Generational Bergen

Did you buy it from surplus
or was it Granddad's? I don't know.
All he ever said about Belfast
was, on patrol I had the sawn-off
and it were my job
to blow the streetlamps.
And all you ever knew about that
was a hammer through the TV
cause you wouldn't shut up
about Batman. So there's no way
to know which conflict it came from ---
standard issue, dark green,
taller than me, leaning on the wall
by your guitar case, bulging
with clothes and the scratch
of your whiskers on my belly
blowing raspberries and whiskey breath ---
sure, the odd cuff round the head,
maybe a smacked arse, and me,
covering it with both hands --
you won't sit down for a week!
But there was the allotment,
beehives, earth under fingernails,
a ride in the wheelbarrow.
A rough kind of love,
but undeniable, and it's alright
to speak it without words.
I still think about going back
to climb inside that bag, you know...
to stowaway --- werever you went,
I'd go too. I'd be your eyes and ears
on the road. But all I did
was pick paint off the doorframe
and say, OK.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/xlc8tf/the_cruel_moon/ipncs8j

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/xjxga8/your_beauty_is_in_the_way/ipngq3j