An engineer by trade, Michael James Treacy lives in the evocative shadow of the (now defunct) MG-Rover factory in Birmingham, UK. He fancies himself a poet and claims that poetry is the vocabulary of his heart, soul, mind and occasionally his rear end. He has had poems published in a number of different mediums. These include anthologies by Boho Press and UKA Press, literary magazines Reach, Golddust and Twisted Tongue, and e-zines Global Inner Visions, Flutter, La Fenêtre and The Blue Room. Please check out his website here.
I recall a time
(too many years ago)
when I was a strapping youth
and I courted a comely girl named Marie.
Stuttering hearts in the infancy of first love;
she was the answer to all of my prayers:
every stomping, young man’s dream.
And then one day in October,
we were round her house:
holding hands,
exploring,
discovering,
plying secret trysts
and my loins were on fire;
I thought my libido was about to burst.
And then suddenly, her Mum entered the room:
a formidable woman of mountainous dimensions.
I was the epitome of a nice young gentleman.
But then, equally suddenly, it turned nasty:
Marie and her Mum began arguing.
Something unresolved,
raised voices,
tempers flaring.
I didn’t know what to do.
I sat there like a lemon (as you would).
Marie’s Mum then made a dramatic gesture
and her knickers fell down around her ankles:
huge, voluminous, parachute-sized bloomers.
There was total and utter silence in the room.
Then suddenly, Marie’s Mum shrieked,
stepped out of her fallen knickers
and ran from the room
at an amazing speed.
Then suddenly, Marie shrieked,
quickly gathered up her Mum’s knickers
and ran from the room at the same amazing speed.
I was transfixed, staggered, not knowing what to do.
Then Marie returned, sheepish and embarrassed,
and told me that her Mum said I had to leave;
her mum never let me see Marie again.
I thought my life was ended.
But then I met Julie
and her Mum
was petite:
much slimmer.
A very friendly lady.
And Julie’s Mum’s knickers
were never any sort of problem.
But that’s another story, for another day.
Boys from Brisco Mount
were not expected
to be high achievers,
although the brightest
might attend tech college
and aspire to be fitters
at the biscuit works.
According to general opinion,
we came from a long line
of lower-class, no-hopers
and were scheduled,
as a matter of course,
to keep with this tradition.
A legend concerning
a hapless native,
caught defiling
a helpless ruminant,
had led to us all
being labelled
with the same tag
and added
to the consensus
of inbred ne’er-do-wells.
Factory fodder
was the destiny
of most of us
as we left the school gates
for the final time,
which was a better deal
than previous generations
whose destiny,
(apart from sheep-shagging),
was to be cannon fodder.
