GO – KART
Me and my mate Harrybo
we once made a go-kart.
Everyone was making go-karts
so we had to make one.
Big Tony’s was terrific.
Big Tony was terrific
because Big Tony told us he was.
What he said was,
‘I am TERRIFIC,’
And because Big Tony was VERY big
no one said,
‘Big Tony.
You are NOT terrific.’
So,
Big Tony was terrific
and Big Tony’s go-kart was terrific.
And that was that.
When Big Tony sat on his go-kart
he looked like a real driver.
He had control.
When he came down a road round our way
called Moss Lane
he could make the wind blow his hair,
pheeeeeeoooooooooph,
he could make the wheels of his go-kart go
prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
and he went
eeeeeeeeeeeeooowwwwwww
as he went past.
I was jealous of Big Tony.
I was afraid that
I thought he might be
terrific.
So me and Harrybo
wes made a go-kart
out of his old pram
and some boxes and crates
we got from the off-licence.
We nailed it up with bent nails
but Harrybo’s dad said,
‘No no no no no
you should use big metal staples,’
And he gave us some.
He said they were
Heavy Duty.
Heavy duty
wow
That sounded
terrific.
So then we tied cord round the front cross-piece.
But Harrybo’s dad said,
‘No no no no no,
you should use the pram handle.’
And he helped us fix
the pram handle to the cross-piece
He said, ‘That’ll give you
Control.’
Control
wow
That sounded
terrific.
Harrybo sat on the beer-crate
and steered,
I kneeled behind.
But Harrybo’s dad said,
‘No no no no no
you should kneel on foam pads.’
And he cut these two foam pads
for me to kneel on.
Harrybo’s dad said,
‘That’ll help you
Last The Course.’
Last the course,
wow
That sounded
terrific.
Our go-kart was ready.
So we took it up to the top of Moss Lane
and Harrybo said,
‘I’ll steer,’ and he did.
It was fan
tastic.
It felt just like Big Tony looked.
The hair in the wind
pheeeeeeeooooooooooph
the wheels
prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
and so we both went
eeeeeeeeeeeeeoooowwwwwwwww
So we took it up to the top
of Moss Lane again
and Harrybo said,
‘I’ll steer,’
and he did.
It was a-
mazing.
The road went blurry.
The hair in the wind
pheeeeeeeooooooph
the wheels went
prrrrrrrrrrrrrr
so we both went
eeeeeeeeeoooowwwwwwwww
So we took it up to the top of Moss Lane again
and Harrybo said,
‘I’ll steer,’
so I said,
‘Can I have a go?’
Harrybo said,
‘NO.’
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘No,’ he said, ‘You’ve never done it.’
‘Go on, Harrybo. Let me have a go.
Go on. I mean. Blimey.
Come on, Harrybo. Go on.’
‘No.’
‘Oh go on. Go on. Go on.’
‘All right,’ he said.
‘Look out, won’t you.’
‘Yeah yeah yeah. I know,’ I said.
I thought,
‘I’m going to be
terrific’
My hair – pheeeoooph
wheels – prrrrrr
me – eeeow
And away we went
Hair – yeah – pheeeeeeeeoooph
wheels – yeah – prrrrrrrrrrrr
me – yeah – eeeeeeeeoooooow
BUT
halfway down Moss Lane
there’s Moss Close
and that’s where the road curves
and that’s where Big Tony steers
Big Tony leans
Big Tony controls
prrrrrrrrrrr
eeeeeeeoooowwww
I saw Moss Close coming up really fast…
‘Steer.’ shouts Harrybo. ‘Steer, you big wally!’
And I yanked on the pram handle
uh
and the whole world
went round once and twice
and three times
and my head went rolling
down the road
pulling me after it
and the go-kart came for the ride
over and over and over
until my nose and my chin
and my two front teeth landed up
in the grit of the gutter.
Harrybo was crying.
‘Wo wo wo oooo wo wo ooo.’
I breathed in and it whistled.
‘Whew.’
‘Whew.’
There it was again.
I stuck my finger up to my tooth
and it was chipped.
Harrybo said,
‘Your chin’s bleeding,’
and I said,
‘Your chin’s bleeding an’ all.’
‘I know ooooooo,’ he said.
We walked home.
He pulled the kart,
got to his place
he didn’t say anything.
Nothing at all.
Not a word.
And he went in.
I walked on to my place
‘Whew – whew – whew,’
it was still whistling.
When I got in
I told Mum everything
and she said, well, she said all kinds of things –
like, ‘Well – your teeth’ll
probably fall out, you know.’
One of those nice things
that mums say.
Next day at school
they were all asking about the crash
they all looked at my tooth
and they all wanted to see the go-kart.
Harrybo said,
‘You can’t,
cos my dad’s
chopped it up.’
Chopped up.
Wow
that sounded
terrible.
Hey,
when Harrybo got his racer,
his brand new racing bike for Christmas
I didn’t ask him for a go on it.
I didn’t
no
I didn’t.
I wonder why.
END OF THE WORLD
Sometimes it looks as if it could be
the end of the world:
earthquakes
volcanoes
hurricanes
floods
sometimes it’s lightning at night
and there’s thunder in your ears.
It could be
the end of the world.
Sometimes you hear
small boys and girls
howling,
‘I’ve dropped my lolleeeeeeeeeee,’
‘He’s got my sweeteeeeeeeeeeees,’
and Mum or Dad say to them:
‘It’s not the end of the world you know.’
They think it is.
BUBAH AND ZAIDA (VISITING MUM’S MUM ANF DAD)
We sometimes see them on Sunday.
They live in a dark room at the end of a dark corridor
and Bubah kisses us all when we arrive.
She looks like Mum but very silver and bent at the middle,
which we will all look like one day says Mum’s father.
Dad always looks fed up because he doesn’t want to come
but Mum talks to them properly.
Zaida looks tired
and pretends that the half crown he’s going to give me
disappears into the ceiling along with my nose
if I’m not careful – snap – and there’s his thumb in his fist,
and he beats me at draughts, dominoes, snap, hare-and-hounds,
and even dice
and he’s got a bottle with a boat in it
and we go for walks on Hackney Downs
which he calls Acknee Dans.
And all the old men there say, ‘Hallo, Frank,’
and while we’re walking along he says:
‘What’s to become of us, Mickie, what’s to become of us?’
and I don’t know what to answer.
And he shows me to Uncle Hymie
who looked out of his window and said:
‘Is that big boy your grandson, Frank?’ (even though he knows my
name)
because that’s the way they talk.
And when we get back we eat chopped herrings or chopped liver
which is my favourite
and Bubah tells stories that go on for hours
about people she knows who are ill or people who’ve
had to pay too much money and at the end of the story
it always seems as if she’s been cheated.
And once she took a whole afternoon to tell Mum
how to make pickled cucumber and she kept saying:
‘Just add a little salt to taste, a little salt to taste,
just taste it and see if there’s enough salt,
to make sure if there’s enough salt – just taste and see.’
And she calls me, ‘Tottala,’ and rubs my hair and bites her lips
as though I’m going to run away
and so she shakes her head and
says, ‘Oy yoy yoy yoy yoy.’
But Zaida goes to sleep in the old brown armchair
with his hands on the pockets of his flappy blue trousers
and when we go Mum frowns
and Zaida holds my hand in his puffy old hand,
keeps ducking his head in little jerks
and says to us all, come again soon,
but I’d be afraid to go all the way on my own
and it’s very dark and the lavatory is outside
which is sometimes cold.
She doesn’t like it when we go,
and she kisses us all over again
and Dad walks up and down like he does at the station
and Mum keeps pushing me and poking me
and they both wave all the time we go away into the distance
and I always wave back because I think they like it
but Mum and Dad sit absolutely quiet
and nobody speaks for ages.
Mum says Zaida shouldn’t give me the money.
EDDIE AND THE NAPPY
Eddie hates having his nappy done.
So I say all cheery,
‘Time for your nappy, Eddie,’
and he says, all sad,
‘No nappeee.’
And I say,
‘Yes, nappy.’
So I have to run after him going,
‘Nappy nappy nappy nappy…’
And he’s got these little fat rubbery legs
that go round like wheels;
so away he runs
with a wicked grin on his face
screaming,
‘Woooo woooo woooo.’
So I go running after him
shouting,
‘Nappy nappy nappy,
I’ll get you I’ll get you…’
until I catch him.
Then I lift him up
lay him over my knees
to get his nappy off.
While I’m doing the pins
he gargles,
‘Geereegreegeereegree,’
waving his podgy little legs in the air
He thinks,
great. Time to kick Dad’s chin.
And smack smack smack
on my chin.
When I’ve cleaned him up
it’s time for the cream
You have to put cream on a baby’s bum
or they get nappy rash.
But we leave the jar of cream
on the window-sill
where it gets all cold.
So I go,
‘Time for the cream, Eddie.’
And he goes,
‘No cream.’
So I say,
‘Yeah, cream,’
and I blob it on
and he goes, ‘Oooh.’
You imagine what that would feel like.
A great blob of cold cream.
It would be like
having an ice-lolly down your pants.
So then I put the nappy on
and away he goes on those little rubbery legs
going,
‘Woooo woooo woooo.’
BONKING ALL THE DRAING
We’re bonking
we’re bonking
we’re bonking all the drains.
We stamp on all the drain covers
even when it rains.
There’s covers for the gas
there’s covers for the drains
there’s covers for the phone wires
and ones for water mains.
There’s covers for the hole
where they used to put the coal.
And you can stamp on every one of them
round our way.
I stamped on a wobbly one
only today.
We’re bonking
we’re bonking
we’re bonking all the drains.
We stamp on all the drain covers
even when it rains.
MONEY BOXX
My first money box
was a yellow house
with a green roof.
On the roof
was a yellow woodpecker.
On the woodpecker there was
a green beak.
In his beak was
a slot.
In the slot,
went your money.
At that –
the yellow woodpecker pecked the chimney
on the green roof
of the yellow house
and the money rolled down the beak,
down the chimney
and into the house.
Eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwww clunk.
Funny thing is:
I can’t remember how I got the money out!
My next money box
was A Money Box.
A wooden box with a trick drawer.
You opened the drawer
you put the money in the drawer
you closed the drawer
and when you pulled the drawer out –
it was empty – the money was gone.
My friends came over.
‘OK,’ I said,
‘you put your money in the drawer,
close the drawer,
pull the drawer out
and your money’s gone.
It’s in the box.’
‘How does it work?’
‘Not saying.’
‘Well, I’m not putting my money in it then.’
‘Well you won’t see it work the
n, will you?’
‘All right – one penny – there.’
‘In goes the drawer, out it comes – see – the penny’s gone.’
‘How do I get it back then?’
‘Secret.’
NEW COMERS
My father came to England
from another country
My father’s mother came to England
from another country
but my father’s father
stayed behind.
So my dad had no dad here
and I never saw him at all.
One day in spring
some things arrived:
a few old papers,
a few old photos
and – oh yes –
a hulky bulky thick checked jacket
that belonged to the man
I would have called ‘Grandad’.
The Man Who Stayed Behind.
But I kept that jacket
and I wore it
and I wore it
and I wore it
till it wore right through
at the back.
SKLETONS
My dad was in Berlin in 1946
and his old friend David
said that a friend of his
was
at The Berlin Natural History Museum.
David wondered if he was still there.
At the time
Berlin was under a foot of snow,
the roads were covered with snow,
there was scarcely anything going along them.
You could scarcely see where the roads went.
My dad says he walked for hours
through heaps of bomb rubble and snow
round huge craters in the ground
under walls leaning over.
Snow everywhere.
Till suddenly, he came face to face with.
some enormous skeletons in the snow.
The old Berlin Natural History Museum
had been hit by a bomb.
They were dinosaur skeletons
standing there in the middle of nowhere.
Great bones and skulls
rising up out of the snow
amongst heaps of broken brick
and broken glass.
‘I’ll never forget the sight
of those dinosaur skeletons,’
my dad said.
I’ve never forgotten them either –
though I never saw them.
CHRISTMAS STOCKING
They say:
Leave a stocking out for Santa.
And somehow or another
this friendly old bloke’s going
to get round every one of us
in one night
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