Ah, theres been a mistake. The hair
you see, its black, now Stephens fair…
Whats that? The explosion?
Of course, burnt black. Silly of me.
I should have known. Then lets get on.
The face, is that the face I ask?
that mask of charred wood
blistered, scarred could
that have been a child’s face?
The sweater, where intact, looks
in fact all too familiar.
But one must be sure.
The scoutbelt. Yes thats his.
I recognise the studs he hammered in
not a week ago. At the age
when boys get clothes-conscious
now you know. Its almost
certainly Stephen. But one must
be sure. Remove all trace of doubt.
Pull out every splinter of hope.
Pockets. Empty the pockets.
Handkerchief? Could be any schoolboy’s.
Dirty enough. Cigarettes?
Oh this can’t be Stephen.
I dont allow him to smoke you see.
He wouldn’t disobey me. Not his father.
But thats his penknife. Thats his alright.
And thats his key on the keyring
Gran gave him just the other night.
Then this must be him.
I think I know what happened
. . . . . . about the cigarettes
No doubt he was minding them
for one of the older boys.
Yes thats it.
Thats him.
Thats our Stephen.
A Cautionary Calendar
Beware January,
His greeting is a grey chill.
Dark stranger. First in at the kill.
Get out while you can.
Beware February,
Jolly snowman. But beneath the snow
A grinning skeleton, a scarecrow.
Don’t be drawn into that web.
Beware March,
Mad Piper in a many-coloured coat
Who will play a jig then rip your throat.
If you leave home, don’t go far.
Beware April,
Who sucks eggs and tramples nests.
From the wind that molests
There is no escape.
Beware May,
Darling scalpel, gall and wormwood.
Scented blossom hides the smell
Of blood. Keep away.
Beware June,
Black lipstick, bruise-coloured rouge,
Sirensong and subterfuge.
The wide-eyed crazed hypnotic moon.
Beware July,
Its juices overflow. Lover of excess
Overripe in flyblown dress.
Insatiable and cruel.
Beware August,
The finger that will scorch and blind
Also beckons. The only place you will find
To cool off is the morgue.
Beware September,
Who speaks softly with honeyed breath.
You promise fruitfulness. But death
Is the only gift that she’ll accept.
Beware October,
Whose scythe is keenest. The old crone
Makes the earth tremble and moan.
She’s mean and won’t be mocked.
Beware November,
Whose teeth are sharpened on cemetery stones,
Who will trip you up and crunch your bones.
Iron fist in iron glove.
Beware December,
False beard that hides a sneer.
Child-hater. In what year
Will we know peace?
Kyrie
There was a porter
who had ideas
high above his railway station
always causing righteous indignation
he wanted to be
giant amongst men
saviour come again to earth
but his teachings only met with mirth
one bright winters morn
packed in his job
believed the world needed him
dedicated his life to fighting sin
the second day out
crossing the road
apparently in Stockport town
back at the station
all the porters
wore mourning masks on their faces
and all agreed he should have stuck to cases
Train Crash
i once met a man
who had been in that crash
near Potters Bar
he said the worst thing
was the pause after
and the pause before
the bloody screaming
which though nervesplintttering
might well be heard
most nights on TV.
He spoke slowly
pausing between eachword
Funny sort of bloke
Have you heard the latest scandal
About 80-year-old Mr Brown?
He stole from Matron’s handbag
Then hitchhiked into town.
Had a slap-up meal at the Wimpy
Then went to a film matinée
One of them sexy blue ones
We’re not supposed to see.
Then he bought some jeans and a toupee
Spent the night in a pub
Then carried on till the early hours
Dancing in a club.
They caught him in the morning
Trying to board the London train
He tried to fight them off
But he’s back here once again.
They asked him if he’d be a good boy
He said he’d rather not
So they gave him a nice injection
And tied him up in his cot.
He died that very night
Apparently a stroke.
Kept screaming: ‘Come out Death and fight.’
Funny sort of bloke.
Uncle Harry
Uncle Harry was a widower
wouldn’t have it another way
wore two pairs of socks all year round
with a prayer started each day:
‘Oh God, let it be a coronary
something quick and clean
I’ve always been fastidious
and death can be obscene.
So if today You’ve put me down
then it’s Your will and I’m not scared
but could it be at home please
not where I’ll look absurd,
like on the street, at the match,
in the toilet on a train
(and preferably a one off
in the heart and not the brain)’
Uncle Harry was a vegetarian
until the other day
collapsed on his way to the Health Food Store,
rushed to hospital, died on the way.
Good Old William
‘I concur
with everything you say,’
smiled William.
‘Oh yes,
I concur with that,
I agree.’
‘If that’s the general feeling
You can count on me.
Can’t say fairer.’
Good old
William, the Concurrer.
Tide and time
My Aunty Jean
was no mean hortihorologist.
For my fifteenth birthday
she gave me a floral wristwatch.
Wormproof and self-weeding,
its tick was as soft
as a butterfly on tiptoe.
All summer long
I sniffed happily the passing hours.
Until late September
when, forgetting to take it off
before bathing at New Brighton,
the tide washed time away.
In Transit
She spends her life
in Departure Lounges,
flying from one to another.
Although planes frighten her,
baggage is a bother
and foreigners a bore,
in the stifled hysteria
of an airport
she, in transit, feels secure.
Enjoys the waiting game.
Cheered by storms, strikes
and news of long delays,
among strangers, nervous
and impatient for the off,
the old lady scrambles her days.
War of the Roses
Friday came the news.
Her G.P. rang and told her.
The telephone buckled
in her hand. Safely distanced,
he offered to come round.
‘Why bother,’ she said, ‘Bastard.’
She had guessed anyway. The body
had been telling her for months.
Sending haemorrhages, eerie messages
of bruises. Outward signs
of inner turmoil. You can’t sweep
blood under the carpet.
Thirty, single, living with and for
a four-year-old daughter. Smokes,
drinks whisky, works in television.
Wakes around four each morning
fearful and crying. Listens to
the rioting in her veins.
Her blood is at war with itself.
With each campaign more pain,
a War of the Roses over again.
She is a battlefield. In her,
Red and White armies compete.
She is a pair of crossed swords
on the medical map of her street.
What My Lady Did
I asked my lady what she did
She gave me a silver flute and smiled.
A musician I guessed, yes that would explain
Her temperament so wild.
I asked my lady what she did
She gave me a comb inlaid with pearl.
A hairdresser I guessed, yes that would explain
Each soft and billowing curl.
I asked my lady what she did
She gave me a skein of wool and left.
A weaver I guessed, yes that would explain
Her fingers long and deft.
I asked my lady what she did
She gave me a slipper trimmed with lace.
A dancer I guessed, yes that would explain
Her suppleness and grace.
I asked my lady what she did
She gave me a picture not yet dry.
A painter I guessed, yes that would explain
The steadiness of her eye.
I asked my lady what she did
She gave me a fountain pen of gold.
A poet I guessed, yes that would explain
The strange stories that she told.
I asked my lady what she did
She told me – and oh, the grief!
I should have guessed, she’s under arrest
My lady was a thief!
W.P.C. Marjorie Cox
W.P.C. Marjorie Cox
brave as a lion
bright as an ox
is above all else, a girl.
Large of bosom
soft of curl.
Keeps in her dainty vanity case
diamanté handcuffs, trimmed with lace,
a golden whistle, a silken hanky,
a photograph of Reg Bosanquet
(signed: ‘To Marjorie, with love’),
a truncheon in a velvet glove.
W.P.C. Marjorie Cox
cute as a panda
in bobby sox.
Men queue to loiter with intent
for the pleasure of an hour spent
in her sweet custody.
Poem for a Lady Wrestler
There be none of Beauty’s daughters
who can wrestle like thee
And like depth-charges on the waters
is thy sweet voice to me.
Thy muscles are like tender alps
with strength beyond compare
Of all the Ladies of the Rings
there is none so fair.
Thy half-nelsons and thy head-locks
thy slammings to the floor
are bliss. But in bedsocks
and pyjamas I love thee even more.
Who Can Remember Emily Frying?
The Grand Old Duke of Wellington
Gave us the wellington boot.
The Earl of Sandwich, so they say,
Invented the sandwich. The suit
Blues saxophonists choose to wear
Is called after Zoot Sims (a Zoot suit).
And the inventor of the saxophone?
Mr Sax, of course. (Toot! Toot!)
And we all recall, no trouble at all,
That buccaneer, long since gone,
Famed for his one-legged underpants –
‘Why, shiver me timbers’ – Long John.
But who can remember Emily Frying?
(Forgotten, not being a man.)
For she it was who invented
The household frying pan.
And what about Hilary Teapot?
And her cousin, Charlotte Garden-Hose?
Who invented things to go inside birdcages
(You know, for budgies to swing on). Those.
The Host
He can sing and dance
Play piano, trumpet and guitar.
An amateur hypnotist
A passable ventriloquist
Can even walk a tightrope
(But not far). When contracted,
Can lend a hand to sleight-of
And juggling. Has never acted,
But is, none the less, a Star.
He has a young wife. His third.
(Ex-au pair and former
Swedish Beauty Queen)
And an ideal home
In the ideal home counties.
His friends are household
Names of stage and screen,
And his hobbies are golf,
And helping children of those
Less fortunate than himself
Get to the seaside.
Having been born again. And again.
He believes in God. And God
Certainly believes in him.
Each night before going to bed
He kneels in his den
And says a little prayer:
‘Thank you Lord, for my work and play,
Please help me make it in the U.S.A.’
Then still kneeling, with head bowed,
He tries out new material
(Cleaned up, but only slightly).
And the Almighty laughs out loud
Especially at jokes about rabbis
And the Pope. Just one encore
Then time for beddy-byes.
So he stands, and he bows,
Blows a kiss to his Saviour,
Then dances upstairs to divide Scandinavia.
The Tallest Man in Britain
I was in a room with the tallest man in Britain
And of one thing I could be certain
In no other room in Britain was there a man taller.
He agreed when I pointed out how tall he was.
‘And I bet people say that to you all the time.’
He smiled wearily. ‘No, as a matter of fact you’re the first.’
To get into the Guinness Book of Records
All he had to do was get out of bed one morning
And measure himself.
Easier than sitting in a bathtub with 35 rattlesnakes
Easier than holding 109 venomous bees in your mouth
Easier than balancing a motorbike on your teeth for 14.5 seconds
Easier than riding a lawnmower across the USA in 42 days
Easier than roller blading blindfold across the Sahara. Backwards
‘Wouldn’t you rather be the strongest man in
Britain?’ I asked.
‘Or the fastest? Or the richest?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m perfectly happy the way I am.’
And excusing himself, went off in search
Of somebody else to look down on.
Laughing, all the way to Bank
The beautiful girl
in the flowing white dress
struggled along the platform
at the Angel.
In one hand
she carried a large suitcase.
In the other, another.
On reaching me
she stopped. Green eyes flashing
like stolen butterflies.
‘Would you be so kind
as to carry one for me,’
she asked, ‘as far as Bank?’
I laughed: ‘My pleasure.’
And it was. Safe from harm,
All the way to Bank,
Moist in my palm, one green eye.
Valentine
If I were a boat I’d steer to you
A pair of tights, adhere to you
If I were a plumber I’d plumb your depths
A pancake maker, I’d stuff your crepes
If I were a painter I’d paint you in oils
A Bengal Lancer, I’d lance your boils
If I were thunder I’d clap you
A long-distance runner, I’d lap you
If I were a breeze I’d ruffle your skirt
A squeezy bottle, I’d give you a squirt
If I were a Big Dipper I’d go off your rails