Grandmother Titanic

The smell of wood vanish and plimsol rubber
in the slanted sunlight
The school hall a glow
Cross legged and ego we waited
as an old old lady
wrinkled and furry soft
A grandmother like nanny and granny
Weary flat stretched grey shoes
and floral print dress
Hair curled in a white candy floss suasauges
She is helped to the seat
We look at stockings shear and rumpled
As she tells her tale
The ends of her life meet in us
Old as a great gran
Telling of the babe she was
Younger than my brother
being potty trained at home
Its a story we all sort of know
Ice and pride
A ship set upon the tragic path
There’s a song we sing about it
“and the boat goes to the bottom”
Over and over the peril
of a decission chain
She etched into our minds
We know of the families trapped below
Of life boats half full
And an SOS too young to be known
We sit in the old lady’s thrall
She’s not the money – not the toffs
She’s from Dagenham where my uncle fixes vans
She survived passed hand over hand
Crying into the boat
She tells of the fear all children know
Her Daddy was left behind
There was no room for him
The Titanic so long a go
Made vivid in our minds
We feel in our hearts the tears
That she must have cried
Our granny titanic
One of the few to survive.

Posted: Thursday, June 28th, 2018 @ 3:31 pm
Categories: Poems, Sirens and Sea Foam.
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