Basildon 1971

Cherry

By ralph

Tue, 29 Apr 2025
  • 281 reads
2 comments
 

Basildon 1971

 

Those new town early years.

Pushchairs, lollipops and wasps.

Paths, treeless streets and coughs.

The colours of weakened beer. 

 

Everywhere our footprints on carpets.

The mustard sand on kaleidoscope trickling

down the sides of sofas, peppering the bedsheets

and gritting tide marks to our baths, our saucepan hats.

 

The Thalidomide kid who was good in goal.

The cap and khaki war hero whistling on his bike.

60 a day Jack — his ‘Battle of Cable Street' fists.

Liver for tea, Liver for tea, Liver for tea.

 

 

 

 

Certificate U
Poem

Comments

Submitted by celticman on

Liver for tea. Terrible smell. Worst to taste. 

 

Submitted by D G Moody on

What a cracker of a poem, you've evoked the new town perfectly. I had a mate in Australia who hailed - or is that coughed? From Basildon. 

Dougie Moody