Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

 As we are heading towards remembrance Sunday, I thought this might be appropriate. We're just dead heading the last of ours in the garden. Poppies An offering in his grubby hand , scratched where he’d scrambled over stones to pluck the scarlet flowers, drinking their claret cup of summer in the scorching sun; Imagined joy comforts his lateness. Going home, jubilant, face raised for his mother’s kiss. Her slap scratches where she marks her words with meaning, scarlet anger brimming over. Bouquet, drooping in the cruel glare, cascades burning tears down his grubby fist.

It was on his fiftieth birthday that Frank’s mother began to haunt him. Which seemed a coincidence as it had been on her fiftieth birthday that she had died. Frank had just undressed and got into bed. Which is the truth but doesn’t really portray the way in which he’d ripped his clothes off and leaped on the naked girl who was the latest in a long line of similar ladies who had been attracted to his bed by a combination of his money and his…well, just his money, to be honest. She screamed and sat up, shivering with fright. Not from Frank’s actions, though they had somewhat startled her, but from his mother’s ghostly appearance by the window. And Frank found her arrival a little disconcerting too. “Mother!” “Hello, Frank.” The girl gasped. “Is that your mother?” “I’m afraid it appears to be, yes.” “But she’s a…” “Well, she would be. She’s been dead quite a few years.” The girl screamed again, scrambled out of bed and, gathering her clothes, while avoiding going near ...

From crack and snip, On blue-white sheets, To ash above or dust beneath, There is a force which can’t be broken, By distance or harsh words once spoken. Mother’s touch, The loving touch, The one you crave and need so much, Whose cradling arms stopped wailing cries, When life was merely suckling milk. Whose tender hands caressed your brow, In childhood fever and disease, Those arms which lifted you when down, With ointments and her gentle touch, She kissed away your screaming tears. When you were young your sunny days, Were filled with her sweet singing voice, Her warm eyes gazing down on you, Her Mona Lisa smile of love, To make things right, it was enough. And in achievement, up you’ll look And catch her proud eyes smiling there, When failure nags you in its midst, She’ll smile and tell you not to care, For mother’s love is always there. When time and seas divide your flesh, The cord which still holds fast your souls, ...