Jake

Jake

Dylan Chase James

You claimed the largest garden for a greenhouse, shed and patch,
The house and fridge were bursting with another courgette batch,
The allotment and the garden were alive as all would grow,
I was born on Wednesday but a child not of woe.

A stack of Observer supplements were piled up in the loo,
On the door Picasso’s Blue Nude from the year, 1902,
My seat was in the basket of your 40’s butcher’s bike,
I watched you stripping furniture, a duo Jake and Tyke.

The house was packed with paintings, photographs, brass and wood,
Mum called it a junkyard where plants and bottles stood,
We went to fill the barrow for crazy paving around the back,
Of all that needing fixing up Dad you had the knack.

You named my first pet Dingle, our lovely trusty hen,
I remember tasting goose egg and pancakes flipped back then,
A prize for the tallest sunflower, a cucumber in ‘The Gazette’,
I’d have to walk in your Kagool when I was soaking wet.

A collection of old train oil lamps were featured up the stairs,
Toulouse Lautrec wallpaper, pine dining table, chairs,
Your stalactite plaster ceiling for our 70’s furnished room,
Crammed with homemade candles, they omitted doom and gloom.

Stacks of records often played, our cheese plant strong and tall,
You sat me on the sofa and snapped me with ‘The Wall’,
And then you bought the roller boots, ‘Ouch’ stuck down your ride,
They say you had charisma, a good laugh at one’s side.

We really had some fun back then not blessed with being rich,
The 60’s scooter you got working, you’d pulled it from a ditch,
I’m glad I flew to see you, days of love and care,
You said you’d had the greatest life, you really loved it there.

And now you’ve gone I forgive you, as you left when I was eight,
Four abandoned children, some struggled with their hate,
But I’ll remember you like this, not haggard, thin and ill,
A man with many talents, an artist blessed with skill.

For Stephen Jacobs 1956 - 2010
Dad

Reviews

[JanieB]

A truly amazing ode to your Dad.
He too will be so proud of your talents as such a talented writer.