{"id":98,"date":"2018-03-13T21:50:41","date_gmt":"2018-03-13T21:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/comicart\/?p=98"},"modified":"2018-03-13T21:55:13","modified_gmt":"2018-03-13T21:55:13","slug":"daily-drawing-chalk-skull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/comicart\/2018\/03\/13\/daily-drawing-chalk-skull\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily Drawing: Chalk Skull"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Day of the Dead? No a fairground chalk skull I won on the 29th September 1971 at Wallingford Fair with my Dad. I know because I etched it on the bottom….today’s Daily Drawing and I already written a poem about it I will find it out and post here..<\/p>\n

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CHALK SKULLS<\/p>\n

Three rings round a shiny target and it\u2019s yours
\namidst the clatter and pop of fairground stalls
\nburning like a new constellation fallen to earth
\nI clutched the small plaster skull in my fist.
\nA booth trinket. A choice between that
\nand a fading, chipped plaster angel fish.
\nWe moved on. My father and I.
\nPast a mud splattered generator pumping
\ngrey clouds across the dark wet grass.
\nFirst thing I\u2019d ever won. 12 years old.
\nI found it last winter. Turned it up in an old box.
\nThen noticed the carved inscription on it.
\nI\u2019d made all those years before.
\nShaun Belcher. 11th September 1971.
\nWallingford Fair.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>I held it as my father, now in his seventies,
\nbent to the garden, his back to me
\ncuts away at the heavy clay soil.
\nThe flint, chalk and clay, turning over again
\nas my own thoughts spiralled back over years
\nto the dusty stubble fields of late summer.
\nMy step granddad and his collie
\narcing in loops across the Oxfordshire fields
\ntracking imaginary pheasants and hares.
\nThe dog that ground to a panting halt
\nsaliva dripping under the kitchen table.
\nSo we too shall come to our end.
\nAll our skulls, man and beast
\nflaking and turning to powder in the black soil
\nlike this skull, a plaster moon, thrown at the stars.<\/div>\n

Available online in The Drifting Village<\/p>\n

The Drifting Village – Poems 2001-2011<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n