alright, last one from me as the missus has bought wine and i can stop being emo for the night.
Sitting on the train back to Penn
I find myself thinking.
My father's work-bag. Square, heavy, mysterious.
The tools of his trade. A magic kit, weighty, worthy, unknown.
No childish hands could penetrate the buckles and straps.
I was too young for the hermetic secrets sealed within.
A few stray glimpses of the contents captivated me, fetishes held and
Worshipped and wondered over. Like the
Small green notebooks he always used. Hard-covered and
Lightly ruled, and filled with his tiny condensed hand.
And to this day I wonder what he wrote in this script of his.
Diaries or musings? Ideas or wordplay? Observations to pass the long dark hours.
As a child I wrote obsessively so I never thought it strage.
Indeed, I still find myself confused by adults who don't carry notebooks.
He had torches too. A green one and a red one. Square, functional and ancient.
Solid metal, with carrying handles. The magic of coloured lights.
Shining like love in the dirty tunnels.
A spark of life in the choking roaring gloaming.
Other things too. A small, slim old-fashioned flask.
It was smoky-blue and had a metal cap.
Portable radio, small for the time. His driver's hat,
Peaked and important. An enigmatic set
Of metal tools, like the magic keys from
My fantasy books. All strange shapes and unknown uses.
I now know them to be keys to tool-boxes and storage bins. But the mystery
Of keys endures. I cannot ignore a lost key in the street, or the bottom of drawers.
What else? Memory fails. I decode my life's intricacies through
One child's obsession with his father's roundeled bag.
)
