Trevor Bailey: ‘Neighbourhood’ and ‘Portrait of a Marriage’

Neighbourhood

The evening came and signs were there—
All screwed in place above the fence
And tidied lawn: a growing sense
Of absence taking form where

All their yesterdays had been
About tomorrows. Today I saw
Him, the teacher (“the vendor”
Now, I guess), smoke and lean

Against his car, then kick away
A pebble’s threat to early sale.
He gazed upon his newly stale
Existence. A house: one day,

A home; the next, a means to an end
Beneath a different, brighter sky.
His wife came out to touch her guy
For a drag of cigarette. My friend,

Our neighbour, paused his stroll to study
Signs and learn what lay behind
That Welcome! mat, after all. Blind
Indifference, I thought, isn’t neighbourly.

Trevor Bailey

Portrait of a Marriage
To Sissinghurst Castle Garden & All Else Uncommon

A dahlia bloom once waved outside the sill.
Its hue of ribald pink
Then adorned my kitchen sink:
A dahlia bloom once waved outside the sill.

A dahlia bloom sits watered on the sill.
I know it’s loud and blousy,
But it marks me from the drowsy:
A dahlia bloom sits watered on the sill.

A dahlia bloom soon wilts upon the sill.
Bedint went Vita’s curse—
My choice could get no worse:
A dahlia bloom soon wilts upon the sill.

A dahlia bloom ends withered on the sill.
Because I loved a dahlia,
I’ll die a social failure:
A dahlia bloom ends withered on the sill.

Trevor Bailey