The Buried Past

The photos lay in a pile of dust

They’d gathered under the bed,

They’d not seen the light of day for years

Were neglected there, instead,

The wife found them with the first spring clean

And she dumped them in my lap,

‘Who is the girl on the Honda Dream,

And the guy in the leather cap?’

 

I must have shot her a funny look

As we guys are wont to do,

‘A girl I must have been going with

About twenty before you.’

She picked the photo out of the pile

And she brushed it on her skirt,

I thought, ‘Oh, here we go again,’

Her face said she was hurt.

 

‘How come I’ve never seen her before,’

She was getting close to tears,

I snatched the photo out of her hand,

‘It must be fifty years!

I can’t recall the time or the place

And I can’t recall her name.’

She punched me once on the shoulder, said:

‘You ought to be ashamed!’

 

That photo sat on the mantelpiece

And it stared at me for weeks,

A bonny girl with a pouting lip

And the wife gave me no peace.

It was, ‘Just what did you talk about?

What did she used to say?’

I said, ‘I can’t for the life of me

Remember a single day.’

 

She served the hot-pot up stone cold

And the gravy didn’t move,

I think she mixed it with concrete just

To show she didn’t approve.

I said, ‘I was only twenty then,

That snap was way back when,

We’ve been together for forty years,

Why drag her up again?’

 

‘You’ve kept her a secret all these years,

That photo, under the bed,

How do I know you’re not in touch?’

I said, ‘She’s probably dead!’

I racked my brains for a memory

But all I could see were thighs,

Pert young breasts and a petticoat

And a twinkle in her eyes.

 

But still I couldn’t recall her name

Or a single word she’d said,

Only the scent of her sweet young breath

As we rolled in her parents bed,

She’d clung to me on the pillion seat

As her skirt flared out, and streamed,

Down at the back of Fletcher’s Wood

On the back of the Honda Dream.

 

‘I want to know what you did with her,

Though it doesn’t matter now.’

(I’d fallen for one of those tricks before,

The wife’s a devious cow!)

I thought of the day the fun had gone

When we lay, looked up at the sky,

‘Ah, now I remember what she said,

One word, just one… Goodbye!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Harmony]

A very well-developed and relatable tale.

'She served the hot-pot up stone cold
And the gravy didn’t move,
I think she mixed it with concrete just
To show she didn’t approve.'
Haha! This was wonderfully described! These little descriptions of domestic quarrels, both funny and strangely realistic at the same time, are very nice to read! You have presented the entire thing in a very understated but realistic way. I could totally see this happening before my eyes. The fickleness of human emotions, the building and breaking of relationships and the trivial, inconsequential things that still seem like a matter of life and death when we're in the middle of them and very involved. It's all very well presented and described. Loved this poem!

[TL Boehm]

OH my - those old pictures. My hub has an album of those. I grilled him about them just as this old devious cow did. But we forget who sleeps in the bed don't we?
A fine tale.

[Avinash]

Holy matrimony is tough to maintain. Every day seems to be another diplomatic logjam. But like a skilled driver you could negotiate the curve. You have got lot of stories to tell David. Just make sure your wife does not read all of them ;)

[Valentine]

Boy ... his wife was a nagging harpie wasn"t she. Still smiling after reading this one. Another brilliant write from one of my favorite writers. God bless Kathie

[Woody]

absolutely deliciously hilarious. what a fun poem and what rhyme and rhythm!

[R Smith]

Nice tale David, I must confess here i was trying to second guess you and expected the girl to be none other than your wife in the tale but you got me with no such twist, well done, a fine example of your imaginative writing :)

[Jennie Baron]

Bravo! I find this tale realistic and you've presented it extraordinarily well. All that the other reviewers have said is true.

[Marie]

I can't understand this woman's point of view. I never cared about my husbands' old girlfriends, old wives, old lives. Yet the picture must have meant something to this man. He did remember the words "Good-bye." And we tend to remember the good-byes more than the hellos.

[MomzillaNC]

You've given us the story of a woman who's lost her own sense of self-worth and a husband who's too dense to recognize that what she really wants to hear is that the woman in the picture was completely forgotten when his found his wife. The woman in the picture was obviously only a brief dalliance and never a deep emotional connection; even the most callous of personality doesn't forget those. Her photo, to him, is no more significant that snaps of a day at the beach or an amusement park. I like to think (because I just like happy endings :D) that his recalling the woman's one word, was also just finally making that point.

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

Indeed, one will find themselves in this very situation at some stage in life, a great read.