In Every Parting The Shadow Of Death

The sentiment expressed in the following poem has become one of the many underlying themes featured in my in-progress novel, 'The Melancholy Haunting Of Nicholas Parkes'. The poem featured on a CD published by Klanggalerie last year with an ambient soundtrack by Attrition. The poem is something of an homage to Walter de la Mare. I gave a reading of it at Waterstones in Nottingham last autumn.

IN EVERY PARTING, THE SHADOW OF DEATH

“In every parting, the shadow of death….”

murmured the old man with filmy blue eyes

as I sat picking out stars

in the swooning purple skies

Glancing back from my lonely glass window

I shot him a polite, quizzical glance

Inviting further comment

- though he was plainly entranced -

for sat on his lap

all broguey and tweed

was an inanimate stuffed cat

of indeterminate breed

which he stroked and he petted

with more than gentle need.

His eyes glittered bright with a dream-haunted tear

so I offered myself up to listen regardless of fear

to that which he most wanted me to hear.

It suddenly struck me - ridiculously perverse! -

that he spoke of his cat - but quite the reverse! -

for I suddenly realised that it was ‘merely’ a soft toy

all matted and lumpy from when he was a boy!

[How many times had that been carelessly abused?

I reflected ignorantly, stupidly amused.]

I struggled respectfully to stifle a chortle and glanced instead downwards

at boots which were once ‘all the rage’

but clearly had since been cruelly beaten by age.

The moon glittered coldly from way up on high

swooning through stars in the velvety sky

whilst the cradling rock of the carriage on the track

sent electric-shock tingles thrilling across my back.

Then I recalled a tumble dryer from when I was a child

for there beneath a worktop I often did hide

nuzzling down deep into laundry-fresh sheets

to escape from the belt with which I was often beat

as the comforting shiver of the spinning electric machine

lulled me into a contented sleep happy dream.

“In every parting, the shadow of death,”

repeated my new friend, remembering sad times,

when it suddenly struck me that the toy was not his

but rather the plaything of someone painfully missed!

As the train trundled into Crewe and my friend rose to depart

In another seven words he pierced straight through my heart;

for as our eyes met we became joined at the head

and he spoke the words “Really, what more needs ever be said?”

Copyright Christopher Richard Barker 2016.