FRIDAY NIGHTS

FRIDAY NIGHTS

Dolly-mixture daddy
With our Friday-night treats
With your world-weary eyes
And your sweet, beery breath
...
“Hello Mary dear”, you call down the hall
“And how are you my love?”
As you lay your clumsy hand
On our tired mum’s back

Eggs are fried briskly, bacon flipped
But there’s tension in her moves
Our dad’s a little silly
Our mum is not
Mum’s just tired with her life’s lot!

Sit down soppy daddy
As we lie on our bellies
Sit down dad as we squabble over sweets
Sit down Bill here’s your tray - Your Friday fry-up
And here’s your Daddie's sauce
At the end of the week.

Meg Marsden copyright

Who is Sylvia, what is she?

For Sylvia   (Sylvia Plath died 11^th February 1963.)

The freezing, icy winter’s breath

The snow of ‘63

It pained your heart, your bones, your flesh

That isolating February.

With blood-red lips you’d bit his cheek

And he’d set free your hair

How could you then destroy his books?

How could he just have left you there?

Impassioned, magic Sylvia

So fierce, so strong, so hurt

You wrote the poems one on one

Your captivating verse.

  

If it had been a summer’s day

Perhaps, perhaps, maybe

Some gentle warmth would melt the pain

Release the grip of agony.

And when we hear recordings

Your voice all round and strong

The English cadences ring-ring

Yet fifty years have gone.

For fifty years your poetry

Black lakes, red roses, blood

You gifted us your legacy

Word drenching, blesséd flood.

Meg Marsden copyright