Three Poems by Peter J Donnelly

 

Half an Hour in Hawes

Thirty-five minutes to be precise, 

the Wensleydale Flyer drops me there

at twenty-past three, picks me up 

across the road at five-to four.

It leaves me time to buy an ice-cream 

from the Old Sweet Shop,

take a photo from the bridge 

over Gayle Beck, the scene's the same

as nine years ago except for less water.

I walk back up the hill to where

the road to the Lakes begins -

see the sign for Sedbergh, sixteen miles.

I resist cakes from J W Cocketts,

am not even tempted by the cheese,  

don't regret the shortness of my stay 

on this sunny afternoon 

of the second day in June. 

It was worth it just for the views 

from the minibus window -

Bainbridge, Askrigg, Carperby,

not to mention Castle Bolton;

a shame to miss out Aysgarth Falls, 

but you can't have everything. 

Vasey's

The price label's still stuck to the back 

of Little Pig Robinson that I bought with

my auntie, a souvenir of my stay. 

I open a blue plastic box in the kitchen 

in search of the family tree, remember 

getting it copied at the same counter 

where I paid for the book years before, 

a photocopy of a photocopy,  

my grandmother said, worried

it wouldn't be legible. 

Nearly three decades later it still is,

along with the letters she wrote me

using her Papermate rollerball 

or a Pilot V5, which I find in the box,

and the Queen's Velvet logo

on the insides of envelopes

she'd have taken off shelves

long since knocked down to make way

for tables, in yet another Indian restaurant 

in Bedale. In a drawer of her sideboard 

does Grandma still have one of those

little black notepads that open

from the bottom, with a band 

wrapped round it to keep it closed?

Will it contain old shopping lists,

or ideas for the novel

she never finished writing?

Growing Fruit 

Most things look smaller

when you get older -

the hill not as steep,

the stairs fewer.

Chocolates were bigger

and so was the tin

which wasn’t made of plastic.

But marzipan fruits

now seem huge, not like

the tiny oranges and lemons

Grandma used to decorate

her Christmas cake.

I don’t remember there being

strawberries, pears or apricots.

I may be wrong about that 

but not about their size,

for my auntie told me 

without my having to ask,

when I said I’d been 

to Lewis & Coopers

on the bus as they once did,

to buy the things for the same

recipe they always used -

candied peel, pineapple, ginger, 

coloured cherries and angelica.

Peter J Donnelly lives in York where he works as a hospital secretary.  He has a MA in Creative Writing and a BA in English Literature from University of Wales Lampeter. He has been published in various magazines and anthologies including One Hand Clapping,  High Window,  Black Nore Review,  Ink Sweat and Tears,  Obsessed with Pipework,  Atrium and Dust.  He won second prize in the Ripon Poetry Festival competition in 2021 and was a joint runner up in the Buzzwords open poetry competition in 2020. His first full length poetry book,  Solving the Puzzle,  was published in 2023 by Alien Buddha Press,  as was his chapbook The Second of August.