Featured Poem for November 2013 - 'My First Funeral' By Gemma Lees

My First Funeral

There were no sing-along hits

Painstakingly picked for mix CDs

At the start of this sombre road trip

Just jabbering local DJs

Changing accents, same old chatter

As we crackled over each county’s boundary

From North West to South East

He driving and me counting junctions

Passing him pop

And squeezing his hand

As he rested it on his knee

At each red light

Travelling three hundred miles

To say goodbye

To a shut up box

With our friend inside

The cool countryside church was packed

With punks, Goths and freaks

Drawn to this village from countrywide

Disturbing the peace and quiet

Just how he would have liked

I managed not to cry

Until they brought him inside

Everyone as wearing his footie team’s sky blue

And once outside it was as if the sky knew

As even it obliged

And sky blue was all I could see for miles

Around the secluded field

Full of grey and white stones

And his box lowered into his hole

Surrounded by mounds of Earth

We stood in line

Under that blue sky

To say goodbye

To that shut up box

With our friend inside

After sing-alongs

And dancing down the motorway

We sat in his local

Toasting his memory

And reminiscing the rest of the day away

Drink blurred those unreliable memories we shared

Showing each other slightly more reliable

Memories we’d snapped up

In still-framed longevity

And we said goodbye

To an unlocked box

We could look inside

At any time

© Gemma Lees 2013
Please do not use without the poet’s permission.

  

For further information about Gemma Lees and her work please visit Gemma's page here.

Featured Poem for February 2013 - 'Rocking Glockenspiel' by Gemma Lees

'Rocking Glockenspiel' by Gemma Lees

I wanted to rock on my glockenspiel
But Miss had only left two bars on
Not content with a droning dum, dum, dum, dum
With my baton I bashed irrhythmically
Possessed with a dyspraxic urgency
To make music with the others
But I were playing a different song to them
Lost in a perfect pitch posse
All chords played out precisely
On posh violins and flutes
And other clever things
I just wanted to rock on
But the glock was snatched from me
And I was forced to play
Triangle
With wand to cast a tune from three gleaming sides
I carried on
Even when Miss tried to hide
Me right at the back
Behind the chubby cymbals lad
And the trio of discordant recorder blowers
I ting, ting, tinged my way
To the top of the tune
And before I knew it
My status was lowered again
And I was demoted to split peas
Inside a taped-up Vitalite tub
I shook and shook and shook and shook
'Til the tape came undone
And the smarmy, private music lessons after school pack
Were pelted
Tiny split peas in eyes and hair and pockets and trombones
Which were fun for a minute but there’s nowhere to go
There’s nowhere lower than a split pea shaker
Except standing up front and holding Miss’ papers
And that’s how I became a sheet music stand
From standing with shiny triangle in hand
To showering assembled musicians with split peas
Not to mention the music room floor
The fourteen-year-old me
Wannabe glock rocker
Burned out too soon
And was
No more

  

© Gemma Lees 2013
Please do not use without the poet’s permission.

For further information about Gemma and her work please visit our website.