A SIMPLER TIME

A SIMPLER TIME

A song to Jacky, Kim, Sandra and Sue

Just the act of holding hands,

was as much as you needed,

to start the girls giggling,

and the boys jeering.

Even at Nine I didn’t care,

I liked holding hands…

Girls felt nice to hold,

Soft but not soppy.

And a kiss was so chaste,

A dry lip crush…

Tongues came later, much later.

Yet the yearning was a lost land,

foreboding and forbidden,

Like scrumping feelings from the future.

And we’d build a den in the brush,

lie under the branches,

like Hansel and Gretel,

alone in a dark world.

I would tell ghostly tales,

just to get you to move closer,

And lay your head on my tin rib chest…

I would stroke your soft long hair,

And think this is heaven.

We would sing show tunes,

from Oliver and such,

And I’d paint castles in the air.

We lived in a land of terrifying beauty,

Catching sticklebacks and frogs,

Daisy chains and buttercup shadows,

The terror of not knowing,

but knowing nevertheless…

An adult world would come,

and all of this would be lost…

Lost in the sophistry of lust.

Dale m 2021.