Estella's granddaughter (Edit 1)

[Keith]

She’s in there,
with her vacant air-fixed smile.
Behind the wardrobe door,
in her boxed ease. Cocooned in her tissue dreams,
complete with her floral coronet.

Whilst I lie here,
a red road map in folded repose, watching the dust
from the faded thatch, filter through the ceiling cracks;
over which I’ve been meaning to daub some Polly-filla
and slap on, some one coat paint.

She stalks me.
As I pass the mirror in the hall.
An utter bitch! In her tight jeans, looking young and fit.
The zeppelined bovine who currently lives there, under a silvered
glare, bristles slightly as the apparition flicks her hair.

I have plenty of purple rope
wrapped in wrinkles round my hands;
I could hang her out to dry. Let the wind and rain
etch in mould and grime; the sun to fade
her lace trimmed train. She would grow old.

Instead of extreme sports,
halo tinged with an unrealistic health glow;
she would show me suitable pursuits, a graceful pose
or two, in stately homes with a nice view. Lancelot Brown
gave us beautiful grounds – either would do.

But she seems forever fixed
in her plastic coated, protective ways.
Safely ensconced between the sheets that veil her eyes;
one by one I turn the days; each a lie to be exposed,
to the truth that I don’t know who she is.


Slight edit done from original post - took out hazy from S3 L5 first word

Hi AJ
I have missed your poetry, great to see you posting. The opening stanza is spot on and I love Air fixed it says so much,and the whole stanza referring to a photo album in a wardrobe and giving us a charater within the pages is very well done. My understanding of your poem is one of looking back through old family photographs and seeing the beauty of a bygone era trapped in the pages, wondering what they were like and what things they did, At first I thought the fixing the ceiling was out of place but after a few reads I see its needed to set the moment lying on a bed. You have so many great lines here, I really like the detail you bring into these moments especially the first persons look back at herself, contrasted with current images some great lines "The zeppelined bovine who currently lives there, under a silvered glare" super. I also enjoyed the detail of the hands complete with wrinkles and purple rope veins. I think you can probably tell how much I like this I cannot offer any crit that would improve anything, so I won't. The title choice takes us immediately to the world of Great Expectations and for that alone it is perfect this is then supported later by the inclusion of Capability Brown all setting a back drop to the person in the photograph. That feeling you capture in the last stanza of looking at faces in our old photographs for me its my mum and dad when they were young I see them but I don't know who they where then and can only begin to imagine what their life was like, wow you have told this so well, great poem AJ one I will keep coming back to, definitely a keeper. Best Keith