Another challenge I once got given
Was difficult too; as you will see.
I wasn't driven at first to try,
for I knew how difficult it would be
to describe a return to my
childhood home.
For I never had just one you see.
So many homes there've been for me.
So there's different venues for the scenes
I'm describing for you in my poetry.
Army quarters here and there
Places we tried to make a home.
A three bed house would be the rule.
We'd three or four kids so it had to be.
My sisters crammed in sharing a room
while I'd have a box room on my own.
The three girls that bit younger than me.
so I'll likely be playing on my own
playing toy soldiers strewn on the floor.
Or doing my homework on my knees
books on my bed in lieu of a desk
or else in the kitchen the only warm room
That gave you a table was away from TV.
Dad had his own chair no one would sit in
We'd all be clustered round the TV or
maybe the radio if we were abroad.
Dad would decide what we saw or heard
though in fairness to him
there was rarely much choice,
two or three channels,
four at the most.
He'd be in charge, obeyed without question.
'Because I say so' the most common reason.
'My kids are not soldiers', our mother would say
but you'd 'do as you're told' or get clipped
round the ear.
My dad was a man of very few words
Unless perhaps he'd had a few drinks.
Mum was the talker she'd talk for two.
But I learned that talking was mainly
for girls.
Central heating was barely invented
so there was ice round the windows
and I'm talking indoors.
There'd be baths not showers;
you'd not want to get out.
It'd be warm in the water but
once out you'd freeze.
The houses they varied, they varied a lot
But some scenes come back to me.
How long have you got?
My mum and I waiting in and alone
My sisters not born yet
Dad not home.
I'm watching the rain drops
run down the pane
longing for dad
to be home again?
Dad away, some foreign posting.
Four of us crammed in a b&b
Mum getting stressed and I'm no better.
My play thing the sink,
where I'm washing my hands
over and over or playing at floods.
Waking up in some new strange room
Shuttered windows and overhead fans
Once in a street with the call to prayer
a dissonant wailing from one end of the road
and an open air cinema playing the other.
That was one of our Cypriot homes.
There were others in England
and Germany too but none felt like home,
like you'd put down your roots.
Our home wasn't bricks
or mortar a house.
Our home was the family
our parents and us.