Clive Eastwood was for many years chairman of the Kent & Sussex Poetry Society, and remains a member despite having moved to Suffolk. His poems have been published in numerous poetry magazines, and a full collection Fly in Red Wine was published by the National Poetry Foundation in 2000. This poem was selected and published in the Society’s Folio #73, in 2019.
Inheritance
On the opened envelope are written
“share of prize” and a date in ’68,
inside are three half-crowns. The envelope
has not been hidden, it’s under your nose
when you open the pantry door.
To win a prize and not spend it
seems oddly profligate; not to pass on
someone else’s share wrong; that no-one
remembers after all this time the coins
being here is understandable; to stash them
away whilst the rest use theirs
is another parable of the talents; to put
three half-crowns on a shelf for a rainy day
takes no account of the dailyness
of rain nor of dilution by inflation;
to not invest in next week’s draw confuses
the shrewdness of nothing to spare
with the caution of something now to lose; two
are George the sixth, the other Elizabeth.
Seven and six in ’68 would have bought
a game at Ewood Park including bus fare.
Today it tots up to a sense of lowness.
The Kent & Sussex Poetry Society 