DAILY POEM
An evocation of postwar life with its physical deprivations but aspiring cultural possibilities through the wireless (not yet the radio!). Peter Bland was born in Scarborough in 1934 and emigrated to New Zealand at the age of 20. He published his first volume of poetry in 1964. This is from his Selected Poems (Carcanet, #9.95).
A COUNCIL-HOUSE KITCHEN - STAFFORDSHIRE 1946
By Peter Bland
A twelve-year old with a toasting fork
roasts his knuckles on the kitchen grate.
Dry crusts, scraped with mutton fat,
bubble to an edible grey.
The worst storms for a decade crack
windows criss-crossed with sticky tape.
Coal's 'non-domestic' so Dad's burning slate
and back-numbers of Lilliput.
How quickly those prim nudes
fade away! On the wireless
plays by Eliot and Fry
remind us that our betters talk in verse.
Night after night we stare, pink-faced,
into draughty splutterings, mists, red caves,
turning our backs on 'the world outside'
and feeding our small lives to the flames.
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