To The Sky
Terraced
With slums
All roads led to Scotland
Road
To the scouse it was Scotty
Road
Piped and drummed
The road turned into the Battle of the Boyne
Midsummer
July 12
The Orangemen would march
Through the shamrock streets of Scotty Road
King Billy
Would once again ride on his white horse
Leading his lodge
Of soused scouses
In a brassy parade of titian jubilation
The cymbals crashed in confrontation
Caught
In the cross fire of Christianity
Masses
Wrangled and tangled
Under a saffron sauterne
Music
Crusaded into the crowds
Songs
Crushed into slurring shouts
Missiles
Whistled into a synchronous
Clash
Sloshed songs
Sozzled shouts
Soused souls
Trailing
In the spirited wake of King Billy
Leaving
The Irish scouse
To shovel up his stallions shit
At the End of the Day
The city consecrated their love
With the birth of two cathedrals
One for the Anglicans
One for the Catholics
Eye to eye
They tower the sea
Crossing the city
They span the sea
Netting lost souls with a saucer of tea
Flying
Over St. George
We can see the Anglican Cathedral
Neo-Gothic
Monolithic
Red
It silhouettes the skyline with its sandstone
Stone
It mounts St. James
With its austere tower
It looks towards the Irish Sea
Like a tantalizing Trojan horse
It is filled with ten thousand
Pipes
Bells
Thirteen
Bartlett bells
Drown out the sirens of the sea
With their chorus of winds
Souls
Lost at sea
Will be saved
With savory tea
Stone masters built it
From Scotland
Road
Once
It stood in a stoop of slums
That sloped to the River Mersey
Once
A plaque of poverty
Now a pool of plurality
Harmony
Arrived with the Metropolitan
Cathedral
Catholicism encircled the city with a mosaic of glass
Crossed on a hill
Its thorny crystal crown
Mounts a pleasant view
Standing in hope
It stains the sky
With an alcove of light
It arches its arc over its archdiocese
A beacon of faith
Towering its torch
It tapers off into a dove-slated sky
Like a wigwam
To Paddy’s eye
Once
A neighborhood
Pockmarked with paupers
Now
A pool filled with peasantry
Topped off
Sir Edwin Lansteer Lutyens (Anglican)
Slept
In a cold crypt
Waiting
In his architectural chamber
To be relieved
From his dying duty
Sir Fredrick Gibberd
Built
The Catholic cathedral on top of Lutyens calcified corpse
Topped off
In 1967
Consecrated
After a decade of conception
Meanwhile
Seven decades had passed
Under the dying direction of Sir. Giles Gilbert
Scott
And his sandy stonemasons
Chipped away with Woolton quarry
It rocked the Anglicans
Churchyard with its chord of cold chisels
The cathedral grew
In austere
Topping the tombstones with trickles of timeless
Sand
Castles of gothic proportion
Bell Towered over its congregation
As Bodley
And Scott
Sit side by side
Strained
Sorry stained
In glass
Under jubilant skies
Completed
In 1978 under celebratory skies
It carved the heavens with their celestial edifice
As we look down
Upon
St. Georges Hall
Stretched out
Like a colossal mausoleum
It sleeps
Along
A Corinthian column of confluted pillars
Were four lions rest with Maggie Mays
Lime Street
Outside
British Lions
Guard the Courts
With Augustan pride
They lie in judgment
Outside its vaulted great hall
Inside
Were Allegorical figures
Look down on Minton tiled floors
As the bronze doors
Open up
To the music
Of the people
Who will have their day in court
While justice rallies
Their tune
On a plateau
Served by
St. George
Called
To the bench
Old veterans would sit with a sad smile
Watching
Heart-warming mothers
Teach their young children
To bestride the austere lion
Stroking
Its bare back
With squeals of laughter
My husband would hoist our son
Onto the bronze mane of the lion
Once safe on top
His little arm
Bent into a salute
To all the men and women who passed him by
In a parade of thousands
Young veterans marched in a pride of silver
As the bold British Lion roared
In silence
Heart-breaking mothers
Watched
In tiers of red
As the last post echoed
The cries of their children
Echo
Echo
Echo
To laughter
As we guide the Liver Birds
Towards Lime Street Station
Where we watched
Heart-broken mothers
Comfort
The cries of their children
Turn to tears
When Punch beats the living hell out of his Judy
Punch
Like Maggie Mae
Will be taken away
And neither one will walk
Down Lime Street anymore
We will leave Punch
And end on that line
Over to
St. Johns Open Market
Listen
Hear them sell their wares
Taste the scouse
At Paddy’s market
Or
Smell the farts
That comes from St. Johns
Arse
Hole
Cried the hawker
Who hustled in a barrage of bustling
Barrows
Of people
Carting live stock
In large wooden handcarts
Top of the Morning
Yelled the Barrow boy
Top-flight fruit
Topnotch vegetables
Topside beef
All my produce
Top of the line
Top off your lamb with a lovely topping of mint sauce
A special for you
Ducks
With a wink
That classifies as top secret
The tops love
Tipping his top hat
He smiles like a tope
As he pulls out his pocket watch
From under his worn out black topcoat
Time
To top up
With a toper of black and tan
At The Grapes
To the topmost
Don’t spill a drop
Love
Tops poppet
Spilling a smile
With a wink
Top that
And keep a crown for yourself
Love
Thinking
With a leering eye
Wishing
That the buxom barmaid was topless
Top-up
Again
Love
You are the topic of the day
Tanked up
Top-heavy
He sang at the top of his voice
Cart him to his barrow
Shouted the top barman
Staggered
And spinning like a top
He topples into his topsy-turvy world
Where he sleeps like a spinning top
Until the top brass hoist him up
As a sailor does to a top mast
Did I tell you
That your dad read the comic the Topper
So top that for a story
Because I am top-out of tops
With an endearing smile
The grandchildren thought grandma was the tops
As John Lennon would say she was the topper most of the popper most
Time to leave St. Johns market
And follow the Queensway
Tunnel
Under the River Mersey
Were buses weave under wakes of waves
As cars and lorries honk on the on coming tides of rush hour traffic
Submerged
Under the sea
Like yellow submarines
Avoiding the meanies
So that they can rush home for their afternoon tea
Let’s flap our wings
And bow our heads
Listen
On the left wing
You can hear the applause
From the right wing
Of the old Play House on Williamson Square
Winging our way
From the old repertory theatre
We will fly over to Matthew Street
Let’s land
Hear the band
I want to hold your hand
Grandma
Took the children under her wings
Listen
To the music of yesterday
And imagine what it was like
When your dad would twist and shout
To the beat of Merseyside
Your dad would play
Love Me Do
And all I could do
Was to cry
Help
Me tell the tale
Please please
Me
The oldest granddaughter
Told the tale
That her dad told her
The Cavern
Was arched in a brick dank caller
Dark
And dim
But filled with vim and din
Eighteen steps down
Watch your crown
Under a little arched stage
The bands of Merseyside became all the rage
Pacemakers to Blue Jeans to Hurricanes
Swing and Storm
Would rock the stage with rock and roll
Suited up
Dressed up
Boozed up
Lined up
On Matthew Street
So that you can dance to the Mersey side beat
Because the Cavern was so small
The waiting line was long
Once in
This old Victorian brick warehouse
You would step onto the dark dance floor
Crushed with crowds
Jiving to the beat they would skiffle to their feet
Sweat stained shirts stuck to your skin
Sweat stained skirts stuck to your skin
Screams
Shrieks
The shrunken cavern shattered
With the raw boned sound of the Quarry Men
Raving
Ravishing
Lasses
Pointed to the band
Frenzied girls would point at each other
And then point to the raunchy rock group
And shout to the fab four
She loves you
Yea yea yea
Raw and raucous this overdrive band would rock
On
At lunchtimes
The weekends
The rock bands would jam all over the city
Clubbing
Here
There
And everywhere
Knowing that each club was going to be
A hard day’s night
But for the Silver Beetles
It would be their ticket to ride
On
A magical mystery tour
Thanks to Epstein and Eleanor Rigby
Hello goodbye
Stuart Brian John George
Pausing
Turning
To grandma
With a halting question
Are you all right
Grandma
I feel fine
A trickled smile
Jerks a tear from her watery eyes
I was just strolling down Penny Lane
Time to move
On
Our own magical mystery tour
Can’t be late
These two bloody big green birds
Have to be on time
If not
Great George will punch their clock
Ticked off
The Liver Birds point their emerald beaks
Towards the long and winding road
That leads to the River Mersey
Flying off
Banking towards Castle Street
A bastion for banks and insurance
The drawbridge for industry and commerce
The Town Hall
Encroached
Castle Street with its ample presence
Empowered
With its ascent
It jotted out onto a warren of pigeon hole offices
Where it overshadowed
The narrowing space of its taxonomic existence
Built in 1754
Wood
Created and constructed this Corinthian
Burnt in 1795
Wood
Collapsed and charred into cinder
From its ashes
It rose like the phoenix
Crowned
With a dome
Neoclassical
Danced
In its new ballroom
It entertained the toffs
By taxing the plebe
It would waltz away its gilt-edged taxes
Side step
Into the Portico
And listen to the councilmen
Sitting in their grand chamber
Suited
And steamed
Hot air and cold gin
Coughing
And choking the room with a din
Exchanging
White cotton with a bottle of rum
Leaving
The black slave on the North American Run
Decisions
Made with dissension
Dissipated into discord
Under duress
Recess
Descends into depression
Dockers
Drone on the dole
While trade unions fight for a peacock throne
Immigrants
Leaving
Their Erin home
Starched with hunger
And fleeing their plight
Searching for work
Under flitted moonlight
Poitin
Poverty
Swilled with scouse
Skimping and saving
To live in a rented terraced house
Bull
Shit
Whitewashed the walls
With the winds of war
The window was wide open
To change
Direction
The shirty Liver Birds flew over the council
And dropped their droppings into their chamber
Cross
Lord
And pass over
Into James Street
And along Albert
We will land
On George and step into his stage
A wooden pier
Anchored to the Mersey
A floating dock
Resting on the river
Grandma
Waves to the water
Seeing the sea
To the south she could see the ferries
To the north she could see the steamers
Behind
The triumvirate buildings command the riparian river
Together
Isolated
Widows of the Wharf
Mann the island
With a facade of strength
Grandma
Turns to the sea
Shipyards
Dockyards
Warehouses
Filled with tea
Salting the tea with industry
We follow the wake of history
By sailing on a wave of commerce
We carried our soul on a salted hearse
Grandma
Shakes
With the siren of singing
Children
Grandma
May we have one more ride on the Liver Birds
Alone
She watched
Notes
Turn to applauding cries
As the children soar to the sea
High
In a tail wing
Piloted by a current
Banking
Careening
Into a hearty headwind
Low-level
Flying
Sky to sea
Bob up and down
In curls of cream
Sprayed
With froths of foam
Wings
Flap into a flat spin
Barrel rolling
In a crested whitecap
Skimming the sea in shards of spray
Dipping and dunking in a whisk of gray
Surging
Purging
Swells of spume
Lapping
Flapping
Into waxed waves
Whipping
Spitting
Surfing the sea with the beats of time
Stalling
Staggering
Skipping the surf with the wings of time
Screaming
Squawking
Into a squall of surly wind
Pick up
Pull out
Pull up
Shake off the rogue
Outpace the foaming fury
Accelerate
Exhilarate
Into a thrusting throttle of terrorizing
Joy
Sweeps the sea with speed
Euphoria
Leaps with the notes
Keylara and Shu
Trim their feathers
With winged pride
Soaring
Into swiftness
Pushing
Into propulsion
Climbing
Climbing
Into a victory roll
Whirling
Whirling
Into a breezy sky
Lilting
In levity they tilt their tail
Into a withering wayward wave
Watching
It whimpers into a whittled wisp of woeful whisper
Drifting
With delight
Gliding
Onto a whispering breeze
Clouds
Tumble
Nudge and jostle
Into a diminishing basin of ethereal blue
Darting
In and out
With palmate wings
Notes
Whip the powder blue sky
Into whisks of dallying white
Clouds
Tumble into tufted puffs of tumbleweed
Rolling
Onto a blue prairie sky
Tagged
Together
In a nomadic desert of driftless freedom
Windless
To the weightless sounds of chime-less sand
Time
Bathed in blue
Breezing into aerial bubbles of white lather
Frosted
Into a frothy foam
It floats in a hynotic haze of glazed ecstasy
Washed
In a quietude of aquamarine
Clouds
Gather
To soak under a shower of toweling sun
Lulled
Into the timeless warmth of its light
Clouds
Rest on a leavening breeze
Passing
Halcyon days with ephemeral dreams
Sailing
Into flights of fantasy
Windmills turn
Quixotic dreams into euphoric grains of powered memories
Down
To earth
The Liver Birds land
Time to leave the Liver Birds
Leaving
Departing with deference
Saddened with strength
Farewells
Unfurled
Beat time
With motion
Keylara and Shu
Spread their great green wings
And with strength of steel
Lift up their spirited wings
Were they take off
To the sea
With riveting speed
Spanning the sea
With a protective eye
Watching over the ships
As they sail on by
Returning
To rest their rooted talons
On the luminous orb of time
Mounted royally
The Liver Birds tower the River Mersey
Were their timeless memories
Illuminates
The passing of its time
Facing the tide
Shu strikes a resilient pose
Facing the city
Keylara strikes a resolute pose
Back to back
Side by side
The Royal Liver Birds are Liverpool’s pride
Looking Up
Towards the sea
Grandma and the children stroll
Along the wharf
Towards the pier
Hand in hand
Down Canada Boulevard
Heading towards Princes Landing Stage
Stopping occasionally
To watch
The ships sail out to sea
Strings
Of white wakes purl and curl into the passage of the river
Voyaging steamers pass on by in wakes of white
Leaving
The sea brown waves to break away
From the thrusting edge of their crustacean bows
Leaving
The great white wake to trail
Into the crossing of its passage
Soon
That will disappear
Into the dark depths of a shrouded sea
Tears
Spill into the sea
Down
Dropping
Into the dispassionate depths of a dispensing sea
Dissolving
Dispersed
Into the spiritual soul of the soulful
Sea
To
Salt
Tears
Scattered into the dark fathoms of
Grandma’s mind
Held onto her mooring line
Letting go
She walked away from the bollard
Turning away from the river
With a saddened smile she said
At times
I do meander
My muddled mind tends to toddle
Around the pier of my maudlin
Head
From the Pierhead
Let’s get the double decker bus home
We must all be on our way
Like the departing ships all things must pass
Anchored to her arms
We all knew
That grandma had taken the long and winding road
Back Home
The telephone rang
Nodding Great Aunty out of her nap
The French door opened
Onto the white porch
A call echoed out
For grandma to take the phone
Rocking out of her white wicker
She walked towards the open glass French door
That led into the sunlight
Kitchen
Closed
Great Aunty picked up the story
From where grandma left off
Great Aunty would begin
Her Story
With her corpulent body
Great Aunty would soften her chair with content
Relaxed
Sitting under the shifting shade
She would knead her mollified cushion
Into her pliable doughiness
The third sister of four (Aunt Doris was the youngest and she was your dad’s godmother)
A dowager
With soft-heartedness
Settled
With five children
A recent widow
To a stout hearted bricky
Darby and Joan
A foundation
Mortised with love
And toasted with tea
Such was the life for Great Aunty
Down to earth
But not downcast
Dozy
But not daft
Listless
But not lingering
Literate
But not litary
A fulcrum
With wisdom
A leviathan
Who could levitate
A problem from its elevation
By alleviating it with a leverage of common sense
A Lancastrian lampoonist
Who harpooned humor
To lance the levity
By healing the hurt
She was all those things
Mother
Earthy
Lackadaisical
With a laconic lilt
That stuck into your minds eye
Like Pooh Bear to silken honey
She told her venerable story
About her eldest sister’s only child
Your Dad
A bright spot
In this mother’s orbit
The only child
Not spoilt
But to my standards
Pampered
With love
His mother used to bring him
To our small libertarian terrace house
A tinderbox
That ignited when your dad came to visit
Our little seaside town
In the best of times
Our house had some running order
But it was more like Lime Street Station on a Friday night
Unlike his mom
We had five young children
And we could not afford to be so fussy
But your dad
Loved the libation of laughter
And the liberality of thought
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Now gone
Leveled
It left a chalkboard of ashes
And like the phoenix
A brand new comprehensive school mushroomed from its blackness
Schools of students were boxed into an austere container of glass sterility
Classes of children
Boxed into a transparent tank of limited mobility
A comprehensive school built for boys
Only
The girls remained in the old fortified school
Built in 1958
Your dad was transferred to the new school
Much to the chagrin of the girls
The classes would no longer be mixed with boys
From ashes he saw
This Secondary Modern School
Mushroom
Into a modern super market
Were
His old secondary school was demolished in 198?
Unlike
Our old red fortified school
Which still stands to this day
For learning
Was a social event
For your father
School
Was a decathlon of hurdles
If he liked the subject
He excelled
If he liked the teacher
He excelled
If he liked both
He won a gold medal
Often
Like many of his mates
He dropped the baton
At the age of eleven
Plus
He failed
To connect
Or transfer
Learning to life
Was left
Later on in his life
He left his forth year form
At the age of fifteen
Leaving
The English educational system
To access his future academic potential
For the Future
The past had meaning
Our school neighborhood
Was unique because of Arnot Streets antiquated school
It linked
Itself with the terraced houses from the late ninetieth century
Built by a Welsh builder
William Owen Elias
Named all his streets from each letter of his name
I
Was born in Ismay Street
My younger sister Quennie
Lived in Lind Street
Next to my mom’s on Ismay Street
My oldest brother Charley lived on Askin Street
All close to our school on Arnot Street
I
Was the eldest of four sisters
Charley
Was the eldest of all my siblings
Eight children was enough
Which was fine for my matriarchal mother
But not for my humble
Dad
Was a Docker (when not on the dole)
He loved the horses
He loved a pint (or two)
He loved us
A diminutive gentleman with a musical smile
He would spin yarns
With his silken tongue
He would rattle his false teeth
While playing his silver spoons
He would jiggle a jig
Where he would dance around the small living room
Like a whimsical kid
Making his grandchildren laugh
Like a pot bellied pig
Your dad would love Grandma’s
Home made golden chips
And her crusty Lyle's Golden Syrup buttys
She was a sweetie
With a sweetened smile that would stretch a mile
But watch out
This portly woman could give you a backhanded clout
If you mess around
You don’t want to be around
Her small spotless home
Was shattered
On Saturday Afternoon
Crowds of chants
Echoed the house
From across Goodison Park
The Evertonian Football
Fans
Fanned the streets in rosettes and ribbons
Blue and white scarves
Passed
Her spotless window
Rattled with the roar of the football crowd
Fans
Fanned the streets in rosettes and ribbons
Red and white scarves
Passed
Her windows
Steamed with spirit
As fans fanned back home from the local
Football match
On Sunday Morning
My four brothers would replay the bloody football game
After they had a Sunday pint or two
My mom’s homey house was split
Into
Red and Blue
Two on Two
My four brothers would split
Sunday morning into a fight or two
Where they would sing their praise
If
Their football team won
If
Their football team lost
We would all hear about it
The sermon of the day
Do not contribute
To their discussion
Do not become a pious iconoclast
Because attacking football
Is like attacking the Holy Grail (Billy Liddell or Dickey Dean)
And in doing so
You will be branded as a heretic
And in your martyrdom
You will be transferred to purgatory
With a red card
You will serve your penance in a cloistered box
Traded
With insults
You hope to save the day
When the whistle blows
Thank God
End of play
Shoot out
Your opinion
If you know how to play the game
Follow the rules
Know the players
And the old boys club
Then you will be all right
Jack
My Brother
Confided
That I should not confess my opinion
On this hallowed game of football
After all
I am woman
Bless you
My brothers
Jack
And Joe
Would love to joke and tease your dad on those Sunday mornings
Sad to say
My oldest brother
Charley
Passed away
Before he got to know your dad
Jack
And Joe
Close in age
Different in temperament
Same in spirit
Passed away
In their mid fifties
Only my younger brother
Norman
Is alive today
But not so close to our family
I am sorry to say
But Aunt Dot loves him in her own way
But Norman influenced you dad
In an unsuspecting way
Because he was in the Merchant Navy
In his younger day
Family Feuds
Should be forgiven
In fairness
Your dad has never been involved in one
He is too forgiving
And life is too short
So we must move on
With
Religion and Football
Hand in hand
With a 21 carat gold wedding band
Granddad and I
Got married in St. Luke’s Church
Bricked in red
It rose from tin
In 1901 it was built on the junction
Of City Road and Gladys Street
In blue
It rose from din
Of the football club which towers over
St. Luke’s Church
Sits
in the pen of the shaded football stand
With a roar of success
The church cried foul
When the toffee nose club
Wanted to sequester the churches property for the expansion of its
Stands
To this day
In the same place
St. Luke’s is a place to pray
While others watch
Football
At 3:00 p.m.
On Saturday afternoons
Weddings would often end with a celebratory roar of the blue crowd
And of course the traditional boo of the red one
After
Our wartime wedding ceremony
We strolled back to my mum’s house
With our three attendants
We had a small reception
Of tea and sarnies
Following
Our little do's
Granddad still dressed in his Kings Regiment blue
Me in my two-piece silver grey suit
Left
My mum
Hand in hand
We circled our hand with our golden wedding band
We walked to the Coliseum
A picture house a few streets away
From my mum’s
It was on City Road
Just down the road from St. Luke’s Church
Settled in our seats
We sat under a silver screen of rising stars
Starry eyed
Like two lovers from Casablanca
We watched the show
For Whom the Bells Toll
It tolled for the young soldiers
Death
Continued to take its toll on all
Those that lived through that tragic time
The celluloid of death continued to roll
Onto the path of World War Two
Reeled back to war
My rooster returned to his regiment
The Next Day
My dream left in navy blue khaki of mist
The Next Year
My dream had arrived in a skin of blue
Our son was born in the boom of battle
The Second World War ended
The Next Year
After
My husband was back
And thousands of other worn torn sods
Return
To Your Own Father
Less I forget
To tell you
He would come home from school
For dinner (you call it lunch)
He loved his brown Heinz beans
Soaked on toast
He loved his lemon pancakes
Rolled in sugar
He reeled with laughter
While filling his face with the Film Fun
Comic book
Not Dick and Jane
He learnt to read by reading the daily comic books
Not Dick and Jane
Those primary books only pricked him with pain
To see spot run was no fun
Boring
Back to school for the afternoon
After School
He would often make a detour
To Ted’s the sweet shop
Two long blocks to school
One short block from home
Location
Across the street
From the County pub (the Blue House)
Standing on the corner
Stuart
Smiled at you
A chewy smile
That stretched
Across a long bill board of war torn debris
Like a huge giant postcard
It greeted you with its Peppersdent
Smile
See its gum
Believe it or not
It was a long narrow billboard
And it has stood next to Ted’s Sweet Shop
Since
I can remember
Location
Stuart Road
Dragged on and on
So it seemed
To a small chubby little boy
It was drawn out
To the green reservoir park on Breeze Hill Road
Half way
It was relieved with an intersection
Bedford Road
Cornered
A pub of course
A fish and chip shop of course
A sweet shop of course
And a small little grocery shop of course
Bellemy met Stuart
Morris met Stuart
Margaret Road met Stuart
And Peter met Stuart
All of those streets were topped off with (posh) Southport
Road to the north
My resentful husband
Who would not meet his embittered father
Who lived just two streets away on Bellemy Road
Not once did he visit him
Not once did his father visit
Us
Just two short streets away
So on Sundays
He sent your dad to visit his other grand father
He did not like
To go
To visit his dad’s father
Was a somber ordeal
But he did get to know
His dad’s only sister
Aunt Nelly
A sisterly spinster who spent her spiritual life
Looking after
Her ungodly father
Died
Before either one of those two fractious men
Met
Across the brook able threshold
Location
Peter Road
Joined Stuart
With his family of five
Small shops
Face Ted’s Sweet Shop
The wood shop (bamboo canes hinged on love and hate)
The cobbler shop (soles stride on the heels of love)
The wireless shop (accumulators recharge the batteries of hope)
The wool shop (spools of souls spin on the threads of Thantos)
The grocery shop (trust rations love)
Five shops sit in front of Stuart
With their back to Peter
It opposes Christ
On the opposite corner
It baptizes Stuart
Like a rock
It is the corner stone for Peter
Submerged
Under a baptismal of sunshine
Its spiral shadow
Sprinkles its shade onto a small street of shop
Keepers
Surrounded
Its synoptic lot
Of smallness
Ted’s Sweetshop stood
On a wedge of debris
Like a lighthouse
Its brilliant sign beckoned
The children to its sweet call
Sheltered
Under the striped security of its shimmering shade
Awning
Attached
To its wary worn walls
Tall slim
Cream white tins
Grip the wall
Clinging
Coughing
Spitting out spearmint
Little juicy wads
Packaged in pink
White
Blocks
Drop
Down
Down
Down
Delivered
Into the eager fingers
Of grasping children
If
The arrow points towards
You
Get two
For the price of one penny
If
The guttural delivery does not appear
Check
Up
Its open mouth
It might be gaged
Put a finger up its throat
Blocked
Stuffed
Choked with wads of paper
No gum
Chum
That’s how your dad got his gum
When he didn’t have a penny
He pulled off the same caper in the red public telephone box
Stuffed
Returned
Box
His ears
If I caught the little bugger
Blocking up the return box
Again
Outside
Ted’s Sweet Shop entrance
It stood
Like a Grenadier Guard
Standing
In solitary
Upright
Tall
Stiff
Erect
Like a helmeted guard
Its balls
Gathered in a transparent bowl
Bubbled with balls
Its head is mounted onto a rigid pole of steel
A shaft
With a hand
Hold on to it
Touch it
Hold it
Twist and turn
The handles and see the bubbles
Begin to whirl and churn
When you stick a penny in its urn
Socket
When you turn its sprocket
Watch them sperm
In their bubble bath urn
Out pops gum
You lucky chum
You won a prize too
But not a bubble car
That’s much too big
For this bubble jar
Ted’s Sweet Shop
Is in a grain of Windsor Green
Wood
Glass
Pane
Hidden
Under a screen of cream enamel
Which had started to shed a tear
Peeling
Off the darkness
It scrolled in the light
Enticed
Into its emporium
Of Dickinson delight
You enter into its bountiful
Light
Scurries and shuttles
Into the granaries of its darkness
Shafts
Sweep the sunshine into scoops of spectrum
Scrubbed of darkness
Light
Silently strokes the shop with its soft-hued sweetness
Enshrined
Into a showcase of glass
Bottled
In a bath of brilliance
Light
Bathes in a prismatic parade of bright-colored
Lemonade
Lime
Cream soda
Orange
White
Dandelion and Burdock
Scholfields Sarsaparilla
Black
As a vested golliwog
Bottles
And bottles
Lined up on the side
Wall
To wall
Stacked to the ceiling
Too tall
For the small
It was a rainbow
Shelved
With sheerness
It tiered
With placidity
Jars
And jars
Huge
And small
Stacked in
Stacked on
Top the glass counter
Crystal choirboys
Singing their sweetness
In a chorus of color
Topped
With silver
Twist and turn
Spin the sweet smell
Of sweetness from its sheen
Shell
Sheer
Delight
Filled with the fleeing fragrance of frosted
Mint
Chocolate
Sweet
Selection
Dancing
Dolly mixtures
Jitterbug with jujube
Jelly babies
Twist with all sorts of assorted licorices
Smarties
And sweeties
Tap dance with almond
Mint
Pear drops
Fall
Into a clattering cartwheel of constant chatter
A canter of color
Scooped
From their pudgy glass house
Into a silver scale of sweetness
Scooped
Into a white paper tent bag
All for tuppence
And more
If you weren’t poor
Below
The glass counter
Facing the door
Bars
Bathed in cream of chocolate
Lying under a counter of transparency
Stretched
Under a mint glass of crystal
Cream
Cadbury chocolates map the counter
Brazil
Nuts
And raisin bars
Orbit with Mars
Bars
Fry’s and Row trees
A constellation of chocolate stars
Line up
Clustered together
In a sweet street of quality
There is quantity in this Milky Way
A Bounty of surprises
From the Turkish
There is delight
From the Maltese
We have balls
Of bubbles in the Aero
Bars
Bars
Bars
Roll and rock with Rollo
And his band of chocolate stars
Inside
On the other side
Of this horse-shaped sweet shop
Counter
Displays
A Tantalus of curios filled with sweets
Nudge the nose
Smear the glass
With your pain
Much too small
You must be over three feet
Tall
Children look down
Onto a glass counter
Filled
With a hodgepodge of this and that
Satellite
Sputums of salivary swiveling sucking spectra
Spinning
Changing colors
Sitting
In a gob of salivation
Spittle
To spit out change
Lollypops
Circulate the counter in a cartwheel of color
Sticks
Of wood that chew up the day
Sticks
Of apples trickled with treacle
Sticks
Of rock centered with chocolate
Sticks
Of liquorice that smoke up the night
In a pack of play and a pack for the day
Candy cigarettes
Makes you the Daddy of the day
Everton Toffee
Jumbo toffee
Toffee apples
Toffee sweets
Toffee treacle treats
In a mish mash of rainbow boxes
All filled with assorted sweets
Mint
Pink
Flat
Enshrined
In a clean crisp cut wrapper
Gum
Enveloped
Mint conditioned cards
Football players and movie stars
A collection of cards
Sorted
Swabbed
Saved
And stored in a shrine of spearmint
Half filled
Half empty
Point
Of view
Polo
The mint with the hole
Peppermint or fruit
Lets in light
Sherbet
Packed or loose
Nougat
White as a bone
There sits Ted
On a high chair throne
But let’s leave him there
For awhile
His back to the counter
Choking up the wall
Bricks
Of cartons
Tart up the shelves with tartaric
Cigarettes
Players Please
Woodbines for the old sod
One loosey
I have a craven for a Camel
A pack of Rize love
Thank Pall
A mall of pipe tobacco
Coined in pillars
Stacked in silver
Tins
Filled with tobacco
Tins
Stored in silver
Empty of tobacco
Hidden in treasure
Tins
Lives
Stored memories
In a little sweet shop on smokers alley
Where all the shelves are filled
With Jetsam and Flotsam
Sandwiched
Between two wafers thin
Walls
Divided
It stands
Like a creamy white brick
At the far end of smokers alley
Cream
And cold
It shivers and shakes
Singing
Its song
It purrs with pleasure
Walls
Frosted and filled with the flavor of fragrant fruits
Sticked and bricked
Iced
With red
White and blue
Centers
Creamed under a glazed shell of frozen Neapolitan
Orange
Lime
Cherry
Peppermint
A penny for an ice-lolly
And three pence for a cream one
On the far side
On the fringe
Of the sweet shop
In the corner
Like little Jack Horner
The children would sit
Under a cone of comics
The wire-rusted reel
Spun with smiles
Beano
Dandy
Topped
Filled with fun
Rover
Tiger
Unfolds a prize
Filled with a bang
It zaps out a surprise
Practical jokes
With black ink plots
That blotted the books
With teachers dirty looks
Illusion
A comic a day
Five days a weeks
Fresh
Mint crisp comics
Delivered to your dad (courtesy of me)
Before breakfast
He would sit and read
With his tea and toast
For tuppence a day
He lived the Life of Riley (sorry Mr. Bendix)
Bubbles
Of characters
Floated around his fanciful head
While ideas popped out
His brain would open up
Like a chimerical can of laughter
Bursting
On cue
He would often create his own comic characters
Drawing the day away
With his own imagination
Enjoying
The whimsical world of humor
And the laughter of its message
Comics
Was a relief
And being an only child
His imagination was his best friend
Newspapers
Heaped in piles
Displayed
On the top of the class counter
Beside the counter
Under the counter
Papers mirrored the world
With the echo of the times
Sitting under the sun
Tit
Bits of gossip
Headlined the daily’s
With titillation
Nudes and floozies
Paraded on the pages of the paper
People
Did not express disgust
Times
Were different
When I was young
The press uncovered facts
Not a banner of big breasted boobs
Of course
It did not bother your father
He had seen it all
So he thought
After all he was a paperboy
Two years
Two times a day
Seven days a week
The little sod delivered newspapers
Of course
The little bugger fibbed about his age
When he applied for his paperboy job
He was ten
He should have been eleven
He worked very hard
Saved money (too bad that habit stopped)
And many a time he treated me with it (that habit has slowed down)
Who was the overlord
Of this sweet Emporium
Ted
Sweet Ted
Sat on a stool
Between the glass counter
And the bric-a-brac wall of Flotsam and Jetsam
A phantom of light
Filtered from the painted pane
Marking
The right side of his face with a bold softness
Slumped in shadow
He stooped on a stool of steel
Rotund
His body wedged the width of the little shops cozy corridor
Like an emollient walrus
His girth slumbered onto the ice glass counter
Domed
His naked head
Mooned the shape of his face
Luminous
Ted
Illuminated warmth
As he cozies into the corner of his corridor
Out of the shadow
His round face cracked like dawn
Burnished
With light
He rose from the nigrescent counter
Like a lucent sun
He emitted an opalescence of warmth
Softened
With a smile
He beamed you in
With his ephemeral world of his sweet emporium
Piped in
With a wave
Of wafting gray tobacco smoke
He would sit there
In its piquant wake
Vested
In his white shirt
He wore a blue (Evertonion) tie
Where it rippled
Onto his bay sized stomach
Where it rested
And berthed
In the lull of luxury
Sweet
Ted
Would invite you to sit
On the old silver gray orange box
Worn and warm
Sheened in the shadows
Tethered to the light
It stood
In front of the corner
Like an icon
It was a child’s delight
To sit on the saddle of its sunlight
Warm
Hearted
Ted
Teased your dad
With his endearing humor
He loved to laugh and joke
With him
They were formidable foils
Who baited each other with a barb and pip?
Until
Smoke singled a truce
Choking into his peace pipe
Ted coughed with a wheeze of whistling
Laughter
Resonated
Your dad’s belly into a barrel of bubbling tears
Swish
Pipe down
Bitterness swept in
The Lemon Face Lady
Appeared
From behind the closed curtain
Which closed off the public
From they’re upstairs living quarters
Entering
The sweet shop in a state of sourness
Puce lips
Puckered into a lemon slice smile
Eyes
Piped in darkness
She scours the shop with sharpness
Face
A cheerless oval
Scrunches and stretches
Into a red fold of frigid frowning flesh
Pellucid skin
Scoured and scraped into a rash of red
Pink
Skin
Bristled with rawness
She was enameled with bitterness
There was no trace of hair
It was always hidden under a scarf
Like a bilious turban
The scarf wrapped around her hairless crown
Tight
And taut
Like a tourniquet
Trying
To Squeeze out a smile
She would greet you with her sharp tongue
A bulbous nose
Squats onto her souring face
Sniffing around the sweet shop
She brooded like a pugnacious pug
Scowling
She haunches her five foot wiry frame
Around the counter like an unstrung ferret
Shunning customers
With her sullenness
She serves them with her sour tongue
Flicking
Stopping
Only to shunt sweetness
Into the sweet silos of her saturnine shop
Swish
Pipe up
Bitterness swept out
The Lemon Lady
Disappeared
Into the dark curtains of her despondency
Exiting
The sweet shop in a state of sweetness
To this very day
Your dad has not been informed
About Sweet Ted and the Lemon Lady’s private life
Nor does he want to know
With anonymity
He can always revisit this junction of his childhood
Sweetshop
A taste of the times
Memories
To savor
In a translucent wrapper of tinsel
He can hold onto its sweetness
And from time to time
He will unwrap the darkness
And rediscover the core of its bittersweet
Center
Of course
I know Ted and Maureen (The Lemon Lady)
Very well
After all
I was their scullion
For awhile
I also served behind the sweet counter
Much to your dad’s proud delight
And I saw
Sweet Ted and the Lemon Lady
As compatible companions
Of conflicting contradictions
That created a loving relationship
That was bittersweet
Skip
Back To Peter Road
Pass
The five little neighborhood shops
Turn
The corner
To the Baptist
Church
Where your father was submerged into a Life Boy
He wore a nice navy blue uniform
He did look smart in his flat round black sailor hat
But the little bugger
Would toss it around the road like a bloody Frisbee
Mind you
He never did graduate to the Boys Brigade
Never a soldier
Too much his own drummer
And
Him
And
His foolhardy mate
Brian
Got expelled from Sunday school
God knows
What for
But I do know the Minister
Brought them to his vestry for a sermon
Believe it or not
When he left the church
Your dad received a leather bound bible
Wine skin red with his initials embossed in gilded gold
I must confess
I did tilt the minister’s ear
With my own interpretation of the Prodigal Son
Brian
He got a bloody black plain bible
No gilt for him
God only knows what was inscribed for him
But you can be bloody sure
It will not be gilded in gold
Let’s
Ruffle the Liver Birds
Back
From their nap
Let’s take a trip to the Liver Birds home
To the Peirhead
Terminal
Looking at her grandson
Eyes
Set with a smile
She motioned him towards her
You would like a solo ride on Shu
Eyes
Closed with a smile
Open your mind
Turn on your imagination
And throttle your dreams into overdrive
Mounting onto Shus feathered green back
He held on tightly to his bronze green nape
Where his imagination
Flew
On a jet stream of impulsion
Propelled
Into a carom of driving
Force
Assaulting the air
Breaking
Speed
Racked with joy
Exploding with exhilaration
Pushed
Into shooting winds
Driven
Into chalk blue skies
Rolling
Banking
Intel corpulent cushions
Of rolling white clouds
Gliding
Spinning
On a blue baize of sweeping sky
Breaking
Colliding
Shattering the sunset with the speed of shifting
Sound
Bridges the barriers with sticks of speed
Shafting
Splitting
The shade with sunlight
Diving
Dropping
Into a descending downdraft
Falling
Hiding
Spirited into a stranded pocket of lacy air
Waiting
Praying
For a breath of air to pick you up
From your cloistered cord of stricken suspension
Shaken
Saved from his solo
Flight
Over
And onward
All of us to the Peirhead
Mount your birds
And let us fly
Leveled
It left a chalkboard of ashes
And like the phoenix
A brand new comprehensive school mushroomed from its blackness
Schools of students were boxed into an austere container of glass sterility
Classes of children
Boxed into a transparent tank of limited mobility
A comprehensive school built for boys
Only
The girls remained in the old fortified school
Built in 1958
Your dad was transferred to the new school
Much to the chagrin of the girls
The classes would no longer be mixed with boys
From ashes he saw
This Secondary Modern School
Mushroom
Into a modern super market
Were
His old secondary school was demolished in 198?
Unlike
Our old red fortified school
Which still stands to this day
For learning
Was a social event
For your father
School
Was a decathlon of hurdles
If he liked the subject
He excelled
If he liked the teacher
He excelled
If he liked both
He won a gold medal
Often
Like many of his mates
He dropped the baton
At the age of eleven
Plus
He failed
To connect
Or transfer
Learning to life
Was left
Later on in his life
He left his forth year form
At the age of fifteen
Leaving
The English educational system
To access his future academic potential
For the Future
The past had meaning
Our school neighborhood
Was unique because of Arnot Streets antiquated school
It linked
Itself with the terraced houses from the late ninetieth century
Built by a Welsh builder
William Owen Elias
Named all his streets from each letter of his name
I
Was born in Ismay Street
My younger sister Quennie
Lived in Lind Street
Next to my mom’s on Ismay Street
My oldest brother Charley lived on Askin Street
All close to our school on Arnot Street
I
Was the eldest of four sisters
Charley
Was the eldest of all my siblings
Eight children was enough
Which was fine for my matriarchal mother
But not for my humble
Dad
Was a Docker (when not on the dole)
He loved the horses
He loved a pint (or two)
He loved us
A diminutive gentleman with a musical smile
He would spin yarns
With his silken tongue
He would rattle his false teeth
While playing his silver spoons
He would jiggle a jig
Where he would dance around the small living room
Like a whimsical kid
Making his grandchildren laugh
Like a pot bellied pig
Your dad would love Grandma’s
Home made golden chips
And her crusty Lyle's Golden Syrup buttys
She was a sweetie
With a sweetened smile that would stretch a mile
But watch out
This portly woman could give you a backhanded clout
If you mess around
You don’t want to be around
Her small spotless home
Was shattered
On Saturday Afternoon
Crowds of chants
Echoed the house
From across Goodison Park
The Evertonian Football
Fans
Fanned the streets in rosettes and ribbons
Blue and white scarves
Passed
Her spotless window
Rattled with the roar of the football crowd
Fans
Fanned the streets in rosettes and ribbons
Red and white scarves
Passed
Her windows
Steamed with spirit
As fans fanned back home from the local
Football match
On Sunday Morning
My four brothers would replay the bloody football game
After they had a Sunday pint or two
My mom’s homey house was split
Into
Red and Blue
Two on Two
My four brothers would split
Sunday morning into a fight or two
Where they would sing their praise
If
Their football team won
If
Their football team lost
We would all hear about it
The sermon of the day
Do not contribute
To their discussion
Do not become a pious iconoclast
Because attacking football
Is like attacking the Holy Grail (Billy Liddell or Dickey Dean)
And in doing so
You will be branded as a heretic
And in your martyrdom
You will be transferred to purgatory
With a red card
You will serve your penance in a cloistered box
Traded
With insults
You hope to save the day
When the whistle blows
Thank God
End of play
Shoot out
Your opinion
If you know how to play the game
Follow the rules
Know the players
And the old boys club
Then you will be all right
Jack
My Brother
Confided
That I should not confess my opinion
On this hallowed game of football
After all
I am woman
Bless you
My brothers
Jack
And Joe
Would love to joke and tease your dad on those Sunday mornings
Sad to say
My oldest brother
Charley
Passed away
Before he got to know your dad
Jack
And Joe
Close in age
Different in temperament
Same in spirit
Passed away
In their mid fifties
Only my younger brother
Norman
Is alive today
But not so close to our family
I am sorry to say
But Aunt Dot loves him in her own way
But Norman influenced you dad
In an unsuspecting way
Because he was in the Merchant Navy
In his younger day
Family Feuds
Should be forgiven
In fairness
Your dad has never been involved in one
He is too forgiving
And life is too short
So we must move on
With
Religion and Football
Hand in hand
With a 21 carat gold wedding band
Granddad and I
Got married in St. Luke’s Church
Bricked in red
It rose from tin
In 1901 it was built on the junction
Of City Road and Gladys Street
In blue
It rose from din
Of the football club which towers over
St. Luke’s Church
Sits
in the pen of the shaded football stand
With a roar of success
The church cried foul
When the toffee nose club
Wanted to sequester the churches property for the expansion of its
Stands
To this day
In the same place
St. Luke’s is a place to pray
While others watch
Football
At 3:00 p.m.
On Saturday afternoons
Weddings would often end with a celebratory roar of the blue crowd
And of course the traditional boo of the red one
After
Our wartime wedding ceremony
We strolled back to my mum’s house
With our three attendants
We had a small reception
Of tea and sarnies
Following
Our little do's
Granddad still dressed in his Kings Regiment blue
Me in my two-piece silver grey suit
Left
My mum
Hand in hand
We circled our hand with our golden wedding band
We walked to the Coliseum
A picture house a few streets away
From my mum’s
It was on City Road
Just down the road from St. Luke’s Church
Settled in our seats
We sat under a silver screen of rising stars
Starry eyed
Like two lovers from Casablanca
We watched the show
For Whom the Bells Toll
It tolled for the young soldiers
Death
Continued to take its toll on all
Those that lived through that tragic time
The celluloid of death continued to roll
Onto the path of World War Two
Reeled back to war
My rooster returned to his regiment
The Next Day
My dream left in navy blue khaki of mist
The Next Year
My dream had arrived in a skin of blue
Our son was born in the boom of battle
The Second World War ended
The Next Year
After
My husband was back
And thousands of other worn torn sods
Return
To Your Own Father
Less I forget
To tell you
He would come home from school
For dinner (you call it lunch)
He loved his brown Heinz beans
Soaked on toast
He loved his lemon pancakes
Rolled in sugar
He reeled with laughter
While filling his face with the Film Fun
Comic book
Not Dick and Jane
He learnt to read by reading the daily comic books
Not Dick and Jane
Those primary books only pricked him with pain
To see spot run was no fun
Boring
Back to school for the afternoon
After School
He would often make a detour
To Ted’s the sweet shop
Two long blocks to school
One short block from home
Location
Across the street
From the County pub (the Blue House)
Standing on the corner
Stuart
Smiled at you
A chewy smile
That stretched
Across a long bill board of war torn debris
Like a huge giant postcard
It greeted you with its Peppersdent
Smile
See its gum
Believe it or not
It was a long narrow billboard
And it has stood next to Ted’s Sweet Shop
Since
I can remember
Location
Stuart Road
Dragged on and on
So it seemed
To a small chubby little boy
It was drawn out
To the green reservoir park on Breeze Hill Road
Half way
It was relieved with an intersection
Bedford Road
Cornered
A pub of course
A fish and chip shop of course
A sweet shop of course
And a small little grocery shop of course
Bellemy met Stuart
Morris met Stuart
Margaret Road met Stuart
And Peter met Stuart
All of those streets were topped off with (posh) Southport
Road to the north
My resentful husband
Who would not meet his embittered father
Who lived just two streets away on Bellemy Road
Not once did he visit him
Not once did his father visit
Us
Just two short streets away
So on Sundays
He sent your dad to visit his other grand father
He did not like
To go
To visit his dad’s father
Was a somber ordeal
But he did get to know
His dad’s only sister
Aunt Nelly
A sisterly spinster who spent her spiritual life
Looking after
Her ungodly father
Died
Before either one of those two fractious men
Met
Across the brook able threshold
Location
Peter Road
Joined Stuart
With his family of five
Small shops
Face Ted’s Sweet Shop
The wood shop (bamboo canes hinged on love and hate)
The cobbler shop (soles stride on the heels of love)
The wireless shop (accumulators recharge the batteries of hope)
The wool shop (spools of souls spin on the threads of Thantos)
The grocery shop (trust rations love)
Five shops sit in front of Stuart
With their back to Peter
It opposes Christ
On the opposite corner
It baptizes Stuart
Like a rock
It is the corner stone for Peter
Submerged
Under a baptismal of sunshine
Its spiral shadow
Sprinkles its shade onto a small street of shop
Keepers
Surrounded
Its synoptic lot
Of smallness
Ted’s Sweetshop stood
On a wedge of debris
Like a lighthouse
Its brilliant sign beckoned
The children to its sweet call
Sheltered
Under the striped security of its shimmering shade
Awning
Attached
To its wary worn walls
Tall slim
Cream white tins
Grip the wall
Clinging
Coughing
Spitting out spearmint
Little juicy wads
Packaged in pink
White
Blocks
Drop
Down
Down
Down
Delivered
Into the eager fingers
Of grasping children
If
The arrow points towards
You
Get two
For the price of one penny
If
The guttural delivery does not appear
Check
Up
Its open mouth
It might be gaged
Put a finger up its throat
Blocked
Stuffed
Choked with wads of paper
No gum
Chum
That’s how your dad got his gum
When he didn’t have a penny
He pulled off the same caper in the red public telephone box
Stuffed
Returned
Box
His ears
If I caught the little bugger
Blocking up the return box
Again
Outside
Ted’s Sweet Shop entrance
It stood
Like a Grenadier Guard
Standing
In solitary
Upright
Tall
Stiff
Erect
Like a helmeted guard
Its balls
Gathered in a transparent bowl
Bubbled with balls
Its head is mounted onto a rigid pole of steel
A shaft
With a hand
Hold on to it
Touch it
Hold it
Twist and turn
The handles and see the bubbles
Begin to whirl and churn
When you stick a penny in its urn
Socket
When you turn its sprocket
Watch them sperm
In their bubble bath urn
Out pops gum
You lucky chum
You won a prize too
But not a bubble car
That’s much too big
For this bubble jar
Ted’s Sweet Shop
Is in a grain of Windsor Green
Wood
Glass
Pane
Hidden
Under a screen of cream enamel
Which had started to shed a tear
Peeling
Off the darkness
It scrolled in the light
Enticed
Into its emporium
Of Dickinson delight
You enter into its bountiful
Light
Scurries and shuttles
Into the granaries of its darkness
Shafts
Sweep the sunshine into scoops of spectrum
Scrubbed of darkness
Light
Silently strokes the shop with its soft-hued sweetness
Enshrined
Into a showcase of glass
Bottled
In a bath of brilliance
Light
Bathes in a prismatic parade of bright-colored
Lemonade
Lime
Cream soda
Orange
White
Dandelion and Burdock
Scholfields Sarsaparilla
Black
As a vested golliwog
Bottles
And bottles
Lined up on the side
Wall
To wall
Stacked to the ceiling
Too tall
For the small
It was a rainbow
Shelved
With sheerness
It tiered
With placidity
Jars
And jars
Huge
And small
Stacked in
Stacked on
Top the glass counter
Crystal choirboys
Singing their sweetness
In a chorus of color
Topped
With silver
Twist and turn
Spin the sweet smell
Of sweetness from its sheen
Shell
Sheer
Delight
Filled with the fleeing fragrance of frosted
Mint
Chocolate
Sweet
Selection
Dancing
Dolly mixtures
Jitterbug with jujube
Jelly babies
Twist with all sorts of assorted licorices
Smarties
And sweeties
Tap dance with almond
Mint
Pear drops
Fall
Into a clattering cartwheel of constant chatter
A canter of color
Scooped
From their pudgy glass house
Into a silver scale of sweetness
Scooped
Into a white paper tent bag
All for tuppence
And more
If you weren’t poor
Below
The glass counter
Facing the door
Bars
Bathed in cream of chocolate
Lying under a counter of transparency
Stretched
Under a mint glass of crystal
Cream
Cadbury chocolates map the counter
Brazil
Nuts
And raisin bars
Orbit with Mars
Bars
Fry’s and Row trees
A constellation of chocolate stars
Line up
Clustered together
In a sweet street of quality
There is quantity in this Milky Way
A Bounty of surprises
From the Turkish
There is delight
From the Maltese
We have balls
Of bubbles in the Aero
Bars
Bars
Bars
Roll and rock with Rollo
And his band of chocolate stars
Inside
On the other side
Of this horse-shaped sweet shop
Counter
Displays
A Tantalus of curios filled with sweets
Nudge the nose
Smear the glass
With your pain
Much too small
You must be over three feet
Tall
Children look down
Onto a glass counter
Filled
With a hodgepodge of this and that
Satellite
Sputums of salivary swiveling sucking spectra
Spinning
Changing colors
Sitting
In a gob of salivation
Spittle
To spit out change
Lollypops
Circulate the counter in a cartwheel of color
Sticks
Of wood that chew up the day
Sticks
Of apples trickled with treacle
Sticks
Of rock centered with chocolate
Sticks
Of liquorice that smoke up the night
In a pack of play and a pack for the day
Candy cigarettes
Makes you the Daddy of the day
Everton Toffee
Jumbo toffee
Toffee apples
Toffee sweets
Toffee treacle treats
In a mish mash of rainbow boxes
All filled with assorted sweets
Mint
Pink
Flat
Enshrined
In a clean crisp cut wrapper
Gum
Enveloped
Mint conditioned cards
Football players and movie stars
A collection of cards
Sorted
Swabbed
Saved
And stored in a shrine of spearmint
Half filled
Half empty
Point
Of view
Polo
The mint with the hole
Peppermint or fruit
Lets in light
Sherbet
Packed or loose
Nougat
White as a bone
There sits Ted
On a high chair throne
But let’s leave him there
For awhile
His back to the counter
Choking up the wall
Bricks
Of cartons
Tart up the shelves with tartaric
Cigarettes
Players Please
Woodbines for the old sod
One loosey
I have a craven for a Camel
A pack of Rize love
Thank Pall
A mall of pipe tobacco
Coined in pillars
Stacked in silver
Tins
Filled with tobacco
Tins
Stored in silver
Empty of tobacco
Hidden in treasure
Tins
Lives
Stored memories
In a little sweet shop on smokers alley
Where all the shelves are filled
With Jetsam and Flotsam
Sandwiched
Between two wafers thin
Walls
Divided
It stands
Like a creamy white brick
At the far end of smokers alley
Cream
And cold
It shivers and shakes
Singing
Its song
It purrs with pleasure
Walls
Frosted and filled with the flavor of fragrant fruits
Sticked and bricked
Iced
With red
White and blue
Centers
Creamed under a glazed shell of frozen Neapolitan
Orange
Lime
Cherry
Peppermint
A penny for an ice-lolly
And three pence for a cream one
On the far side
On the fringe
Of the sweet shop
In the corner
Like little Jack Horner
The children would sit
Under a cone of comics
The wire-rusted reel
Spun with smiles
Beano
Dandy
Topped
Filled with fun
Rover
Tiger
Unfolds a prize
Filled with a bang
It zaps out a surprise
Practical jokes
With black ink plots
That blotted the books
With teachers dirty looks
Illusion
A comic a day
Five days a weeks
Fresh
Mint crisp comics
Delivered to your dad (courtesy of me)
Before breakfast
He would sit and read
With his tea and toast
For tuppence a day
He lived the Life of Riley (sorry Mr. Bendix)
Bubbles
Of characters
Floated around his fanciful head
While ideas popped out
His brain would open up
Like a chimerical can of laughter
Bursting
On cue
He would often create his own comic characters
Drawing the day away
With his own imagination
Enjoying
The whimsical world of humor
And the laughter of its message
Comics
Was a relief
And being an only child
His imagination was his best friend
Newspapers
Heaped in piles
Displayed
On the top of the class counter
Beside the counter
Under the counter
Papers mirrored the world
With the echo of the times
Sitting under the sun
Tit
Bits of gossip
Headlined the daily’s
With titillation
Nudes and floozies
Paraded on the pages of the paper
People
Did not express disgust
Times
Were different
When I was young
The press uncovered facts
Not a banner of big breasted boobs
Of course
It did not bother your father
He had seen it all
So he thought
After all he was a paperboy
Two years
Two times a day
Seven days a week
The little sod delivered newspapers
Of course
The little bugger fibbed about his age
When he applied for his paperboy job
He was ten
He should have been eleven
He worked very hard
Saved money (too bad that habit stopped)
And many a time he treated me with it (that habit has slowed down)
Who was the overlord
Of this sweet Emporium
Ted
Sweet Ted
Sat on a stool
Between the glass counter
And the bric-a-brac wall of Flotsam and Jetsam
A phantom of light
Filtered from the painted pane
Marking
The right side of his face with a bold softness
Slumped in shadow
He stooped on a stool of steel
Rotund
His body wedged the width of the little shops cozy corridor
Like an emollient walrus
His girth slumbered onto the ice glass counter
Domed
His naked head
Mooned the shape of his face
Luminous
Ted
Illuminated warmth
As he cozies into the corner of his corridor
Out of the shadow
His round face cracked like dawn
Burnished
With light
He rose from the nigrescent counter
Like a lucent sun
He emitted an opalescence of warmth
Softened
With a smile
He beamed you in
With his ephemeral world of his sweet emporium
Piped in
With a wave
Of wafting gray tobacco smoke
He would sit there
In its piquant wake
Vested
In his white shirt
He wore a blue (Evertonion) tie
Where it rippled
Onto his bay sized stomach
Where it rested
And berthed
In the lull of luxury
Sweet
Ted
Would invite you to sit
On the old silver gray orange box
Worn and warm
Sheened in the shadows
Tethered to the light
It stood
In front of the corner
Like an icon
It was a child’s delight
To sit on the saddle of its sunlight
Warm
Hearted
Ted
Teased your dad
With his endearing humor
He loved to laugh and joke
With him
They were formidable foils
Who baited each other with a barb and pip?
Until
Smoke singled a truce
Choking into his peace pipe
Ted coughed with a wheeze of whistling
Laughter
Resonated
Your dad’s belly into a barrel of bubbling tears
Swish
Pipe down
Bitterness swept in
The Lemon Face Lady
Appeared
From behind the closed curtain
Which closed off the public
From they’re upstairs living quarters
Entering
The sweet shop in a state of sourness
Puce lips
Puckered into a lemon slice smile
Eyes
Piped in darkness
She scours the shop with sharpness
Face
A cheerless oval
Scrunches and stretches
Into a red fold of frigid frowning flesh
Pellucid skin
Scoured and scraped into a rash of red
Pink
Skin
Bristled with rawness
She was enameled with bitterness
There was no trace of hair
It was always hidden under a scarf
Like a bilious turban
The scarf wrapped around her hairless crown
Tight
And taut
Like a tourniquet
Trying
To Squeeze out a smile
She would greet you with her sharp tongue
A bulbous nose
Squats onto her souring face
Sniffing around the sweet shop
She brooded like a pugnacious pug
Scowling
She haunches her five foot wiry frame
Around the counter like an unstrung ferret
Shunning customers
With her sullenness
She serves them with her sour tongue
Flicking
Stopping
Only to shunt sweetness
Into the sweet silos of her saturnine shop
Swish
Pipe up
Bitterness swept out
The Lemon Lady
Disappeared
Into the dark curtains of her despondency
Exiting
The sweet shop in a state of sweetness
To this very day
Your dad has not been informed
About Sweet Ted and the Lemon Lady’s private life
Nor does he want to know
With anonymity
He can always revisit this junction of his childhood
Sweetshop
A taste of the times
Memories
To savor
In a translucent wrapper of tinsel
He can hold onto its sweetness
And from time to time
He will unwrap the darkness
And rediscover the core of its bittersweet
Center
Of course
I know Ted and Maureen (The Lemon Lady)
Very well
After all
I was their scullion
For awhile
I also served behind the sweet counter
Much to your dad’s proud delight
And I saw
Sweet Ted and the Lemon Lady
As compatible companions
Of conflicting contradictions
That created a loving relationship
That was bittersweet
Skip
Back To Peter Road
Pass
The five little neighborhood shops
Turn
The corner
To the Baptist
Church
Where your father was submerged into a Life Boy
He wore a nice navy blue uniform
He did look smart in his flat round black sailor hat
But the little bugger
Would toss it around the road like a bloody Frisbee
Mind you
He never did graduate to the Boys Brigade
Never a soldier
Too much his own drummer
And
Him
And
His foolhardy mate
Brian
Got expelled from Sunday school
God knows
What for
But I do know the Minister
Brought them to his vestry for a sermon
Believe it or not
When he left the church
Your dad received a leather bound bible
Wine skin red with his initials embossed in gilded gold
I must confess
I did tilt the minister’s ear
With my own interpretation of the Prodigal Son
Brian
He got a bloody black plain bible
No gilt for him
God only knows what was inscribed for him
But you can be bloody sure
It will not be gilded in gold
Let’s
Ruffle the Liver Birds
Back
From their nap
Let’s take a trip to the Liver Birds home
To the Peirhead
Terminal
Looking at her grandson
Eyes
Set with a smile
She motioned him towards her
You would like a solo ride on Shu
Eyes
Closed with a smile
Open your mind
Turn on your imagination
And throttle your dreams into overdrive
Mounting onto Shus feathered green back
He held on tightly to his bronze green nape
Where his imagination
Flew
On a jet stream of impulsion
Propelled
Into a carom of driving
Force
Assaulting the air
Breaking
Speed
Racked with joy
Exploding with exhilaration
Pushed
Into shooting winds
Driven
Into chalk blue skies
Rolling
Banking
Intel corpulent cushions
Of rolling white clouds
Gliding
Spinning
On a blue baize of sweeping sky
Breaking
Colliding
Shattering the sunset with the speed of shifting
Sound
Bridges the barriers with sticks of speed
Shafting
Splitting
The shade with sunlight
Diving
Dropping
Into a descending downdraft
Falling
Hiding
Spirited into a stranded pocket of lacy air
Waiting
Praying
For a breath of air to pick you up
From your cloistered cord of stricken suspension
Shaken
Saved from his solo
Flight
Over
And onward
All of us to the Peirhead
Mount your birds
And let us fly
Friday, November 14, 2008
You feel its radiant warmth
You sense its burning pain
You reach out
But
If
You get to close
It will lure you
Into its kindled touch
Leaving you
With its captivated passion
A lucid
Screen
Blacks out the flickering light
From the glowing hearth
Stepping back
From its red-hot embers
You watch
Your reflection
Consume
Itself
Into a mantle of darkness
There are no colored paintings
On the wall
Picture plates emboss the sideboards walled backdrop
Flowered in flight
Circling the wall
In a brass of golden light
Pure delight
If you like two brass plate headlights
Steering at you
In the middle of the night
Shadows
Mantled into darkness
As embers turn to ash
Leaving
A large white tea mug
Alone
A silhouette
Eclipsed into the fading light
Resting on top of a tiled mantle piece
Waiting to be refilled
With starlight
The living room empties its blackness
As light enters
Into the Kitchen
The sash window pulls up its weighted cords
And pushes in the passable air
From the small concrete backyard
The sun
Cements its warmth
Onto the tiling of a linoleum floor
Tarragon in shape
With a Lilliputian
Look
A floury wooden table
Bleached to the bone
White
On white
Sugar granules crystallize
Into a blue bowl of rationed sun
Tarts
Tart-up
Into their tartan jam dress
Filled up with a pregnant swelling of strawberry sweetness
Salivation
Drools
From the marmalade man
As tartly tarts slip out
Of their buttery baking pan
Apple pies
Crusted in gold
Sit in peels
That is growing old
Curled
In cinnamon
Baked in brown
Sugar
Pampered and powdered
With a talcum of flour
Getting browner
Hour by hour
Roast Lamb
Emanates
From its rack of pain
Seethed
In flame
Baste in fat
All roasted
And garnished
Into a sassafras garden of savory
Spice and mint
Floats in a white sauce boat
Berthed
Around a moat
Of a linen white plate
Like a mummified Queen
Ladled
In mint
Glazed like sheen
It lies on an ocean
Of parsley green
On top of the gas cooker
In a wire cradle of melted batter
Chips
Turn to gold
In a deep fry
Of sizzle and chatter
Peas
Pop out of pods
As white broad beans jump
Into a colander of hot water
Carrot heads
Chopped and lopped
Like King James the Fifths
Daughter
My mom would say
Clean up the bloody mess
Were done for the day
The kitchen was a curry of activity
That peppered the season
With sage
And spice
The Lilliputian kitchen was a savory dish
For all things
That was pleasant and nice
Three Strides
And you were out
Into a one stride
Back kitchen
Sink and ringer
Washer
Bare
The brownish-yellow wall
Encased the little back kitchens
Backyard Door
Open
Follow
The clothesline
With its flagging washing
Hoisted up
With my flagging arms
Onto a flag pole
Were white sheets wave
Like a flag of truce
It flies in a windless wind of discontent
Separated
By six feet
Wall
High
And a flagrant next-door neighbor
Who would wish I were
Six feet
Under the
Wall
It
Violet
Had a tongue as fowl and sharp
As a revolutionary guillotine
She was a flageolet
Of flagellated abuse
Walled
In
And enclosed in
A six feet
Wall
Bordered
Bricked
In privacy
So we thought
Except
For the vomiting of my next-door neighbors vicious volubility
Aside
Vignette to Violet the Vixen
A vacuous
Vixen
Volatile and verbose
Hair
Vile red
With a vicious streak of amber grey
Face
Shit brown
Dotted
And spotted
In liver stretched skin
Hooking a venous nose
Long and thin
Virulent and vulgar
A vengeful virago
Who tossed
Virulent bathwater (not Vichy)
Over our backyard
Wall
A volley of verbiage
Poured over our vulnerable barrier
From our neighbor named
Violet
A Vixens Varmint
Beware
Of her vaunted varmint
Pet
Do not
Venture a visit
This violent beast
Is not vulpine
But vapid and vicious
Vexed
With vengeance
A vacuous creature
With a variable mind
No verve
Just vigilant
In it’s haunted
Vigil
A vigilante
With a villainous streak
Violent
And vindictive
If you are an uninvited visitor
It will become volatile
If you enter its vicinity
It will see your visibility
Caught
In its vitality
You may become the victim of its volatility
Filled with vituperation
It listens
To the vociferous commands of its master’s vexed voice
One cannot vouch for your safety
Therefore it will be of ones own volition
To come face to face with this violation
Its vantage point
Is its vulgar bullhead
Exploding
From its volcanic shoulders
It is suited in vulcanized brown skin
It stands astride like an inverted v
This vexations vulture will vanquish you with its voltaic stare
In a veil of vermilion flesh
It squats under a voluminous brown-black fold of vested authority
In a furor this vessel of darkness
Will verge into a furrow of furies
Teeth voltaic
Filled with velocity
This virulent creature
Could rip out your vitals
Trapped in its vortex
Its visceral hatred
Will turn towards its varying neighbor
And with a vitriolic growl
This vile villain will turn on you
Entrapped
In your visitation
You will become its virtual reality
Violent Varmint vs. Visiting Victim
You and your virile
Venture
Has caused you to vanquish the vicious beast
If you are victorious
And being a meritorious victor
You would have merited a Victorian Cross
Because of your vicarious power
You would have become the vicegerent of the hour
If you were the venturesome victim
And having not been victorious
But having died in valor
You will receive your viaticum
Being a valiant visitant
You will cross into Valhalla
And with veneration
The Valkyrie will sing
Your Valedictory
And then a veil of voices
Will vociferate your valediction
Vi-a-vie your victory will become a verso
In History
A vigilance committee will try to veto your notoriety
But with your vision much higher
Your spirit will fly higher
And your soul will be in Valkyri for eternity
With verbatim
And versification
Vote on the Verdict
This case is about V vs. V
Vote for one
The varmint or the victim for victory
Remember this case is built on vanity
Since we don’t have a venerator
To verify the true facts of this vanity case
We are asking you the viewing viewers
To verify the vapid facts
And to use your values to judge
The verities of this ventilating tale
V vs. V
Once the verdict is reached
We will assess and judge its valuation
Vox populi
Will conduct a vote on the vacillated case of
V vs. V
So don’t be vague be in vogue
And visit our website
Email your vote to Venialvengeance@vision.com
You
The validated viewer
Must vote
Your version on V vs. V
To determine who the victor is
Please feel free to volunteer your Varmint or Victim opinion on our show
The Vanishing Point
Of view
In view
Will return with our vivacious moderator
Barbara Valters who will
Tune in with today’s vista
Veda vs. Vulgate
Tomorrows topic will be Does Michael Jackson have Vitiligo
Or vertigo
Viva
Our vigil
Is to wait for your viewpoint
So voice your vote
And vote for V
That’s all from your local channel VPL
The Visa station
Were the viewer is the voyeur who turns on
And controls the volume
While we challenge your vision
With verisimilitude
Good day
Ineligible Voters for V vs. V
Vagrants
Virgins (vibrators not included)
Valets
Vegetarians
Velveteen rabbits
Vampires
Vietnamese (north)
Varlets
Villains
Visionaries
Visitants
Virile males with Vandyke beards
Virgo people
Votes Ineligible due to Conflict of Interest
Vultures
Ventriloquist
VIPS
Vamps
Vice President
Viceroy
Vicars
Vikings
Virgin Mary
Vergers
Vicar of Christ
Votaries
Veterinarians
Vigilante
Voyeurs
Vice Admirals
Vice squad
Vizler
Vishnu
Viscounts
Vivisectionist
Vlf
Viva the Viewer
Out of the Backyard
Into the entry
Down the entry
Into the adjacent entry
Pass
Black bomb debris of vacant death
Once a meadow of life
Now a billboard of death
Pass over
The phantoms of the past
Pause
And pray
The great big bomb
Did not blow your mom away
Over
Hale Road
Once cobbled with silver
Strands of steel
Now tarmacked with obscuration
Change
The tramcar
Had lost its spark
And its umbilical cord had been cut off
It could no longer survive without its lifeline
The Double Decker bus had now arrived
In a fleet of green it swept the city like a vacuum machine
Hale Road
Cornered County Road
With Threllfalls Ale House
Tiled in blue
An icon according to the local patrons
View
The County
A hop
Skip and jump away
From your Dad’s bedroom
The pungent whiff
Of beer wafted its merriment
As laughter brewed
Into salted songs
While darkness weaved
Droned and drowned
Into a drunken drowsiness
Good night Irene
Good night Irene
I’ll see you in my dreams
Around the pub’s corner
The sidewalks gutter was bordered in black
Back to back
Black on black
Rolls and Royce
Line up
A procession of praying prelates
Black
Ravens
Waiting for their corpse
Deaths deliverance
Thompson’s Funeral Home
Had the monopoly on Walton’s dead
Pass on
Bye
Pause
And pray
That the Black Rolls Royce
Does not take your mom away
A hop
Step away
Lay
Thompson’s Sweet Shop
Stop
And linger
Look
And salivate
Into a very large spotless window
Pyramids
Of chocolate
Displayed the window
With milk chocolate of mummified creams
No time to dream
Step away
From here
Lies a Lavatory
Public
Steps steep down from its street entrance
Dropping
It disappears into a dugout of darkness
Into the bowls
It banks its gray granite walls into the railways embankment
Desperate
And your dad had to be
To go
Down into a deep damp dungeon of dung
Where light drudged into a dunk hill of darkness
Down
It descended
Into a daunting dept of dampness
Nostrils
Nauseated with pain
Smells suffocated the sinus with its dribbling drips
Piss
Strangled your throat
With its urinated breath
With one hand on his dick
And one hand on his nose
Ho shook
In the guttered mossy urinal
As the roar of the train rattled the piss out of him
Rushing
Up slime dank steps
He would gasp
For air and light
And with a dicky heart
He would fasten the last button of his open
Fly
From the Public W.C.
Stop
And Look
For the Zebra
Crossing
County Road
With the Lolly Pop man
A very busy main road
And after all
He was only a short
Small Boy
With chubby little cheeky cheeks
His be speckled face popped out of his unruly green school
Tie
Knotted to a rosy-cheek of rotundity
Filled with freshness
His face bottled bold brown
Eyes
Magnified you
With his prismatic smile
He cheered with cheerfulness
His fair hair
Parted
To the left
In a waif of wild straw
Dressed
In a leaf green school blazer
Over
A chunky v-necked gray pullover
Under
A clean white disheveled shirt
Buttons hung on threads
As he battled with the bulge
Nevertheless
His endearing sense of humor peaked
Under a crested cap of Arnot Street green
A little bit scruffy
At times
His gray woolly knee socks
Slung down to his ankles like sluggish slinky
Scraped and scabbed
His knobby knees knuckled
Under his baggy gray short pants
A spirited scallywag
Scrubbed with softness
He strode with boldness
Like a Churchillian lion
He roared with confidence
Principled
But not privileged
He thought his battles
With individuality and independence
Making him very popular
With all his school mates
But
Not
With all his school masters
School Ahead
Arnot Street School
Built in 1884
The red school shaded the street with its sunset
Bricks
Fortified the whole school
With its bastion of learning
It called us
To our class
From its tall turreted bell tower
It rung
Our necks if we were late for school
Since 1884
All the Woods family would line up
At the Boys entrance
At the Girls entrance
Like
Long lines of railway sleepers
We stood outside our school
Wall
Where we waited for the whistle to call
Us to our classes
Barriers
Of bricks separated the little red steam train
From the backside hill of our big red school
Yard
Became a compound
For play
For prison
More like it
Great Auntie muttered
Like Peter Brough
She heaved a sigh
In a muffled voice
She acted like a dummy
In her awakening
She was not a learned scholar
But she did have the innate wisdom of a seasoned sage
Where common sense roosted in the lint of her nest
Laid back
She rolled her eyes
Back to sleep
Across
From the school
Shades of sunlight would shed its shaft onto a sidewalk of soulless shadows
On the school street
Rows of faceless houses
Once terraced the other side of Aronot Street
School
Once rung with the laughter of young children
As they played
A misguided bomb
Blitzed that side of Arnot Street into a rubble of blood red
Bricks
You sense its burning pain
You reach out
But
If
You get to close
It will lure you
Into its kindled touch
Leaving you
With its captivated passion
A lucid
Screen
Blacks out the flickering light
From the glowing hearth
Stepping back
From its red-hot embers
You watch
Your reflection
Consume
Itself
Into a mantle of darkness
There are no colored paintings
On the wall
Picture plates emboss the sideboards walled backdrop
Flowered in flight
Circling the wall
In a brass of golden light
Pure delight
If you like two brass plate headlights
Steering at you
In the middle of the night
Shadows
Mantled into darkness
As embers turn to ash
Leaving
A large white tea mug
Alone
A silhouette
Eclipsed into the fading light
Resting on top of a tiled mantle piece
Waiting to be refilled
With starlight
The living room empties its blackness
As light enters
Into the Kitchen
The sash window pulls up its weighted cords
And pushes in the passable air
From the small concrete backyard
The sun
Cements its warmth
Onto the tiling of a linoleum floor
Tarragon in shape
With a Lilliputian
Look
A floury wooden table
Bleached to the bone
White
On white
Sugar granules crystallize
Into a blue bowl of rationed sun
Tarts
Tart-up
Into their tartan jam dress
Filled up with a pregnant swelling of strawberry sweetness
Salivation
Drools
From the marmalade man
As tartly tarts slip out
Of their buttery baking pan
Apple pies
Crusted in gold
Sit in peels
That is growing old
Curled
In cinnamon
Baked in brown
Sugar
Pampered and powdered
With a talcum of flour
Getting browner
Hour by hour
Roast Lamb
Emanates
From its rack of pain
Seethed
In flame
Baste in fat
All roasted
And garnished
Into a sassafras garden of savory
Spice and mint
Floats in a white sauce boat
Berthed
Around a moat
Of a linen white plate
Like a mummified Queen
Ladled
In mint
Glazed like sheen
It lies on an ocean
Of parsley green
On top of the gas cooker
In a wire cradle of melted batter
Chips
Turn to gold
In a deep fry
Of sizzle and chatter
Peas
Pop out of pods
As white broad beans jump
Into a colander of hot water
Carrot heads
Chopped and lopped
Like King James the Fifths
Daughter
My mom would say
Clean up the bloody mess
Were done for the day
The kitchen was a curry of activity
That peppered the season
With sage
And spice
The Lilliputian kitchen was a savory dish
For all things
That was pleasant and nice
Three Strides
And you were out
Into a one stride
Back kitchen
Sink and ringer
Washer
Bare
The brownish-yellow wall
Encased the little back kitchens
Backyard Door
Open
Follow
The clothesline
With its flagging washing
Hoisted up
With my flagging arms
Onto a flag pole
Were white sheets wave
Like a flag of truce
It flies in a windless wind of discontent
Separated
By six feet
Wall
High
And a flagrant next-door neighbor
Who would wish I were
Six feet
Under the
Wall
It
Violet
Had a tongue as fowl and sharp
As a revolutionary guillotine
She was a flageolet
Of flagellated abuse
Walled
In
And enclosed in
A six feet
Wall
Bordered
Bricked
In privacy
So we thought
Except
For the vomiting of my next-door neighbors vicious volubility
Aside
Vignette to Violet the Vixen
A vacuous
Vixen
Volatile and verbose
Hair
Vile red
With a vicious streak of amber grey
Face
Shit brown
Dotted
And spotted
In liver stretched skin
Hooking a venous nose
Long and thin
Virulent and vulgar
A vengeful virago
Who tossed
Virulent bathwater (not Vichy)
Over our backyard
Wall
A volley of verbiage
Poured over our vulnerable barrier
From our neighbor named
Violet
A Vixens Varmint
Beware
Of her vaunted varmint
Pet
Do not
Venture a visit
This violent beast
Is not vulpine
But vapid and vicious
Vexed
With vengeance
A vacuous creature
With a variable mind
No verve
Just vigilant
In it’s haunted
Vigil
A vigilante
With a villainous streak
Violent
And vindictive
If you are an uninvited visitor
It will become volatile
If you enter its vicinity
It will see your visibility
Caught
In its vitality
You may become the victim of its volatility
Filled with vituperation
It listens
To the vociferous commands of its master’s vexed voice
One cannot vouch for your safety
Therefore it will be of ones own volition
To come face to face with this violation
Its vantage point
Is its vulgar bullhead
Exploding
From its volcanic shoulders
It is suited in vulcanized brown skin
It stands astride like an inverted v
This vexations vulture will vanquish you with its voltaic stare
In a veil of vermilion flesh
It squats under a voluminous brown-black fold of vested authority
In a furor this vessel of darkness
Will verge into a furrow of furies
Teeth voltaic
Filled with velocity
This virulent creature
Could rip out your vitals
Trapped in its vortex
Its visceral hatred
Will turn towards its varying neighbor
And with a vitriolic growl
This vile villain will turn on you
Entrapped
In your visitation
You will become its virtual reality
Violent Varmint vs. Visiting Victim
You and your virile
Venture
Has caused you to vanquish the vicious beast
If you are victorious
And being a meritorious victor
You would have merited a Victorian Cross
Because of your vicarious power
You would have become the vicegerent of the hour
If you were the venturesome victim
And having not been victorious
But having died in valor
You will receive your viaticum
Being a valiant visitant
You will cross into Valhalla
And with veneration
The Valkyrie will sing
Your Valedictory
And then a veil of voices
Will vociferate your valediction
Vi-a-vie your victory will become a verso
In History
A vigilance committee will try to veto your notoriety
But with your vision much higher
Your spirit will fly higher
And your soul will be in Valkyri for eternity
With verbatim
And versification
Vote on the Verdict
This case is about V vs. V
Vote for one
The varmint or the victim for victory
Remember this case is built on vanity
Since we don’t have a venerator
To verify the true facts of this vanity case
We are asking you the viewing viewers
To verify the vapid facts
And to use your values to judge
The verities of this ventilating tale
V vs. V
Once the verdict is reached
We will assess and judge its valuation
Vox populi
Will conduct a vote on the vacillated case of
V vs. V
So don’t be vague be in vogue
And visit our website
Email your vote to Venialvengeance@vision.com
You
The validated viewer
Must vote
Your version on V vs. V
To determine who the victor is
Please feel free to volunteer your Varmint or Victim opinion on our show
The Vanishing Point
Of view
In view
Will return with our vivacious moderator
Barbara Valters who will
Tune in with today’s vista
Veda vs. Vulgate
Tomorrows topic will be Does Michael Jackson have Vitiligo
Or vertigo
Viva
Our vigil
Is to wait for your viewpoint
So voice your vote
And vote for V
That’s all from your local channel VPL
The Visa station
Were the viewer is the voyeur who turns on
And controls the volume
While we challenge your vision
With verisimilitude
Good day
Ineligible Voters for V vs. V
Vagrants
Virgins (vibrators not included)
Valets
Vegetarians
Velveteen rabbits
Vampires
Vietnamese (north)
Varlets
Villains
Visionaries
Visitants
Virile males with Vandyke beards
Virgo people
Votes Ineligible due to Conflict of Interest
Vultures
Ventriloquist
VIPS
Vamps
Vice President
Viceroy
Vicars
Vikings
Virgin Mary
Vergers
Vicar of Christ
Votaries
Veterinarians
Vigilante
Voyeurs
Vice Admirals
Vice squad
Vizler
Vishnu
Viscounts
Vivisectionist
Vlf
Viva the Viewer
Out of the Backyard
Into the entry
Down the entry
Into the adjacent entry
Pass
Black bomb debris of vacant death
Once a meadow of life
Now a billboard of death
Pass over
The phantoms of the past
Pause
And pray
The great big bomb
Did not blow your mom away
Over
Hale Road
Once cobbled with silver
Strands of steel
Now tarmacked with obscuration
Change
The tramcar
Had lost its spark
And its umbilical cord had been cut off
It could no longer survive without its lifeline
The Double Decker bus had now arrived
In a fleet of green it swept the city like a vacuum machine
Hale Road
Cornered County Road
With Threllfalls Ale House
Tiled in blue
An icon according to the local patrons
View
The County
A hop
Skip and jump away
From your Dad’s bedroom
The pungent whiff
Of beer wafted its merriment
As laughter brewed
Into salted songs
While darkness weaved
Droned and drowned
Into a drunken drowsiness
Good night Irene
Good night Irene
I’ll see you in my dreams
Around the pub’s corner
The sidewalks gutter was bordered in black
Back to back
Black on black
Rolls and Royce
Line up
A procession of praying prelates
Black
Ravens
Waiting for their corpse
Deaths deliverance
Thompson’s Funeral Home
Had the monopoly on Walton’s dead
Pass on
Bye
Pause
And pray
That the Black Rolls Royce
Does not take your mom away
A hop
Step away
Lay
Thompson’s Sweet Shop
Stop
And linger
Look
And salivate
Into a very large spotless window
Pyramids
Of chocolate
Displayed the window
With milk chocolate of mummified creams
No time to dream
Step away
From here
Lies a Lavatory
Public
Steps steep down from its street entrance
Dropping
It disappears into a dugout of darkness
Into the bowls
It banks its gray granite walls into the railways embankment
Desperate
And your dad had to be
To go
Down into a deep damp dungeon of dung
Where light drudged into a dunk hill of darkness
Down
It descended
Into a daunting dept of dampness
Nostrils
Nauseated with pain
Smells suffocated the sinus with its dribbling drips
Piss
Strangled your throat
With its urinated breath
With one hand on his dick
And one hand on his nose
Ho shook
In the guttered mossy urinal
As the roar of the train rattled the piss out of him
Rushing
Up slime dank steps
He would gasp
For air and light
And with a dicky heart
He would fasten the last button of his open
Fly
From the Public W.C.
Stop
And Look
For the Zebra
Crossing
County Road
With the Lolly Pop man
A very busy main road
And after all
He was only a short
Small Boy
With chubby little cheeky cheeks
His be speckled face popped out of his unruly green school
Tie
Knotted to a rosy-cheek of rotundity
Filled with freshness
His face bottled bold brown
Eyes
Magnified you
With his prismatic smile
He cheered with cheerfulness
His fair hair
Parted
To the left
In a waif of wild straw
Dressed
In a leaf green school blazer
Over
A chunky v-necked gray pullover
Under
A clean white disheveled shirt
Buttons hung on threads
As he battled with the bulge
Nevertheless
His endearing sense of humor peaked
Under a crested cap of Arnot Street green
A little bit scruffy
At times
His gray woolly knee socks
Slung down to his ankles like sluggish slinky
Scraped and scabbed
His knobby knees knuckled
Under his baggy gray short pants
A spirited scallywag
Scrubbed with softness
He strode with boldness
Like a Churchillian lion
He roared with confidence
Principled
But not privileged
He thought his battles
With individuality and independence
Making him very popular
With all his school mates
But
Not
With all his school masters
School Ahead
Arnot Street School
Built in 1884
The red school shaded the street with its sunset
Bricks
Fortified the whole school
With its bastion of learning
It called us
To our class
From its tall turreted bell tower
It rung
Our necks if we were late for school
Since 1884
All the Woods family would line up
At the Boys entrance
At the Girls entrance
Like
Long lines of railway sleepers
We stood outside our school
Wall
Where we waited for the whistle to call
Us to our classes
Barriers
Of bricks separated the little red steam train
From the backside hill of our big red school
Yard
Became a compound
For play
For prison
More like it
Great Auntie muttered
Like Peter Brough
She heaved a sigh
In a muffled voice
She acted like a dummy
In her awakening
She was not a learned scholar
But she did have the innate wisdom of a seasoned sage
Where common sense roosted in the lint of her nest
Laid back
She rolled her eyes
Back to sleep
Across
From the school
Shades of sunlight would shed its shaft onto a sidewalk of soulless shadows
On the school street
Rows of faceless houses
Once terraced the other side of Aronot Street
School
Once rung with the laughter of young children
As they played
A misguided bomb
Blitzed that side of Arnot Street into a rubble of blood red
Bricks
Friday, November 7, 2008
Entry
June 03, 1953
God bless the Queen
Coronation Street party today
I saw Marie’s knickers today
Our gang made a steering cart
Everton for the cup
August 12, 2001
Fuck the Queen
Like I fuck Marie
This entry is filled with Shite
Just like the fucking Catholic School
At the end of this sodden entry
Bring back the prefabs
Fuck you
And Everton too
Liverpool for the cup
I hate
To Go to School
Your dad would use the back wooden door
That leads into the entry
He would see his mates
In this catchpenny corridor
Him and his mates would meet and make
Steering carts
From discarded old prams
Large wheels
Would harness his orange box dreams
Comics
Swapped
With American Heroes
Whose world evoked the American Dream
Football and Movie star cards
Pink
Clean
Mint to the taste
Bubbles
Of beano
Stuck to the tummy with bubbles of laughter
On top
Bricked
Shelters
Of coal
Joined to the entry
Wall
Flat-topped roof
Stacked
With old furniture
Mattress
Chairs
Sofas
Carpets
And anything else that would burn
In readiness
For the straw man
Guy Fawkes
Night
What a sight
Burning the bloody street
On firecracker night
Bonfires
Lit up
From dusk to dawn
Like a Catherine Wheel
Ball
Of fire
Would light the night
With a firecracker of fright
Were the children would scream
Dove tailed
With delight
When the Schoolhouse burnt
Under a lava of volcanic light
Snap
Crack
Nip and hiss the dust
Twist
Turn
Rip rap the floor
Writhing bodies
Strung
With crack
Whip the night
In a powder of fright
Flashback
Rockets
Hissed
Swished
And whisked
Into spores of sparks
Bursting
In to mushrooms of darkness
With a plume of dazzling light
It flashed the night
With children’s delight
Fireworks bloomed
From sparks of powder
Fireworks boomed
From powder to flower
Children
Silently
Stood under a sparkle of stars
Faces
Once flushed
With the promise of the night
Now fades
Into an afterglow of tiredness
Children
Softly
Sleep
Under a sheet of stripes
Still
Lost
In the dreams
Of a fiery night
Leaving
Ashen carcasses
To Lie in a debris
Of torched carnage
Fallen
In fire
Engulfed
With flame
Stained with smoke
Tinged with death
Skeletons
Singe the soil
In a charcoal carrion of peeling skin
Defiled
And discarded
Scourging the soil
In a cassock of death
Dust to dust
Left
Abandoned
Like a blackened shell
Once
Filled with fire
Now
Empty with death
An ephemeral dream
Lost
In a baptism of fire
Children slept
As gaslight faded
Into the Fifties
Black cast iron gaslights
Towered our terraced house street
Purple flames
Flicked its saucy tongue of yellow light
Peering
From behind a prism of beveled glass
A beacon
Cast in steel
Arms outstretched
Into a street of darkness
A gladden scarecrow
Protecting us
From dusk to dawn
Aside
During the day
Your dad would often scurry up its spine
Until he started to look like Billy Bunter
Tubby little bugger
Loved his sweets and treats
Too much
Entry’s Enclosed
Backyards
Enclosed toilets
Yards
Stored brick shelters
That once stored life and fossils
Now
It stored
Spores and junk
Whitewash
It clouded poverty
Bleached to the bone
We sat on a wooden throne
Starry-eyed
We sat outside
In a starlit room
Of chalk and lime
Wiping our bums
With the news of the time
We would flush
Our cares away
With the yank of a chain
The world dolloped downs the draughty drain
Of course
The cold damp dank winters would play havoc
With your ablutions
Many a time
My plumbing froze up
When I sat on the throne
Come On-A My House
Rosemary Clooney, 1951
Friday
Bath night
Hot water boiled
In copper kettles and cooking pots
Hissing
On a mantle of steam
Sitting
In a sputter
With spatter and splash
Waiting
With grating whistles
Engulfed
On red hot coals of sallow fire
Wailing and waiving
Cast
Onto an open iron fireplace
Blackened
With perdition
One by one
Their torrid soul
Is picked
And poured
Into a casket of tin
Filled up
Into its fiery rim
Your dad would be the first
One in
Me next
Last
In luke
Warm water
Granddad
Cleansed his ivory boned body
Under the last pot of hot baptizing water
Granddad left
His mark
Around the rim
Bath over
Drag the dirt out of the house
To the back entry yard door
Empty it
And watch
Sunlight spread onto a cold concrete floor
Were
Some
Sodden
Suds
Spill
And wend
Into wayward cavities of clogging slime and cloying grime
Collecting
In the latrines of cracking holes
A water hole for visiting voles
Pooling
Like yellow piss
In a froth of flotsam
Its putrefies
Into a putrid pond of postulated pus
Sod it
Brush out the dammed drifting dregs
Sweep the spillage
Down the drain
Thank Christ
It’s going to rain
Sunlight
Split into the small bedroom
That overlooked the tiny backyard
Beyond
The back entry wall
Your dad could see a meadow of houses
In flower
Prefabs
Bloomed
From a pasture of ash
Sun shone
Each day
Into his shimmering bedroom
He played
Alone
In a Spartan bedroom
Filled with teeming treasures
Memories
Locked with leaden
Soldiers
That battled
With imagination
Hornby trains that would tunnel under a Meccano bridge
While plastic hens laid golden eggs
And wooden puppets dance
In the midday sun
While distant voices
Fall
And fade
As the dying sun
Tucks in the children’s prayer
Summers sweetness
Rests its weary light
While small children sleep
In Gods good night
Asleep
In a land of Nod
Were Bill and Ben
The Flowerpot men
Watch Andy Pandy
Put Sooty to bed
While little Noddy
Sings Sooty to sleep
With the jingle
Of his jiggling head
Weed
Reading with Rupert
Was Dandy
But Dennis
Was a Menace
And Beryl
Was a Peril
And Corky the cat
Was lots of fun
But Desperate Dan and the Tiger
Would make Rover run
A Boys Own bedroom
Was a Beano filled with a Film of Fun
For a small boy who owns
His own chimera
And your dad had
A playful one
Other Bedrooms
Stem
From the narrow damp dark landing
One
In the middle
Small
Stark and dark
Once your dads
But now Granddads bedroom
Sparse
Still
Small
Solitary
And dark
The front
Bedroom
Large
Bright and light
My bedroom
Furnished
A bedroom suite
That matched
The fifties
A large rosewood wooden wardrobe
Without the Lion and
Witch
At times your father thought I was
Which
Reminds me
He would often hide
From the Lion in the wardrobe
In the corner of my bedroom
I had an elegant dressing table
With a pink crystal vanity that matched mine
A cozy double bed
Were I use to duck my head
Under an eider
Down
On the bedroom floor
A blue flowered rug
Bedded the floor
Two light bright windows
Draped in lace
Looked out onto our front faced road
And into the backside windows of the terraced houses
Across the road
Jessie
My close friend
Would look in
With a wave
We could see each
Other
Than that
Our view was now unrestricted
Because the bloody big bombs
Had demolished
The tall terraced
Houses
Have gone
Now prefabs
Mutate
The landscape with light
Now
I Look Down
From my bedroom window
Onto a graveled roof top tarmac
A runway for wayward airplanes
Circled with hula-hoops
Lost
In looping the loop
Balsa planes
Crashed
And grounded
In a hanger of Olympian rings
Red
White and blue
Balls
Flagged down
Onto a flysheet of tarmac
Shelled-shocked fireworks
Canonized into a carcass of carbon
Entrails
Spilling out
From fly blown bike tires
Black spots
On convoluted pink flesh
Twisting its rubber soul
Into still pools of black rain
Broken treasures
A killing field
Lost on a memorial plane
A tabloid
Of tarnished events
Laid onto
The landing
Down stairs
Into the narrow vestibule
Right
Past the living room door
Right
Into the front parlor room door
You step into a live in curio
Fine furniture
Laced and crowned with Royal Daulton
Silver-plated framed photos all over the place
Seldom in use
With nothing out of place
Flowers
Stand tall
In a brilliant array
Exhibiting
Their finery
Into the sunlit dapple of a window bay
Bowing
In an altar of light
Watching
The view
As children
Pass their time
In play
Fresh
Cut flowers
Embalm the parlor
With
Fragrance and flora
Musk and motherhood
Gathered
Around an antiquated
Upright piano (second hand)
And silver plated spoons
With an upbeat smile
And dancing bones
Great Granddad
Would entertain us
Fingered to the beat
He would shake up the parlor with his jitterbug feet
The parlor celebrated
The events of a family
Christmas
Anniversaries
Courtships
Death
Laced with privacy
The cloistered parlor was the place to be
To play and pray
In the wake of the day
This
Was the parlor
And its point of view
From the bay of its window
It had captured you
In life
On the street
Prefabs
Seedlings
In their variegated bibs
Dressed the street with their newness
Of their openness
To
Stuart Road
Baptist Church
Stands on the corner
Blessed
With wine red bricks
It reaches out
To people who pass by
Emerging
From its solemn shadow
Rejoicing
A congenial couple
Step into a congregation
Were they receive their daily bread
From the grocery shop
On the opposite corner
The strident grocer watched
As he rationed their lives
With his stamp of approval
Children play
Neighbors chat
Under the watchful eye
From our parlor window
Six valiant veterans
Hold on
As change drops
Into life’s meter
The sun shines on
A friendly mottled road
Of dappled green and spotted grey
Rules the streets
To the rise of a new day
We turn left
Or is it
Right
Into the Living Room
Door
Opens into a cozy room
Clean and small
Chestnut sideboard
Flat to the wall
Is the fold down dining room
Table
Next to granddads easy armchair
Asleep
In front of the cozy coal fire
But
Out of range
From his reach
A wooden radiogram
Is saddled close to his leather backed arm chair
Like a maverick
The console stands in the far corner
Alone
With its arms cocked
On the groove of a Berliner
Stacking
A 10 inch 78. 26 R.P.M.
Coated in shellac
Spinning
On a wax disc
Of diamond dreams
Revolving
On a silver line plane
That leads to nowhere
But
Always
Somewhere
Someplace
Someday
Someway
Somehow
The nowhere man
Will lasso the wandering star
That he was born under
Close to his side
A huge white mug
Towers on the mantle piece
Cold titanic tea
Enough to sink a White Star ship
But not enough
To fill his bladder
From his point of view
The backyard window
Shines its harmonic light onto his console of song
A mahogany music box
That barks out light
BBC
Or pop up
With Radio Luxembourg
From across the sea
We would listen to our family favorites
With our Sunday cup of tea
Eccless and Moriarty
Would drop in
Much to your dad’s gooney glee
Because you know what
We had no T.V.
Then
Late at night
Hurry off to bed with an Ovaltine tea
Before the omniscient Shadow
Called on the dead
Quick run
Because its time for bed
On the walls
Wallpaper
Stripped the past
While it pastes the present
Into the future
With its floral motifs
It became an ever-changing season
Which patterned the changes of our times
Somber
Did not wallpaper our living room
It was bright
With light
From our backyard window
Sunlight
Shone onto the soft sofa
Shawled in lace
It warmed our cozy living room space
With its leathery embrace
Its wrinkled arms stretched out towards the fireplace
Embraded with embroidery
Of charm and grace
It became the bed
Of the nights embrace
On top of the sideboard
A barrow of fruit
Mounds its surface
In a salver of silver
It colors the room
In still life
It frames the flowers
That bloom
On the wall
A side board
Backs the wall
Into the corner
Granddad
Like an ageing Jack Horner
Still asleep
In a slumber
Snores can be heard
Like a distant thunder
Do not disturb
Because it will be your blunder
If he wakes up
Our lives will be asunder
Ignited
With rage
Fires flare up
From the fireside
Flames
Flagellate into a furies of fiery
Flames
Flinch and flag
Flames
Flint and fade
Into the dappling flickering of the sombering night
Dyeing
Petals of lingering light
Mottled onto the mantel of a mantled moonlight
Shadows sinking
Slowly
As the wooden mantel clock surfaces
To the chimes and crescendos of the night
Above
A lucid pond of luminous glass
Hung onto a wallpaper
An attractive centerpiece
That reflects
Its timeless greeting
Light
Reflecting life
Unlike the timepiece
It does not stop for time
Nor can it be wined up
It imitates
And illuminates
Unless
Darkness overshadows
The light
At times
Distorts
Deception
Hides behind illusion
Don’t be blinded by its brilliance
Beware of iridescent change
And don’t be taken in with prismatic
Smiles
May shatter
As vision
Needs enlightenment
When you reflect
Look ahead
Beyond the ripples
You left behind
Hold
Onto the moment
As the ripples
Of time
Will sink
Into a sea of antiquity
Were you will be
Awakened
To its touch
The fire leaps up
June 03, 1953
God bless the Queen
Coronation Street party today
I saw Marie’s knickers today
Our gang made a steering cart
Everton for the cup
August 12, 2001
Fuck the Queen
Like I fuck Marie
This entry is filled with Shite
Just like the fucking Catholic School
At the end of this sodden entry
Bring back the prefabs
Fuck you
And Everton too
Liverpool for the cup
I hate
To Go to School
Your dad would use the back wooden door
That leads into the entry
He would see his mates
In this catchpenny corridor
Him and his mates would meet and make
Steering carts
From discarded old prams
Large wheels
Would harness his orange box dreams
Comics
Swapped
With American Heroes
Whose world evoked the American Dream
Football and Movie star cards
Pink
Clean
Mint to the taste
Bubbles
Of beano
Stuck to the tummy with bubbles of laughter
On top
Bricked
Shelters
Of coal
Joined to the entry
Wall
Flat-topped roof
Stacked
With old furniture
Mattress
Chairs
Sofas
Carpets
And anything else that would burn
In readiness
For the straw man
Guy Fawkes
Night
What a sight
Burning the bloody street
On firecracker night
Bonfires
Lit up
From dusk to dawn
Like a Catherine Wheel
Ball
Of fire
Would light the night
With a firecracker of fright
Were the children would scream
Dove tailed
With delight
When the Schoolhouse burnt
Under a lava of volcanic light
Snap
Crack
Nip and hiss the dust
Twist
Turn
Rip rap the floor
Writhing bodies
Strung
With crack
Whip the night
In a powder of fright
Flashback
Rockets
Hissed
Swished
And whisked
Into spores of sparks
Bursting
In to mushrooms of darkness
With a plume of dazzling light
It flashed the night
With children’s delight
Fireworks bloomed
From sparks of powder
Fireworks boomed
From powder to flower
Children
Silently
Stood under a sparkle of stars
Faces
Once flushed
With the promise of the night
Now fades
Into an afterglow of tiredness
Children
Softly
Sleep
Under a sheet of stripes
Still
Lost
In the dreams
Of a fiery night
Leaving
Ashen carcasses
To Lie in a debris
Of torched carnage
Fallen
In fire
Engulfed
With flame
Stained with smoke
Tinged with death
Skeletons
Singe the soil
In a charcoal carrion of peeling skin
Defiled
And discarded
Scourging the soil
In a cassock of death
Dust to dust
Left
Abandoned
Like a blackened shell
Once
Filled with fire
Now
Empty with death
An ephemeral dream
Lost
In a baptism of fire
Children slept
As gaslight faded
Into the Fifties
Black cast iron gaslights
Towered our terraced house street
Purple flames
Flicked its saucy tongue of yellow light
Peering
From behind a prism of beveled glass
A beacon
Cast in steel
Arms outstretched
Into a street of darkness
A gladden scarecrow
Protecting us
From dusk to dawn
Aside
During the day
Your dad would often scurry up its spine
Until he started to look like Billy Bunter
Tubby little bugger
Loved his sweets and treats
Too much
Entry’s Enclosed
Backyards
Enclosed toilets
Yards
Stored brick shelters
That once stored life and fossils
Now
It stored
Spores and junk
Whitewash
It clouded poverty
Bleached to the bone
We sat on a wooden throne
Starry-eyed
We sat outside
In a starlit room
Of chalk and lime
Wiping our bums
With the news of the time
We would flush
Our cares away
With the yank of a chain
The world dolloped downs the draughty drain
Of course
The cold damp dank winters would play havoc
With your ablutions
Many a time
My plumbing froze up
When I sat on the throne
Come On-A My House
Rosemary Clooney, 1951
Friday
Bath night
Hot water boiled
In copper kettles and cooking pots
Hissing
On a mantle of steam
Sitting
In a sputter
With spatter and splash
Waiting
With grating whistles
Engulfed
On red hot coals of sallow fire
Wailing and waiving
Cast
Onto an open iron fireplace
Blackened
With perdition
One by one
Their torrid soul
Is picked
And poured
Into a casket of tin
Filled up
Into its fiery rim
Your dad would be the first
One in
Me next
Last
In luke
Warm water
Granddad
Cleansed his ivory boned body
Under the last pot of hot baptizing water
Granddad left
His mark
Around the rim
Bath over
Drag the dirt out of the house
To the back entry yard door
Empty it
And watch
Sunlight spread onto a cold concrete floor
Were
Some
Sodden
Suds
Spill
And wend
Into wayward cavities of clogging slime and cloying grime
Collecting
In the latrines of cracking holes
A water hole for visiting voles
Pooling
Like yellow piss
In a froth of flotsam
Its putrefies
Into a putrid pond of postulated pus
Sod it
Brush out the dammed drifting dregs
Sweep the spillage
Down the drain
Thank Christ
It’s going to rain
Sunlight
Split into the small bedroom
That overlooked the tiny backyard
Beyond
The back entry wall
Your dad could see a meadow of houses
In flower
Prefabs
Bloomed
From a pasture of ash
Sun shone
Each day
Into his shimmering bedroom
He played
Alone
In a Spartan bedroom
Filled with teeming treasures
Memories
Locked with leaden
Soldiers
That battled
With imagination
Hornby trains that would tunnel under a Meccano bridge
While plastic hens laid golden eggs
And wooden puppets dance
In the midday sun
While distant voices
Fall
And fade
As the dying sun
Tucks in the children’s prayer
Summers sweetness
Rests its weary light
While small children sleep
In Gods good night
Asleep
In a land of Nod
Were Bill and Ben
The Flowerpot men
Watch Andy Pandy
Put Sooty to bed
While little Noddy
Sings Sooty to sleep
With the jingle
Of his jiggling head
Weed
Reading with Rupert
Was Dandy
But Dennis
Was a Menace
And Beryl
Was a Peril
And Corky the cat
Was lots of fun
But Desperate Dan and the Tiger
Would make Rover run
A Boys Own bedroom
Was a Beano filled with a Film of Fun
For a small boy who owns
His own chimera
And your dad had
A playful one
Other Bedrooms
Stem
From the narrow damp dark landing
One
In the middle
Small
Stark and dark
Once your dads
But now Granddads bedroom
Sparse
Still
Small
Solitary
And dark
The front
Bedroom
Large
Bright and light
My bedroom
Furnished
A bedroom suite
That matched
The fifties
A large rosewood wooden wardrobe
Without the Lion and
Witch
At times your father thought I was
Which
Reminds me
He would often hide
From the Lion in the wardrobe
In the corner of my bedroom
I had an elegant dressing table
With a pink crystal vanity that matched mine
A cozy double bed
Were I use to duck my head
Under an eider
Down
On the bedroom floor
A blue flowered rug
Bedded the floor
Two light bright windows
Draped in lace
Looked out onto our front faced road
And into the backside windows of the terraced houses
Across the road
Jessie
My close friend
Would look in
With a wave
We could see each
Other
Than that
Our view was now unrestricted
Because the bloody big bombs
Had demolished
The tall terraced
Houses
Have gone
Now prefabs
Mutate
The landscape with light
Now
I Look Down
From my bedroom window
Onto a graveled roof top tarmac
A runway for wayward airplanes
Circled with hula-hoops
Lost
In looping the loop
Balsa planes
Crashed
And grounded
In a hanger of Olympian rings
Red
White and blue
Balls
Flagged down
Onto a flysheet of tarmac
Shelled-shocked fireworks
Canonized into a carcass of carbon
Entrails
Spilling out
From fly blown bike tires
Black spots
On convoluted pink flesh
Twisting its rubber soul
Into still pools of black rain
Broken treasures
A killing field
Lost on a memorial plane
A tabloid
Of tarnished events
Laid onto
The landing
Down stairs
Into the narrow vestibule
Right
Past the living room door
Right
Into the front parlor room door
You step into a live in curio
Fine furniture
Laced and crowned with Royal Daulton
Silver-plated framed photos all over the place
Seldom in use
With nothing out of place
Flowers
Stand tall
In a brilliant array
Exhibiting
Their finery
Into the sunlit dapple of a window bay
Bowing
In an altar of light
Watching
The view
As children
Pass their time
In play
Fresh
Cut flowers
Embalm the parlor
With
Fragrance and flora
Musk and motherhood
Gathered
Around an antiquated
Upright piano (second hand)
And silver plated spoons
With an upbeat smile
And dancing bones
Great Granddad
Would entertain us
Fingered to the beat
He would shake up the parlor with his jitterbug feet
The parlor celebrated
The events of a family
Christmas
Anniversaries
Courtships
Death
Laced with privacy
The cloistered parlor was the place to be
To play and pray
In the wake of the day
This
Was the parlor
And its point of view
From the bay of its window
It had captured you
In life
On the street
Prefabs
Seedlings
In their variegated bibs
Dressed the street with their newness
Of their openness
To
Stuart Road
Baptist Church
Stands on the corner
Blessed
With wine red bricks
It reaches out
To people who pass by
Emerging
From its solemn shadow
Rejoicing
A congenial couple
Step into a congregation
Were they receive their daily bread
From the grocery shop
On the opposite corner
The strident grocer watched
As he rationed their lives
With his stamp of approval
Children play
Neighbors chat
Under the watchful eye
From our parlor window
Six valiant veterans
Hold on
As change drops
Into life’s meter
The sun shines on
A friendly mottled road
Of dappled green and spotted grey
Rules the streets
To the rise of a new day
We turn left
Or is it
Right
Into the Living Room
Door
Opens into a cozy room
Clean and small
Chestnut sideboard
Flat to the wall
Is the fold down dining room
Table
Next to granddads easy armchair
Asleep
In front of the cozy coal fire
But
Out of range
From his reach
A wooden radiogram
Is saddled close to his leather backed arm chair
Like a maverick
The console stands in the far corner
Alone
With its arms cocked
On the groove of a Berliner
Stacking
A 10 inch 78. 26 R.P.M.
Coated in shellac
Spinning
On a wax disc
Of diamond dreams
Revolving
On a silver line plane
That leads to nowhere
But
Always
Somewhere
Someplace
Someday
Someway
Somehow
The nowhere man
Will lasso the wandering star
That he was born under
Close to his side
A huge white mug
Towers on the mantle piece
Cold titanic tea
Enough to sink a White Star ship
But not enough
To fill his bladder
From his point of view
The backyard window
Shines its harmonic light onto his console of song
A mahogany music box
That barks out light
BBC
Or pop up
With Radio Luxembourg
From across the sea
We would listen to our family favorites
With our Sunday cup of tea
Eccless and Moriarty
Would drop in
Much to your dad’s gooney glee
Because you know what
We had no T.V.
Then
Late at night
Hurry off to bed with an Ovaltine tea
Before the omniscient Shadow
Called on the dead
Quick run
Because its time for bed
On the walls
Wallpaper
Stripped the past
While it pastes the present
Into the future
With its floral motifs
It became an ever-changing season
Which patterned the changes of our times
Somber
Did not wallpaper our living room
It was bright
With light
From our backyard window
Sunlight
Shone onto the soft sofa
Shawled in lace
It warmed our cozy living room space
With its leathery embrace
Its wrinkled arms stretched out towards the fireplace
Embraded with embroidery
Of charm and grace
It became the bed
Of the nights embrace
On top of the sideboard
A barrow of fruit
Mounds its surface
In a salver of silver
It colors the room
In still life
It frames the flowers
That bloom
On the wall
A side board
Backs the wall
Into the corner
Granddad
Like an ageing Jack Horner
Still asleep
In a slumber
Snores can be heard
Like a distant thunder
Do not disturb
Because it will be your blunder
If he wakes up
Our lives will be asunder
Ignited
With rage
Fires flare up
From the fireside
Flames
Flagellate into a furies of fiery
Flames
Flinch and flag
Flames
Flint and fade
Into the dappling flickering of the sombering night
Dyeing
Petals of lingering light
Mottled onto the mantel of a mantled moonlight
Shadows sinking
Slowly
As the wooden mantel clock surfaces
To the chimes and crescendos of the night
Above
A lucid pond of luminous glass
Hung onto a wallpaper
An attractive centerpiece
That reflects
Its timeless greeting
Light
Reflecting life
Unlike the timepiece
It does not stop for time
Nor can it be wined up
It imitates
And illuminates
Unless
Darkness overshadows
The light
At times
Distorts
Deception
Hides behind illusion
Don’t be blinded by its brilliance
Beware of iridescent change
And don’t be taken in with prismatic
Smiles
May shatter
As vision
Needs enlightenment
When you reflect
Look ahead
Beyond the ripples
You left behind
Hold
Onto the moment
As the ripples
Of time
Will sink
Into a sea of antiquity
Were you will be
Awakened
To its touch
The fire leaps up
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