"The Family First"

From A to B
To C to D
It’s all one gigantic
Learning curve for me.
Picking up a book I like
Possible inspiration for open mic.
One year on
I’ve reached the M’s
A lot I don’t follow
But plenty of gems.
Past the Mac’s
Almost think out loud
If this was by me
Would my mum
Have been proud?
Imagine if my name
Were on that shelf
I know it wouldn’t
Bring me wealth
But there’s no other poet
By my surname
For once in my life
Wouldn’t have brought her shame.
My thought’s go back
To Neil Kinnock’s broadcast
When he talked of university
First of his working class
When that was shown
All schmaltzy and sleek
I knew I’d never
Emulate my brother
And always be the freak.
It wasn’t a shock
Something I always knew
I’d always been the least liked
Every year I grew.
Back in my late teens
I had a poetry phase
One or two
Earned silent praise.
One on transport
Got into her Union news sheet
So I guess she was proud of me
No mean feat.
There was another
On Breakfast Telly read out
Which I’d put in her Mother’s Day card
So really…deep down
She must have loved me.
Many a time I knew
I’d let her down bad
My life was a mess
And constantly sad.
I find it so hard
Not to look back in the past
What’s happened has happened
Life’s die has been cast.
Even though she knew I was gay
It was never something
We could say.
Maybe even though
My Mutti’s long dead
In me she can believe
If I keep on writing
And try to achieve
Not the first in the family
To wear a mortar and board
But to have a poetry book published
Of my own accord.

Dulwich Poet 22^nd January 2014

(I wasn’t sure what direction this poem was going, as I started to write it. It began with me changing my books over in the Poetry Library. I’ve been borrowing books from there now, for about a year.  I’ve started at the A’s (alphabetical order) and continued to slowly work my way along the shelves,  trying to read whatever caught my eye. As I got to the M’s…I checked if there was anyone with the same surname as me, there wasn’t. And I began to dream if, one day, I would be the first with my family name, to have a book on those shelves…)