Tim Boardman
It’s Monday morning
and I’m driving to work,
mind somewhere else.
The windscreen’s sticky—
sap from the trees above the car at home—
I should clean it
but it just smears,
and I haven’t slept.
It’s 7:10.
I can still see
the ghost of my dad
walking
at the bottom
of Breary Lane.
Old song on the radio—
I know it,
it seeps into the commute
Dad is
On the way
to buy a Yorkshire Post,
cloth cap
slightly askew.
Always that cap.
Old man, take a look at my life
I’m a lot like you were.
I catch him
in the wing mirror—
shirt and tie,
that familiar waddle.
Strange—
I never wear a tie.
Never have.
Not out of principle,
just sheer bloody mindlessness.
I need someone to love me
the whole day through
Head down,
determined
to beat the newsagent,
never had it delivered,
not until the end of Bramhope.
He’d try to slip away
and wander,
always trying to get back
to a house
from years ago—
some version of home.
I’ve been first and last
Look at how the time goes past
And I drive on,
leaving him
in the rearview blur.
Tim Boardman is a UK-based poet and educator whose work explores memory, time, and the emotional terrain of family life. His writing has been featured on Poetry for Mental Health, where he shares deeply personal pieces about the challenges of caring for a loved one with dementia. His poem TEMPUS FUGIT—centering on a silent, broken clock in a hospital room—offers a striking meditation on the collapse of time, place, and narrative.
A teacher and therapist by nature, Tim has spent over 25 years working with students with special needs, weaving mindfulness, creative expression, and life skills into his practice. For him, writing and art are vital tools for processing emotion and navigating anxiety.
You can find more of his work on Facebook at @Tim Boardman Poet.