Austerity North London in 1952,
tacky Enfield High Street
upstairs in the ABC café,
third table in from the entrance
every Saturday morning
coffee spills on formica
and rickety plastic chairs.
Our gang of teenagers arrives,
one by one when freed
from the queues in Sainsbury’s,
burdened with shopping for Mum,
amid clatter of cups, fog of smoke,
and chatter of gossip
of who’s going out with whom
or who’s broken up this week?
Grumbles about homework
vie with assignations for dancing,
cinema or Sunday walks
hand in hand beside the grimy New River.
Saturday morning in Enfield,
the highlight of our week.
Margo Roby is still making us focus on a sense of place. http://margoroby.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/three-trials-tuesday-tryouts/ this week gives us three alternative approaches, of which I chose the last, to start with the larger landscape, then within the poem, to zoom in to one shot. My zoom led me back in time as well as place, to my teenage years. This is still a bit rough and ready, so I’d be grateful for suggestions. It also fits in with Joseph Harker’s latest Reverie prompt to create a memory-filled memento of words. You will find his excellent tutorial at http://namingconstellations.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/reverie-seven-memento-hunting/
very evocative, I may not have been in Enfield in the 50s (though I do know it from my London days), I was there in my own town in my teenage years. Thanks
Making? Margo is making us…? Mmhmmm. Well, hang in. It won’t be long now. Two more.
Your choice of words are particularly evocative: austerity, formica, clatter, fog of smoke, grumbles. It was easy to be a part of the scene, ViV.
Oops, sorry Margo. I didn’t mean to imply that any unwillingness on my part: I have loved this series of prompts!
I know you have, ViV. I couldn’t resist pulling on that comment.
A truthful reflection – the amount of times I’ve heard such grumbles, or been part of them myself! Wonderful.
You evoke the place so vividly. Love it.
Liked it, viv. I think you nailed a sense of place very well here, and also that time, not just the 50′s, but the age, when everything stretched ahead, and the smallest thing was vitally important.
Rough? I think the best poetry is the first draft, when your expressing, not “writing”. This is wonderful.
http://charleslmashburn.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/i-go/
smiles…there were 4 of us that would get together…not on saturday morning but on friday nights…and we would hike tothe mountain top away from it all and sit and talk until the sun came up…thanks for stirring those memories…
Never one for gossip most, I always went with the Sat cartoons too, although now a days you can’t even do that. Nostalgia is so much better, until you actually get it sometimes..haha
1952 I was 14 and meeting up with my friends in Lyons cafe not the ABC in Hackney, London. Thanks for bringing back memories of a time so long ago.
Thank you for taking me on a sweet journey.
Cheers,
Mark Butkus
teenagers are all about gossip, aren’t they. that’s why they go in groups to the mall, and text to other people the whole time. they can’t get enough.
When I was very very young, Saturday morning cartoons were always the highlight of my week!
Thanks for sharing ! Randy