Skip to main content

The Custard Years Poem -Alan j Wright

 I frequently talk about the spark of an idea that can grow into a flame.  -A flame that lights the way forward. I am buoyed by such moments...

A brief conversation with a six year old regarding how much she likes blue jelly had me instantly reflecting upon my own childhood and suddenly my mind was filled with custard, not literally of course, but thoughts of how custard was a dominant dessert during my early years, so long ago. Suddenly young eyes lit up- 'You should write a poem about custard, Papa.' 

And so the poem, 'The Custard Years' began to form in my mind. Here, now is what was revealed.









The Custard Years


It’s amazing

how much custard one can eat

before the age of ten. 

For I certainly ate a lot of custard

early in my life...

Custard was a dessert staple.

I loved it lump free and viscous

-mellow yellow

Simply mum made

using Foster Clark's custard powder.


For me 

they were my custard years. 

Custard with ice-cream, two-fruits, or jelly

Custard tarts, or just custard neat and slidey.

For some kids it might have been

their jelly years

-or heaven forbid- their instant pudding years

junket and flummery years

But custard was the king back then.


After the age of ten

Somehow,

-and for no particular reason,

that I can think of

custard found itself added to

the long list 

of lost lamented delights.

Alan j Wright









It is yet again Poetry Friday and our genial host this time is  Patricia J  Franz. Patricia offers up a Golden Hinge poem.  The fun part of this form is marrying a favourite line from someone else’s poem with your own words – and seeing where it takes you. Patricia borrowed a line from Traci Brimhall’s “Mouth of the Canyon.” Visit Patricia to discover she eventually landed. 

Labels:

Comments

  1. Patricia Franz15 May 2026 at 13:56

    I clearly have missed an entire part of childhood —the custard part!! Now, armed with this poem I will go in search of that neat and slidey dessert !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alan j Wright15 May 2026 at 14:41

      Pattricia, I wish you well in this quest. It may not sit well with your adult palatte, but I can honestly say that having had a childhood soaked in it, I still enjoy it in trifles when the occasion presents. Custard may have been an Australian thing, possibly handed down from our British forebears.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry Inspired by Images and Objects

There are many ways pictures and photographs can be conscripted to support the writing of poetry. Allow me to share a few ideas with you: Old photographs are a great source of inspiration. Cynthia Rylant explored this idea with great success in her book 'Something Permanent' where she employed the Depression era photographs of Walker Evans to add a new voice to the starkness to the lives of people experienced under extreme circumstances. I have used this strategy to spark many individual poems. In ' I Bet There's No Broccoli On The Moon,' I used a photo I had taken in 2004 while living in New York to inspire a poem. The poem was based on a story related by a friend who grew up in New York.  I regularly combined poetry and pictures in my writer's notebook, drawing on inspiration from the photograph and my personal memories. We can also utilize existing cartoons and illustrations to create ekphrastic poems. I frequently use the illustrations of Jim Pavlidis to co...
27 comments
Read more

Powerful Poetry, 'Refugees' by Brian Bilston

  This week, Poetry Friday is hosted by Janice Scully  @ Salt City Verse where Janice shares some original words and offers us a taste of Thomas Carlyle to ponder. I encourage you to join a host of poets from all around the globe and visit Janice's page... Almost two years to the day, I wrote a post featuring the poem 'Refugees' by Brian Bilston. The poem was included in Brian's first book of poetry, 'You Took The Last Bus Home.' A very powerful Reverso poem and technically brilliant.  A Reverso poem can be read from top to bottom or bottom to top. It will often express opposite opinions depending on which way you read it. Such poems really make us think. A Reverso poem is like a picture turned upside down, a frowning face upended to reveal a smiling one. The poem read in reverse, contradicts itself with an opposing message. In 'Refugee' Brian Bilston focuses on a societal issue that tends to polarize feelings and the opposing views are clearly in eviden...
14 comments
Read more

Opposite Poems

O pp o s ite P oem s In his book, ' How To Write Poetry,'  Paul Janeczko presents the idea of opposite poems. Paul suggests they could also be referred to as antonym poems. This is wordplay and it's fun to try. Here are some examples Paul provides to help us see very clearly how these short little poems work. I think the opposite of chair Is sitting down with nothing there What is the opposite of kind? A goat that butts you from behind Paul Janeczko You will  notice the poems are written in rhyming couplets. They can be extended so long as you remember to write in couplets. Paul shows us how this is done. What is the opposite of new? Stale gum that's hard to chew A hot-dog roll as hard as rock Or a soiled and smelly forgotten sock You might notice that some of Paul's opposite Poems begin with a question. The remainder of the poem answer the question posed. Opposite poems are a challenge, but it is a challenge worth trying. N...
26 comments
Read more