Protected: A world in shadows

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Ancestors

I’m posting unusually early this week for Read Write Poem’s  Ancestors prompt as I’m going away for Christmas and I won’t be near my computer on Christmas day.

When Grandpa Arrested a One-legged Drunk.

With hopes and expectations
of noble ancestry
or to stumble on high drama
I traced my family tree.

The only drama I could find
I would have you know
was Grandpa’s arrest of a one-legged drunk
a hundred years ago.

My great great great Grandma
had a bastard son
she died when he was only six
leaving him with no one.

The mother’s name was Margaret ,
John Parrot was the son,
she worked for a man, John Burgess,
whose housekeeping she had done.

John Burgess owned a Corn Mill
on Pepper Street it stood,
he adopted Margaret’s orphan child
though she’d never said he should.

The name John Parrot Taylor
was passed from father to son
till our dad stopped using Parrot
without telling anyone.

So I was plain Carole Taylor
and my brother was just John.
We found out about the Parrot
after Dad had gone.

Taylor is such a common name,
it’s in the U.K. Top Ten.
Though I can go back two hundred years
my family are all modest men

But if only I went back far enough
a branch of my tree would meet
the tree of Elizabeth Taylor
with face once exquisite and sweet.

I found no truth in the rumour
that my Dad’s Ma came from Spain
but her smouldering eyes and jet black hair
her nearest and dearest can claim.

My parents both had eyes of brown
which weren’t passed on to me
mine are as green as emeralds
from across the Irish Sea.

My mother’s Da was Irish
a moneyed man was he
but my granny said the Irish
should swim back across the sea.

My roots are deep in Cheshire,
In Knutsford and Mobberley.
Housekeepers, cooks, policemen
make up my family tree.

And the only drama I could find
I would have you know
was Grandpa’s arrest of a one-legged drunk
one hundred years ago

Protected: Fish out of water

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My new blog.

I have started a new blog for musings and prose writing. Please visit and take part in my poll.

Christmas poems

Christmas is coming

decorate the tree

complement the cat

Here are links to some of my previous Christmas poems:

boxing day baby

regina and the christmas tree

‘Boxing Day Baby’ was published in Souther Poets (ed. Forward Press, 2007) as ‘Boxing Day 1975′. It is about the birth of my daughter Kamsin, who blogs at Fearfully Made,  and is currently teaching English in Japan. She is the one who first introduced me to blogging, just over two years ago. Kay at Made for Weather, a superb poet in New Zealand, was the first person to add me to her blog roll. She now has  a son in Japan.

Check out my Slide Show!

Protected: 3WW CXV: My enemy grows cold

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Protected: CXIV for 3WW

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Welcoming

Open windows

tender salutation

to winter sun.