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Slipstream Poem

Jackie Wills’ Workshop on 5^th February 2007 was titled PUTTING ON YOUR COAT AND SHOES – HOW POETS USE CLOTHES

As a prelude to writing our own ‘clothes’ poems we had been asked to make a list of significant clothes or occasions such as shoes or hats and to bring photos of ourselves or others wearing that particular garment or accessory. This proved an extremely rich and stimulating workshop and everybody’s pen was flowing. In many cases scarcely any work was needed afterwards ….the poems had written themselves.

The Hat

Battered, ancient, travel-weary, smelly - -

she’d been right to throw it out!

Who’d have thought he’d make this fuss!

The word ‘divorce’ is in the air

though neither cares to say it first;

maybe it’s hanging fire, like malaria

in the blood. Of course this wretched hat

was part of the mystique, the lustre

of the Raj, his District Officer days,

Britain’s finest hour. All that stuff

they should have left in Jaipur.

So has it all come down to this, to Cheam?

He blinks back tears, unwilling

to allow her further fuel. Surely

to goodness, after all these years,

she’d comprehend the special meaning

of that hat! The marvelous journeys

it had made; the dangers shared;

the times that it had been brim-full

of water from his own canteen

so that his horse could drink its fill

beside some dried-up stream in Rajasthan.

   Ursula Kiernan