Memoirs In Verse

This free verse poem, written in the form of a letter to my unborn son, explores my feelings of loss and loneliness when my pregnant wife and young son returned to the UK in readiness for our new arrival. Listen to: A Poem on Departure Dear Thomas, I should be used to being alone. My life has always been one of departures, but they’ve been my leavings; I have left others behind, and not always returned. Now I’ve arrived home, after taking your mother and brother to Jackson’s Airport, where for the first time it was I who was left behind. The airport was alive with raucous travellers and their wantoks , jostling and shoving through the crowd, with bulging bilums and striped nylon bags, and piglets squealing in woven grass cages. We entered the dilapidated terminal, where the babbling voices of the nervous crowd filled the departure hall, overwhelming the tannoy calling the flights in Tok Pisin , Women in meri-blouses and men in lap-laps exuded a fug of sour body odour and sweet buai ,

This free verse poem is written in the form of a letter to my two young children who were on holiday and in the UK without me. Listen to: A Game of Golf Dear James and Thomas, There’s an upside to being here alone, I have time to learn to play golf, but there’s a twist to the local game that’s born of poverty and culture too. Tribespeople are drifting from villages in the central highlands to the coastal plains, looking for work and a place to live. For want of anywhere to stay they’re building ramshackle settlements on open land, and one such camp runs parallel to the fifth fairway. The sun is harsh. By mid-morning it’s stinking hot, there’s little shade, no services and no water, even the greens are brown. The men have made primitive firearms, and roam in vicious gangs to attack and rob other tribes—of which we are one. They do it as a means of survival, but I’m sure they’ve a good sense of fun as well. When I tee-off at the fifth, I’m joined by a pair of security guards who accompa