Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

« Previous item
Contents of this issue
Next item »

Peter Robinson

print this page

After A Quiet Life

Recalled at last, our survivor of Gallipoli -
an under-age recruit for seaborne assaults
on the Ottoman Empire - seriously
wounded in the shoulder, sides and front
when mortar bombs brought to a halt
their progress for ever in that trench,
he was piled amongst the agonies, sent
painfully slowly to a forward clearing station
with stretcher-bearers sickened by the stench
- not knowing, he wrote, which way to turn.

Returned here to a lifetime of service
on the Martins Bank cash counter,
he was well used to the touch of every coin
for more than ten years now not legal tender:
smooth profiles of bearded kings, their value
declined with his savings; yet he was true
to ‘make do and mend’, ‘look after the pence
and a model of politeness to his clients
but taciturn, short when at home.

The pieces of metal lodged still inside him
gave little trouble, but disarmed us.
All those bitter winters he had nursed her,
his one love, and then outlived granny.
He’d say “You’ve a tongue in your head”,
though quite beyond me how I speak
as he leant by the fireplace, wirey, slight,
well-preserved on what one great-aunt said
had been a spartan diet -

I asked him “How are you?” He answered, “Canny.”

Page(s) 44

Back to top