Martin Bridgeman

I stand often on the embankment of Slievebloom Avenue,
the edge of my physical horizon,
watching the rasping, futtering buses seek out the Walkinstown Road to new town Tallaght.
Pitch and putt, Sunday walks, mass, the missing cuckoo in the Cuckoo’s Nest,
pub crisps and passing friends bonded by the bar.
A new town, new mistakes, still rolling out with mohair inevitability.
And I, a new school calling,
roads crossed, pitches seemingly conquered with no actual talent.
Across the grass and monastery house into the grey shadow of a moated castle.
Childhood complete?
Adolescence as yet unclaimed.
Holding on, sipping on a pyramid, lost in dreamlike reverie, a familiar state.
A bully sneers in our first week, his scared attack instinctive and brash;
my defence a successful silence, a newly discovered addition to a regular garrulous armoury.
He, like me, finding his frightened way,
childish maturity rendered obselete as we inch forward,
back to a new start,
pebbles yet to be polished over time,
waves of surprise, wonder, learning and shock to follow.