Three poems

by Robert Kemp

1. Mitcham Mothers

Coach loads at the theatre outing:

Best clothes, best hair – from Mitcham, mainly.

With hearing aids and teeth and sticks

They struggle to their seats, abuzz.

With what? Not expectation but the recent past:

‘So I said . . . and she goes . . . and, really,

‘You wouldn’t believe it but it turns out . . .’

Right into and beyond the overture.

These were all once Sally Bowles

Shocking Mum with married men,

Smoking, drinking . . . trying stuff . . .

Joyful, eager, young, alive,

Breathless, bright and ever free

To make not just receive the day.

Now, tragically, like all the others

They’ve turned into their Mitcham mothers.

2. On a sixty-fifth birthday

When people reach the age of sixty-five

They wonder should they die or stay alive.

The meat of life is largely gone and now

The bones remain to make use of – but how?

Some take on unpaid work. Some take the sun,

Play golf, eat too much, do what has been done.

For me all this but also so much more:

To try whatever’s not been tried before.

I’ll have success. Or failure. Who can tell?

Whatever comes I’ll take and shake it well.

Each freshly minted day is mine to use –

I hope I’m cursed with options hard to choose.

Retired, relieved, resolved – a birthday king

Who just can’t wait to see what life may bring.

OR

Retired, relieved, resolved – a birthday queen

Who’s yet to learn what life can really mean.

(RGK – August, 2004)

3. Afterwards

Marriage. Break. Divorce. The end.

Grown up, to show no disregard

Each year we both receive and send

One birthday and one Christmas card.