's eighty-six years old but could be six;
    Lulie, becoming the daughter I never had,
    talks of "Christopher" as if I'm not there.

    Christopher T. George



    Here I am at age three months, being held by Uncle Douglas in the back garden of 76 Aigburth Hall Avenue, Mossley Hill, and my Mum holding me on the same occasion. Great hat!
    Christopher T. George
    Editor, Ripperologist
    Editor, Loch Raven Review
    http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
    Chris on Flickr and on MySpace

  2. #2
    Senior Member ChrisGeorge's Avatar
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    The Lass She Was

    I had imagined she'd enjoyed her childhood:
    think of my golden summers with Nan and Grandad--
    Blackpool! Bucket, spade! Dodgems on the Golden Mile!

    But no, that same sunny couple I knew later were,
    lives earlier, duffers: Mom a golf-orphan forced
    to traipse from green to green, hole to hole--

    Rhyl, Prestatyn, Pantymwyn (a tour of Welsh courses),
    with breakfast chat about what they did on what green.
    That smiling lass in the photo with dark tumbling curls,

    even today, eighty years on, thinning straight gray hair,
    wheelchair-bound, complains bitterly of trekking
    round those long-ago post-Great War links.

    Christopher T. George

    Pantymwyn, view from the Golf Course c1936
    Christopher T. George
    Editor, Ripperologist
    Editor, Loch Raven Review
    http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
    Chris on Flickr and on MySpace

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    Senior Member Gerry's Avatar
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    Very fitting words.

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    Senior Member ChrisGeorge's Avatar
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    Thank you, Gerry.

    Chris
    Christopher T. George
    Editor, Ripperologist
    Editor, Loch Raven Review
    http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
    Chris on Flickr and on MySpace

  5. #5
    Senior Member naked lilac's Avatar
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    Condolenses to you and yours... Nice words.. and tribute..

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