Our Iris Jones (first draft)

Our Iris Jones

Your black and white
With dark round specs
Holding the girls
Within sepia flecks

Through a camera flash bulb
All the years that remind
Like the hollow box staircase
Up to Nanny's flat rise

See your happy smiling face
Or concern through your eyes
Memory of a red cord
An intercom in the hall

Some lunch and some biscuits
A lakes view could afford
The man in the van,
Whose the man in the wall.

With a veteran of Wars
pubs, work, Walsall & turns
You waited on his tea
Brown sauce, cigarettes burn.

At my level a bin lid
And its brown tea stains,
When we were just kids
Through leafy green lanes.

The tea leaves in the cup
scotch teapot leaf strains
When we were young pups
With outrageous names

With kindness and thought
There's the gentlest of love
the gifts that you bought
from around and above

Where would you take me
If you could have driven
Just where would we be
With a lifetime forgiven

Playing the lottery games
With a great big warm heart
slippers made for your feet
Grand kids and their art

I remember the treats
And the family roast
The gifts and big teddies
Christmas telly and toast

The dinner was ready
For the family time,
The clock ticked on steady
For your hours will chime.

If I peered in your heart
Gentle emotional stuff
A steady hard start
Your life was enough.

Truth seen in your eyes
When we gazed in a hurry
could ask you no questions
So I said not to worry.

Eyes once clear as the skies
You couldn't well tell me
The lows and the highs
You could tell us no lies.

You wouldn't speak
We were aware of your time
Sadness no leaks
And without a dime.

I held onto your hand
Like when we arrived
Like how we will stand
When we fire up the band

But the train won't wait
It must be on track
We'll jump on it later,
It always comes back.

See you when we get there,
When we come in to land,
we can drink some strong tea
And we can hold hands.