More Rooms

For the last Open Link Night at dVerse I posted some poems about rooms I have known,.   I promised more, so here’s another instalment, as and I’m still mining the ideas that crowded in while writing them.

Beaulieu

Dadsdad’s asbestos bungalow
by the river, on stilts:
hideous on the outside
delicious on the inside –
the tiny pentagon sitting room
full of dark wood carved torture for chairs
and sideboards with secrets ─
Aunty had been a Paris milliner ─
a treasure trove of trimmings,
and piles of Saturday Evening Posts.
Wonder of wonders in nineteen forty-six
a walnut cabinet stood on the floor
looking nothing much ‘til you opened the door
then lo and behold a tiny screen
came to life in black and white –
well, more like misty grey if I’m truthful,
with fizzy scrolling lines
from side to side
or up and down.
You twiddled strangely-named knobs
to no avail, so you thumped it to a life
of variety shows
with jugglers and acrobats, magicians and  singers,
boring talkers with strangled posh accents,
wearing full evening dress.
We’d sit squashed side by side in the darkness
until Aunty would say in accented disapproval
“Marion, is this entertainment?”
and switch off.