A poem for Dementia Awareness Week

A haunting, beautiful poem to mark the end of Dementia Awareness Week. Talking about that elusive thing... memory. From our forthcoming book the warm/&/the cold


SOUVENIR

souvenirs in my head
raining, the water in lines
falling
the gutters
the line going
              remember everything

an older brother
he was running
the river
boots running through
raining embers
            planes passing

a boom boom boom
sit on the window sill
curtains drawn in case of
a bomb
watch children
           through the curtain

head in a fog
frustrating, confusing, annoying
splash splash splash through the
raining and remember
the old ladies
          head in a fog

but what I remember is right
playing by the
river, my shoes washed away
when I was young, when it was raining
bringing the old ladies Guiness
         and then
for a month no rain

then again
bad rain
           raining
women's voices
branches of trees and old tyres
even the baby's dummy
wants to get inside

what does it feel like to forget?
confusing, frightening
             you're in the rain
getting off a bus
don't know where
you 
are

            it was raining
remember?
Gene Kelly singing
in a musical, a great musical
Gene Kelly dancing under
an umbrella
when I was a child


Fred, Patricia, Yolanda.

Fred