Somebody. By Maurice Fairfield.

Somebody sentenced me to life some time ago. For something I can't remember doing. Now as my sentence dwindles to its close, Freedom no longer pulls me as it did. My cell though cramped, is cosy, And the meals arrive on time. Also, I have grown used to them. I have some cell-mates. One I chose: the others just turned up from somewhere. We have our ups and downs, but on the whole I would miss them Last night a warning cough rang down the corridor The door has stood ajar for some time now. How long before it stands held wide And a calling finger beckons?

Copyright © Maurice Fairfield 2004

Pictures at an Auction. By Maurice Fairfield.

A poem suggested by memories of visits to Gilbert Baitson's on Anlaby Road, Hull, England.

Into this place of dust and dealers come The kitchen dressers and the chests of drawers Which lived with families while the families Grew, grew old and died. Pianos wait the touch of vanished hand and here and there Pathetic boxes of possessions stand.

The tacks and rasps Three-footed iron lasts Boot mendin gear From harsher times than now. The china ornaments and souvenirs From seaside holidays long gone. Chipped crockery and rusty kitchen knives, Honed to a thrifty leanness by the years

And always, photographs. The children holding prizes, And wedding groups And laughing girls in nineteen-twenties hats And always, soldiers. Brand-new young men all stiffly posed In stiffly tailored brand-new uniforms All different yet alike Tall, short, clean-lipped or moustached But always young.

The squandered husbands,sons and fiances Whose pictures hung remembered On, rose-patterned parlour walls Who knows how long. Outlasting all surviving love And now brought here By relatives too far removed to care. One time a decent burial at the tip Would have conferred some dignity On these remains, now bought as kitsch. "I've got to have him darling, he's so sweet." Being, ourselves, above this kind of thing We turn to share a brief embarrassed smile.

Your hand finds mine and linked We seek the sunshine and the open air. Our mood is clouded by our brush With those whose lives and loves are gone Seeing ahead a coming time when all My strength your beauty dwindle to A frozen shadow fading on some stranger's wall.

Copyright © Maurice Fairfield 2004

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