Angela Topping

 

 

Trapped

For John Lennon

 

Trapped, not in back entries behind terraces

but in posh Mendips with eyefuls of stained glass,

respectability in every spike of creamy porridge pebble-dash.

Everything neat and scrubbed, dishcloth draped over taps.

 

Trapped, by an upright aunt, whose expectations

weighed heavy as iron slabs of kitchen scales.

High grades for the bright boy, good job with pension,

work hard now for success later on. Homework to be done.

 

Trapped by fans, wa wa wa and love me do. Where were

the good years, writing songs with Paul? The years fooling

at school, flunking O levels on purpose, trying Mimi’s temper?

Fighting for the right to grow up, wear white suits, love Yoko.

 

Trapped in the end by a fan’s insanity, proffering an exit

marked by a gun, red blooms on a white life, imagine.

How far he was from home, lost Liverpool boy!

Trapped by our love, locked in legend, sealed on discs.

 

 

 

Atlantic Whale Fishing

 

Below, at night, I hear the salt airs of the sea,

a poignant mermaids’ tune we sailors fear,

the keening of the pitching ship, as, at the prow

our Jenny breasts the waves, the only girl aboard.

 

Timbers sigh as we sail farther from our home.

‘To wives and sweethearts  - may they never meet’,

the awful joke accompanies our daily rum,

hides our longing like sailcloth covers the sky.

 

Stars grow unfamiliar as we sail beyond our scope.

I think of my Nancy, at home with our little ones,

waiting for money and these scrimshaw toys I carve.

 

The sea has made men of us all, and yet

it’s land we long for, till we grow homesick

for black and ice-berged sea, its infinite deeps.

 

 

 

Angela Topping © 2010