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some lesser spotted verse


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Picture
Flying dreams

My father sits
Half-mast in his wheelchair
Washed and brushed by Nurse-aid Thing
Plays bingo with Alzheimic Jim
And plots out his escape
                                                         
He could skip away, like he used to do            Down hot tar streets in Sunday shoes
Dancing too… was it yesterday? With Signorina Tina B
In a War-time town in Tuscanny
(Her heartbeat like a half-tamed bird
against his regimental serge)                       

Or skating… there was no stopping him! Fearless as his steel-tipped blades
On ice both thick and thin

My father sits,
Canted in his wheel chair
And tilts his head to catch the sighs            
The ebb and flow of life’s cruel tides
That sucked him from the slapdash sea
And left him on some barren strand
Playing dominos with Dementia Dan

Within his bowed and snow-capped head                                                           
A thousand plans are laid
Tickets booked, Passports stamped,
Luggage packed and weighed

 A walker – yes – a three-wheeled job
with a basket for your smalls
Or a good stick with a rubber tip
Or fifteen hours in the Merc
(fill ’er up and check the tyres) - he’s done it all before

Wheels… how he dreams of wheels           
Wheels on walkers, wheelchairs, trains           
On get-away cars and take-off planes
But his eyes (fixed on the click-clack boards
In some Arrivals and Departures hall)
Overlook one fatal flaw:
Those shipwrecked at sea

(Stranded by the fated trigonometry             
Of life and time and flesh)
Need a boat. Wheels will not do at all…

My father sits
Marooned in his wheel chair
Bibbed and spooned his custard pear             By Whats-her-name from Elder Care

And dreams of his escape.                                                                       
© Bridget Pitt


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