Enjoyed it very much, Max.
Andrew
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On 28 January 2016 at 09:05, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Ha, & there I was expecting hills, Max.
>
> The jaggedness of stanzas informing the jagged quality of the memory.
>
> Doug
> > On Jan 27, 2016, at 9:12 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> > The Ravenhills
> > [Wellington, 1947]
> >
> > What was it about them
> > made my mother their friend,
> > my father suspicious?
> >
> > Family friends, I sensed
> > for the first time,
> > could make for fraught
> > long silences at home.
> >
> > Off you go, visit them,
> > he must have said.
> > This she must fit in
> > between home duties
> > not to be ignored.
> >
> > So the evening meal
> > was on the hob by noon.
> > The quick electric train
> > and tram got us there.
> >
> > What was their home?
> > Did they have one?
> > Not quite - their job was
> > in the Air Force base -
> > high wire gates,
> > a sentry-box, no planes,
> > no air-field even - huts.
> >
> > One was the canteen
> > run by the Ravenhills.
> > Hence his blue serge suit.
> >
> > Their voices! - my first ever
> > from the North of England -
> > sang of cosiness, luv.
> > Why so far from home?
> >
> > The war was over, New
> > Zealand had small need
> > of airmen, aircraft,
> > canteens, portly folk
> > keeping the tea-urn hot.
> >
> > Mrs R and Mum put heads
> > together for long gossips,
> > intertwined fortunes,
> > others’ misfortunes.
> >
> > Mr R minded things.
> > No airmen came in.
> > Childless, he didn’t know
> > how to talk to kids;
> >
> > put on music: Gracie Fields
> > sang about Capri;
> > cheeky George Formby
> > had a ukelele
> > cleaning windows.
> >
> > I saw myself in a cockpit.
> > Rockfist Rogan and I
> > crash-landed our Spitfires nearby.
> >
> > I pretended I could
> > play billiards - against
> > myself, no contest.
> >
> > If Dad had come, he’d
> > have taught me how
> > to wield the heavy cue.
> >
> > He’d have driven us home.
> > Trams nor trains nor Ravenhills,
> > none of them were for him.
> >
> > Mum said: they’re finishing up.
> > Nowhere in the world to go.
> > Vera Lynn sang me home
> > to my own little room again.
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
> https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations
> 2 (UofAPress).
> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>
> Done in by creation itself.
>
> I mean the gods. Not us. Well us too.
> The gods moved into books. Who wrote the books?
> We wrote the books. In whose dream, then are we dreaming?
>
> Robert Kroetsch.
>
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
Books available through Walleah Press
http://walleahpress.com.au
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