AFTERNOON TEA
Memory is the mothership.
I wash and rinse the pots and pans,
remembering the scraggly tall
European refugees working
in the kitchen of the boarding school
I went to in the Fifties. I can’t
remember ever knowing their names
yet here they work, crusty aprons on
and giant silver trays glinting
as they walk toward the spreading tree
where we queue in the shade, hungry
as growing boys can be, and take
one gigantic slice of fresh baked bread
spread with strawberry jam. Ah,
that jam! Memory
is the mothership that lowers
its gangplank under the tree where
we sit hurriedly eating the first slice,
hoping for a second.
-
Andrew
Burke
I like this and I really think it's 99% finished
ReplyDelete... there's something about the rhythm/flow of the last line that's not right for me ... the image is perfect though
we each eat the first slice as fast as we can
ReplyDeletealready all hopes for the second
??
Oh, thank you, Kit. When I was young I trusted first drafts. Now I don't - so I worry when I can't see things to change! I shall fiddle with the last line. (After I've had a jam sandwich:-)
DeleteHi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteI like your narrative. It's clear.
One anticipates each new line.
Perhaps some stanza breaks
to sculpt
memory's
appetite.
Hi Andrew, here is my comment:
ReplyDeleteThe first line in itself is brilliant, this statement is striking. Yet and because it’s a narrative, I wouldn’t have it in the first place because it’s already a conclusion and it contrasts so much with the atmosphere of the rest of the poem… Reading the poem aloud I felt that maybe it could also be shaped like this (see below and excuse my French ear, I might miss something important for Native speakers’s ears…). I also suggested a solution for the last line and moved your first line to the firth …
I wash and rinse the pots and pans,
remembering the scraggly tall refugees
working in the kitchen of the boarding
school I went to in the Fifties.
Memory is the mothership.
European they were
and I can’t remember ever
knowing their names yet here they work,
crusty aprons on and giant silver trays
glinting as they walk toward the spreading tree
where we queue in the shade, hungry
as growing boys can be, and take
one gigantic slice of fresh baked bread
spread with strawberry jam. Ah,
that jam! Memory is
the mothership that lowers
its gangplank under the tree where
we sit hurriedly eating the first slice,
holding out hope for a second.