Cardboard box, fluffy cats with revolving, scouring pad tongues
Teapot police hats, head-gobbler dryers and sherbet filled lungs
Autumn leaf, stealth, helicopters on which brave pixies would ride
Soda-pop coloured rainbows and dreamy star filled pies
These things I’d often ponder when finding faces in the clouds
Or when playing under the old railway bridge my voice echoing out loud
Never eating our curly-haired crusts, as for the birds we’d leave
I’d often find rare precious treasures later tucked up in my sleeve
Over and over from my slippery shadow, I’d try to sneak away
School lunchtimes I’d make houses on the playing-fields with shallow walls of hay
These were the days when summer holidays seemed to stretch on for years
Where we’d explore strange new lands under the cover of corn-ears
In Winter we’d make grand snowmen and killer sledging slopes, we’d seek
Hanging upside down from a climbing frame, until I couldn’t feel my feet
In August we’d all go blackberry picking and come home with purple hands
Then we discovered Guns and Roses and set up a ‘Bandanna’ band
When I was young, my brother and I would enjoy themes of role play
Making magical games and creations in very imaginative ways
We’d fly across galaxies, swing through jungles and sail across rough seas
We’d build laundry-basket space rockets and blanket-dens with deck-chair feet
Our favourite night was a Friday; chip shop, sausage, pop and chips
Smothered in Vaseline to prevent us getting chapped lips
Making square crisp sandwiches, Cadbury’s buttons squeezed between
Hollowing out turnip lanterns; trick-a-treat sweets lasting weeks
I remember flying down the carpeted staircase on Mum’s old bathroom mat
Baking with Grandma, having elevenses and then comparing our rolls of fat
I remember playing with the Whirligig and Mum’s pristine washed sheets
Making it into a Spring maypole, nearly garrotting my brother... what a scene!
Those days of innocence I fear today have been, forever, stolen away
From our daughters and sons and from all the children of this age
As now they’re plugged in and imprisoned in their bedrooms and in their homes
As unlike when we were kids, it’s not considered safe for them to roam
So for the youth of this generation I am gravely saddened; as you’re not telling me...
That any PlayStation or Xbox thingamajig is as fun as Hide and Seek
Especially when it’s played in a derelict house with a ghostly story to tell
Or climbing trees with grubby knees or on your bike... freewheeling down the fell
I remember those days fondly and indeed, all whom were there
Even when I sat on an ant’s nest and got a brush stuck in my hair
When we fed and rode on donkeys which, of course, we were forbidden to do
Or when we ventured up to the reservoir and swam carelessly to get cool
For Bonfire night we’d always collect wood and pennies for the Guy
Halloween, we dressed in black dustbin bags, and on broomsticks we’d fly.
Enjoying baked, tinfoil potatoes and treacle toffee from a tray
Watching Dad set light to fireworks, never feeling afraid
So when I see the leaves fall and turn to fire hues at this time of year
I look back upon my childhood with a smile and a wistful tear
© Debbie Razey 2019 - Violet Moon Poetry
