This has a lot of potential. Does it arise out of the national obsession
with our ancestors? I too have been captivated and am up to my elbows in
sepia.

More, for example, could be made of the contrasts between the curious child
in the narrator, the innocent if somewhat prosaic Brownies and the
mysterious murdered girl.

The first few lines are a little dull - but things become much more vivid
with these descriptions.

The boarded floor was dry, the rug threadbare.
We sometimes put ice-cream blocks on a stair
to keep them cool. The sweet green smell
of apples on the ledges, and a wine rack,
cobwebby, unused. A locked old door

The secret - you could leave out the explanatory 'stone-walled' and show
what you mean by the parental eyes flickering.

These lines...

Decades later, I learned it was a prison,
a murder, a hanging, a very young girl.

..I like the 'learned' inappropriately certain amongst this plethora of
gruesome possibilities.

These lines...

I'm glad my father didn't tell me.
I'm glad I know now.

Feel quite superfluous and detract from the implicit accusation in the last
couplet.

Hope that helps

Terri )O(


-----Original Message-----
From: The Pennine Poetry Works [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Sally Evans
Sent: 05 December 2004 20:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: New Poem: Mr Ford


Mr Ford

Mr Ford's spectre paced his basement room.
A fire-place. Lined with books, it must have been.
Its window opened to a hollow green
rocked and stocked VIctorian garden.
That's who he was: VIctorian, gardener,
cleric, and father (I think it was of ten).
He claimed peace to study there and then,
the spacious chamber entered from the kitchen
by stone steps. The room was used in our day
only on Wednesdays by the Brownies.
A big, heavy billiard table
slunk to one side, unused (there was a cue).
The boarded floor was dry, the rug threadbare.
We sometimes put ice-cream blocks on a stair
to keep them cool. The sweet green smell
of apples on the ledges, and a wine rack,
cobwebby, unused. A locked old door
led to a room with a frightful secret
we couldn't ask about, were stone-walled
if we tried. A flicker of silence
was seen in our parents' eyes.

Decades later, I learned it was a prison,
a murder, a hanging, a very young girl.
I'm glad my father didn't tell me.
I'm glad I know now. I sometimes wonder
if that's why Mr Ford hid from his children,
or if it was before their time.

Sally Evans