ED2013 Columns ED2013 Week2 Edition ED2013 Words & Events

Luke Wright: Fringe Poesy 2

By | Published on Tuesday 13 August 2013

Luke Wright

Fringe favourite Luke Wright entertains you, the ThreeWeeks reader, with a weekly poem for Festival 2013. Enjoy the second below, then catch Luke’s show ‘Essex Lion’ at Assembly George Square.

Conkers
BACK TO SCHOOL the shop front posters yell,
all freckled kids and cheesy chalk mark font
and just as all around us starts to die
our children are renewed with pencil cases
and anecdotes of summer holidays,
the corridors a full size smaller now.

Then after bell they’re out across the road
like truffle pigs in brand new lace up shoes.
They snuffle out the polished antique brown
till pockets swell and only trampled shells
are left beneath the glum horse chestnut tree.
They’re tearing home now: Mum! Mum! Look at these.

My father had this ancient hand-wound drill,
though often, mum would skewer them for us
so by the time he walked in, rain-flecked, knackered
the kitchen stunk of vinegar and wood
his dinner late, his boys still uniformed
a mess of string and strategies and glee.

Now every year there’s HEALTH & SAFETY HORROR
as childless journos muse on childhood’s death
but still the children gather up their conkers
and formulate their complex snagging rules.
They cherish bully-twenties, laud their laggies,
how quick the switch from champion to stampsie.

LINKS: www.lukewright.co.uk

Photo: Rich Dyson



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