Edwardian Tea Room

by Jood Gough

Edwardian tea room softening faded
sepia powdered photographs
demure table lamp light genteel and flowers.

But now
the twenty-first century
muscles in
bustling and chattering
laughing and clattering.

Well-mannered tables and chairs
covering their ears
breath in
making room
for sudden flocks of girls
with green hair
jostling dads
proud with wee bairns
bevies of old ladies
smiling
pressed up to middle-age
quietly crying.

Meanwhile granny reposing in rose-pink armchair
pens postcards home, so sweet decorum
sidles beside her quietly hiding till evening returns.

Thank you for sharing, Jood! This poem draws neat parallels between the traditional setting and the modern characters who populate it - I especially like the phrase 'sudden flocks of girls', which mingles the natural with the human. 

Jood has since condensed down her imagism poem to these four, neat lines:

Edwardian tea room
soft - faded - sepia
meets twenty-first century
green-haired girls.


Fantastic! If anyone else would like to share their work, do email them to me at nellie.cole@sky.com.