[David Callin]

I should have posted this on Thursday ...

My father later denied
ever having told me
that on his VE night
he had pushed his bicycle home
all the way from Telford
back to the farm - he'd been
conscripted to the land,
digging there for Britain -
without ever quite managing
to get on and ride the thing.
Drink had been taken,
which does not sound like him -
I only ever saw
the occasional Mackesons
and the dutiful toasts at weddings -
but on this of all nights,
why would he not? I like
the image of him walking
his bike and himself back home,
like someone trying to reason
with a stiff and skittish horse ...
Whoa, there, Trigger.
And I'm sure he told me that.
I'm almost sure he did.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, David—

I like the way you framed this affectionate tribute to your father in the form of a pub-worthy, humorous anecdote. The image of the normally abstemious man wrangling a bicycle like a spirited horse and tipsily staggering home from the Welsh border after celebrating the end of the war in Europe is amusing, but you carefully preserve his dignity by mentioning his usual self-control and his own embarrassment, leading him to deny having told you about the episode.

I thought you might replace the hyphens in lines 6, 8, 12, and 15 with em dashes. I was also puzzled by the phrase “conscripted to the land.” I assumed it meant that he was drafted into the military to work in the UK raising crops to support the war effort. Was he a conscientious objector who could not bear arms for religious or moral reasons, or was that simply the work he was assigned?

I enjoyed the poem.

Glenn

[Trevor Conway]

Hi David,

I enjoyed this. I like the tone, though I wonder if some stanza breaks would make it flow slightly better. I've added a few below - see what you think.

Trev

My father later denied
ever having told me
that on his VE night
he had pushed his bicycle home
all the way from Telford
back to the farm - he'd been
conscripted to the land,
digging there for Britain -
without ever quite managing
to get on and ride the thing.

Drink had been taken,
which does not sound like him -
I only ever saw
the occasional Mackesons
and the dutiful toasts at weddings -
but on this of all nights,
why would he not?

I like
the image of him walking
his bike and himself back home,
like someone trying to reason
with a stiff and skittish horse ...
Whoa, there, Trigger.

And I'm sure he told me that.

I'm almost sure he did.

[Joe Crocker]

Hi David

Your father attempting to horse-whisper his skittish bike was a lovely image. And I liked the questioning of strong but sometimes unreliable memories.

Glenn might be right about using em-dashes to make the parenthetical background more obvious. And Bernard Miles might question the pluralisation of Mackeson. Perhaps you need an apostrophe in there.

Joe

{edited to add that having re-read, I can see that "Mackesons" makes perfect sense given that "toasts" and "weddings" are also plural.)

[Max Goodman]

The vagaries of memory are fascinating and amusing, and this is a well-told tale.

Through several readings, the opening implied to me that Dad wasn't denying that the incident happened, only that he'd told. That, obviously, was unsatisfying. It would be easy to clarify if that's desired, but if I'm the only one who's read it that way, it may be fine as is.