Welcome to my adventures and experiments in creativity. Where writing is like running: sometimes I know where I'm going, and sometimes I see where the mood takes me.


Saturday 2 April 2011

Just Another Girl... (POEM)


Just Another Girl In Need Of A Deed Poll

She stood at the bar with yet another would-be suitor,
This one Steve, a mild-mannered and handsome Geography tutor.
Polite and jittery laughter at one another’s jokes
And casual knowing remarks about the pairs of other folks
Having similar evenings in the pub in that new romance glow.
Everything was going smoothly until he struck the killer blow –
“Hope you don’t mind the question, but have I come across your name before?”
He asked, “I really can’t place where though, maybe on a toilet wall or door?”

Initial impressions had been good but now he couldn’t be the one,
And to suggest otherwise even two more hours would have been a terrible con.
So she forced a resigned smile from her love-starved lips
And put down enough money to cover the drinks plus tips;
Called the night to a close, pecked him on the cheek, “Thanks and goodbye,”
Drove into another single night, stifling weary tears she wished not to cry.
“Fucking fucking Mum and Dad, I was a baby girl not some stupid doll,”
She shouted to the empty night, “Now I’m just another girl in need of a deed poll.”

* * * * *
At the age of seven she understood the mockery she would be facing
When she saw her name inscribed on a public washroom handbasin.
The difference didn’t matter; what difference is made by one ‘e’?
Nobody was going to care if she spelt it Kimberly or Kimberley.
Those first few years she learnt how to etch a smile – took it on the chin
While storing the frustration and pain behind that Hoover Dam grin.
Now our Kimberley’s twenty-six and drowning in limbo, no marriage in the frame;
Just one six-month relationship (that promised so much) to her goddamned name.


* * * * *
Out with friends, but it’s yet another lonely night. She meets a guy; he’s tanned
And rugged – everything Kimberley knows she can’t have, so the fear sets in and
She feels awkward once more. Then he talks first, saying: “Hi, I’m Neil.
Slightly odd, try not to laugh, but my surname’s Standard and middle name Ideal.”
Her heart skips; this is surely a joke. But something inside says, “Let it roll.
Play this one right and maybe you’re no longer another girl in need of a deed poll.”
Finally she has the inspiration she seeks, ignition for a small and dormant spark
To make the life she’s had denied since she was christened Kimberley Clark.

2 comments:

  1. Excellent! And much safer to rhyme than Armitage Shanks...

    MB

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you! And an excellent point. Maybe that should be the sequel...

    ReplyDelete