Junk Jewellery
By Jane Hyphen
- 768 reads
Come upstairs with me,
I’ll show you my junk jewellery.
Overflowing from a box
which looks like leather.
Gold and shiny, sparkling,
like something you’d find
in a cave that had never suffered light.
I like to turn them over in my hands.
They look just like the real thing.
They are the Crown Jewels.
Sapphires blink just like
the last of summer twilight.
Rubies like a secret kiss,
blood flowing to fired lips.
A locket, locked in time,
a heart-shaped smile, captive.
And something like a diamond,
refusing to absorb light,
obstinate in its hardness,
callous glints unending.
There’s an emerald as green
as a hundred days of rain.
A crucifix, the cross to hang
around the hazard of my neck
and save it from itself.
A lovers coin still gripped,
holding on to scraps of copper love.
A white whisker from a cat
who never really loved me.
A mystic topaz, blue
like a flood of lies,
desires washed away.
Grandma's pinprick,
sharp as ever, thinking
of the holes it made in
starched collars, long decayed.
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Comments
Hi Jane,
Hi Jane,
you're not going to believe this, but your poem bought back childhood memories for me. I must have been about eight at the time, when me and my friends would bring our jewels to school in fancy sweet tins or buscuit tins and swap with each other searching for those treasures we never had. Reading your poem was so nostalgic and I often wonder what happened to them.
I did so enjoy reading this, thank you so much for sharing.
Jenny.
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I remember my husband's uncle
I remember my husband's uncle ostentaeously offernig me to choose something from his mother's jewellery after the funeral. I had never liked or been attracted to jewels, preferring plain things made of slate or copper, or flowers I think. He was rather astonished when with relief I found a lovely realistic flower in the collection and insisted that that was what I really wanted. Rhiannon
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I love the little splashes of
I love the little splashes of malevolence - brilliant!
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Yes
there is something of childhood magic, playing through a box of bits and bobs, letting imagination drift
Nice one
Lena x
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Sparkles.
I enjoyed this piece Jane, thank you. I too love all kinds of sparkly things.
Congratulations on the cherries, too!
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/search?q=FrancesMF
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