Free like Fergie

By Ray Schaufeld

Sun, 21 Aug 2022
  • 675 reads
6 comments
 

And now I am free

To come and go as I please

 

And tell me why

My freedom today feels like Fergie

 

Not not the Duchess Sarah

But years ago a girl called Virginia

 

Not me but we were both twenty one

I don't know who was the younger twenty one

 

I dressed liked a student hippie

In my secondhand China jacket

Bought near Portobello Road.

Cowboy Steve said I looked a 'space case'

 

She dressed like Ststus quo girlstyle

Steve said 'she looks like an outlaw'

 

That much was true

She looked like Bonnie Parker

With her fair layered hair

Waist length leather jacket

Platform shoes

Long grubby beige skirt.

 

where is the laundrette

when we move

 

Her John did Travolta dancemoves

Changed his overalls

For black trousers and red spiral shirt

A handsome couple.

 

She was free to dress how she liked

Free to fight her instant soulmate

At the first rumble of trouble.

 

That of course happened soon

His pal Brick threatened to put in the windows

Of their Housing Executive flat

Even before they picked up the keys

Because they were a 'mixed couple'

 

Free to a have sister of eighteen

A righteous, married, tattooed, expectant young mum

 

Free to have a baby herself

Looked after in a Mother and Baby home

 

Free to have a brother who was murdered

The police taunted her 'Big Tam's dead.'

 

Her father phoned us sobbing from his place in Bangor

'I have a four bedroom house and I am all alone.'

 

 

----Note---

A Housing Executive flat is a Council Flat in the region where they live.

(my memories are from 1978 the name might now be changed)

 

 

Certificate PG
Poem
Lost and found
Travel

Comments

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Boasted 'freedom' can be a slavery. Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Rhiannon, you have made me aware that my poem can read like I was being negative towards someone I knew from work years ago.

But it's meant to read like her life is limited and that for a young woman of twenty one she had experienced a lot of pain and loss. Think about it, her brother has been murdered and she has been made to give up her baby to a mother and baby home.

Yes she dressed like a trendy little outlaw and that's ok. Without her big platform shoes on she was probably about five foot one in height and mabye weighed around eight stone.

I don't know whether to rewrite this piece as prose and add a lot of explanation or to keep it exactly as it is.

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

I didn't think you were being negative, but that you were aware that she wasn't aware of some of the dangers and heartaches that were around that might feel at first to be enjoyable freedom, but could lead to regrets and unhappiness. Nothing wrong with wanting to show her surprising style in clothes, but just got the impression that all of them were lonely and feeling rather lost.

You write it how you want. You have written an explanation here anyway.

Sorry if you feel I've got it wrong. regards, Rhiannon

 

Submitted by marandina on

An evocative,  powerful poem.  I could feel the charged emotion,  especially the closing lines.  I don't see why you couldn't write this up as prose as well.  It looks like a lot happened here.  Paul 

 

Submitted by jeand on

HI Ray

 

II thought it was a powerful poem, and told the story very well. I liked the short verses and the contrast. I can't write poetry, but am sure this as prose would be very readable too.

Jean Day

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Paul, Jean thanks for your great comments.