6 April 2013

Poem 6 - Music Lesson

Photo:Sally Douglas


Music Lesson

The child is sitting on a chair
in a hall
in a sea of brown lino

She holds her brown bag
tight to her tight chest
as the clock ticks and ticks and never tocks
and the lodgers walk through the long hall
and up the stairs
and never come down.

She swings her legs tick tick
kick kick
so they stay awake
She swings her legs
one two one two
and one and two and three and four and
major scales crawl
under the door and
up the stairs
and down the stairs
and back under the door

and the small brass clock
under its small glass dome
which she cannot see
because it is
on top of the piano
on the other side of the door
counts on.


Sally Douglas

The poem about time (Poem 4 - Seven Glances at Time) reminded me of some notes I had made a while back about a childhood memory, so I dug them out. This is the poem.

2 comments:

  1. thats very evocative. you really are very good sally. have you done/thought of publishing a pamphlet?

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  2. Thanks, Jude, I'm soglad you liked it! My poetry collection was published by Cinnamon Press in 2011; it's called 'Candling the Eggs'. :-)

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