Pantomime Wall

[poliphilo]

This poem is sort of a companion piece to the one I posted yesterday. It was written a month or two later.                                 

                                    PANTOMIME WALL

 

                                    Our garden wall is a slightly unnatural

                                    Mauvey red. It puts me in mind

                                    Of the flats we used to paint with bricks

                                    For the parish pantomine- every brick

                                    The same unweathered, unlichened, unscumbled,

                                    Straight-from-the-paint-box red. The racists

                                    Made me do it. They scrawled our wall

                                    With a hate message in aerosol.

                                    What could I do but paint it out

                                    At once?  I chose the brickiest red

                                    In the cellar. Better a pantomime wall

                                    Than one that 's shouting abuse at the neighbours.

                                    Still I'm sorry to see how our wall

                                    Stands out from the walls to left and right

                                    Which are weathered, lichened. The  whole row

                                    That faces the ginnel is beautiful

                                    With the falling down beauty of age and rot.

Comments

[sovay]

I wrote it at a time when I was coming to terms with the ageing process.

And it's very true that old brickwork is beautiful.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just! Old brickwork is one of my enthusiasms. I've always loved it.