A list of rhymes, some crossings out,
Confusions, choices, doodles, doubt.
No clue to what it’s all about.
Where I sit writing I can see
A glowing sky, a darkened tree,
Some Sellotape, a saucer…me
The Boy Without a Name
I remember him clearly
And it was thirty years ago or more:
A boy without a name.
A friendless, silent boy,
His face blotched red and flaking raw,
His expression, infinitely sad.
Some kind of eczema
It was, I now suppose,
The rusty iron mask he wore.
But in those days we confidently swore
It was from playing near dustbins
And handling broken eggshells.
His hands, of course, and knees
Were similarly scabbed and cracked and dry.
The rest of him we never saw.
They said it wasn’t catching: still, we knew
And strained away from him along the corridor,
Sharing a ruler only under protest
I remember the others: Brian Evans,
Trevor Darby, Dorothy Cutler.
And the teachers: Mrs Palmer, Mr Waugh.
I remember Albert, who collected buttons,
And Amos, frothing his milk up with a straw.
But his name, no, for it was never used.
I need a time-machine.
I must get back to nineteen fifty-four
And play with him, or talk, at least.
For now I often wake to see
His ordinary, haunting face, his flaw.
I hope his mother loved him.
Oh, children, don’t be crueller than you need.
The faces that you spit on or ignore
Will get you in the end
The Slow Man
The phone rings
But never long enough
For the Slow Man.
By the time
The set’s switched on
His favourite programme’s over.
His tea grows cold
From cup to lip,
His soup evaporates.
He laughs, eventually,
At jokes long since
Gone out of fashion.
Sell-by dates
And limited special offers
Defeat him.
He comes home
With yesterday’s paper
And reads it… tomorrow
The Filling Station (country style)
The word is spreadin’ across the nation,
Git your kids to the Fillin’ Station.
Teachers now can take their ease
While moms and dads say, ‘Fill ’em up, please!’
Fill ’em up with Maths and Readin’.
Anythin’ more, Ma’am, you’ll be needin’?
Spanish, German, History?
Half a dozen subjects and y’get one free
Attach these wires to your wrist,
Relax here on this special bed,
Shut y’eyes and don’t resist,
Feel that education flowin’ into your head.
∗
C’mon down to the Fillin’ Station,
We’re gonna build a new generation.
How ‘bout the toddler? Only three?
Soon he’ll be a little infant prodigy.
Forget about your sand ’n’ water,
Teach him all those things y’oughter.
Shakespeare, Dickens, Roald Dahl too;
Literature is good for you.
Place these goggles over his eyes,
Lay him in this little cot,
Golden slumbers, big surprise,
When he wakes up, he’ll know the lot.
∗
In one ear and in the other.
Could y’use a top-up for his older brother?
Seems a bit empty, if ’n you ask me.
Have y’ever thought about a PhD?
No more learnin’, no more books,
No more tough exams to pass.
No more teachers’ grumpy looks,
Soon we’ll all be top of the class.
∗
Just got back from the Fillin’ Station,
We’re gonna have a big celebration.
Kids all sittin’ in a row,
Ain’t a blessed thing that they don’t know.
Name that wind in the south of France.
What’s the square of minus eight?
Is it true that bees can dance?
Who wrote a show called Kiss Me Kate?
Where do whales and penguins thrive?
What’s the longest river in Tennessee?
Will the human race survive…?
Y’all know the answers – and so do we!
Yippee!
The word is spreadin’ across the nation,
Git your kids to the Fillin’ Station.
Collect them tokens, don’t be dumb;
Albert Einstein, here – we – come!
Scabs
The scab on Jean’s knee
Is geographical.
Bexhill-on-Sea:
Tripped up on school trip.
The scab on Henry’s knee
Is historical.
Oldest scab in Class Three:
Second year sack race.
The scab on Paul’s knee
Is pugilistical.
Fighting Clive Key:
He got a cut lip.
The scab on Sally’s knee
Is psychological.
Hurts if she does PE:
Painless at playtime.
The scab on Brian’s knee
Is bibliographical.
Fooling around in library:
Banged into bookcase
The scabs on the twins’ knees
Are identical.
Likewise the remedies:
Hankies and spit.
The scab on Eric’s knee
Is economical.
£2.50:
Second-hand skates.
The scab on Debby’s knee
Is diabolical.
Nothing to see:
Hurts like the devil
Worlds
The first world
Was made of paper.
God screwed it up in a ball.
It would not do at all.
The second world
Was made of ice-cream,
Fudge flavour mostly,
In a delicate (8000-mile diameter) wafer cup.
God ate it up.
The third world
Was made of modelling clay.
God baked it in the oven
And gave it to his grandma
The ninth world
Was made of house bricks,
Artfully arranged.
God won second prize
In a competition with it.
The twelfth world
Was made – woven, actually –
Of magic-carpet material.
It commuted between here and there.
There were two billion
Uncomplicated if somewhat wind-blown
People on it.
The thirteenth world
Was perfect.
God put it down somewhere
And has been looking for it
Ever since.
The twenty-fifth world
Was made of a miraculous new substance
With mind-boggling properties.
It had an unfortunate smell, though,
Like rarely opened wardrobes
The thirtieth world
Was made of dirt and water
Day and night
Grass
Trees
Bungalows
Odd socks
Incomplete jigsaw puzzles
Volcanoes
Fluff
Happiness and boredom
Wedding rings
&
nbsp; General elections
Telephone books
And me and you.
God said that it would do
Boys
Boys will be boys
But before that
They sit around in prams
In woolly hats
With sticky chins
Waiting.
Boys who used to be boys
(i.e. old boys)
On the other hand
Sit around in pubs
Or on the upper decks of buses
With stubbly chins
Remembering.
Boys who are boys
Meanwhile
Just get on with it
It is a Puzzle
My friend
Is not my friend any more.
She has secrets from me
And goes about with Tracy Hackett.
I would
Like to get her back,
Only do not want to say so.
So I pretend
To have secrets from her
And go about with Alice Banks.
But what bothers me is,
Maybe she is pretending
And would like me back,
Only does not want to say so.
In which case
Maybe it bothers her
That I am pretending.
But if we are both pretending,
Then really we are friends
And do not know it.
On the other hand,
How can we be friends
And have secrets from each other
And go about with other people?
My friend
Is not my friend any more,
Unless she is pretending.
I cannot think what to do.
It is a puzzle.
Sometimes God
Sometimes when I’m in trouble, Like if Gary Hubble And his gang
Are going to get me and beat me up,
Or I’m outside Mr Baggot’s door
Waiting to have the slipper for pour-
ing paint water in Glenis Parker’s shoe,
This is what I do:
I ask for help from God
Get me out of this, God, I say.
I’ll behave myself then –
Every day
Sometimes when I’m really
Scared, like once when I nearly
Got bit by this horse,
Or the other
Week when Russell Tucker’s brother
Was going to beat me up
For throwing Russell Tucker’s PE bag
On the boiler-house roof, or Roy
And me got caught in the toi-
Lets by Mr Baggot turning all the taps on
And he said,
I’ve had enough of boys like you,
This is what I do:
I ask for help from God.
Stop this happening, God, I say.
I’ll believe in You then –
Every day.
And it works… sometimes
Billy McBone
Billy McBone
Had a mind of his own,
Which he mostly kept under his hat.
The teachers all thought
That he couldn’t be taught,
But Bill didn’t seem to mind that.
Billy McBone
Had a mind of his own,
Which the teachers had searched for for years.
Trying test after test,
They still never guessed
It was hidden between his ears.
Billy McBone
Had a mind of his own,
Which only his friends ever saw.
When the teacher said, ‘Bill,
Whereabouts is Brazil?’
He just shuffled and stared at the floor
Billy McBone
Had a mind of his own,
Which he kept under lock and key.
While the teachers in vain
Tried to burgle his brain,
Bill’s thoughts were off wandering free
Balls on the Roof
The caretaker went on the roof today,
The first time for years.
He put his ladder against the wall
And cleared the guttering.
Some of the children stayed to watch;
It was after school.
He threw the balls down that he found
And they caught them.
That guttering was a graveyard for balls.
Balls with moss on them.
Balls you couldn’t even buy any more.
Balls too old to bounce.
There was a sorbo ball with R.T. on it,
Not Russell Tucker’s –
Raymond Tate’s – he’d left – ages ago!
Gone to the Comp.
There was a ball so perished and worn,
It was like Aero.
I could’ve kicked that up, the caretaker said,
When I was a boy.
The children studied each relic as it came down,
But made no notes.
They said, we’re taking that mossed-up one
For the Nature Table.
The caretaker cleared the guttering.
He put his ladder away.
And the children kicked the least un-bouncy ball
In the empty playground
The Mysteries of Zigomar
I’d like to tell you what they are
The Mysteries of Zigomar.
I think it’s time to spill the beans
And spell out what the whole thing means.
Remove the mask, reveal the trail
Unbag the cat and lift the veil.
Yes, lay my cards upon the table
And see an end to myth and fable.
Say, Here it is! and, There we are!
The Mysteries of Zigomar.
No more delay, no dark confusion
Just simple facts and a conclusion.
I think it’s time, I think it’s late The world has had too long to wait.
From Stoke-on-Trent to Cooch Behar
We’re driven mad by Zigomar.
From long ago to times like these
One tangled web of mysteries
But not much longer – Goodbye doubt!
The time has come to spit it out.
I’d like to tell you what they are
The Mysteries of Zigomar.
I’d like to tell, you’d love to hear…
The trouble is, I’ve no idea
Only Snow
Outside, the sky was almost brown.
The clouds were hanging low.
Then all of a sudden it happened:
The air was full of snow.
The children rushed to the windows.
The teacher let them go,
Though she teased them for their foolishness.
After all, it was only snow.
It was only snow that was falling,
Only out of the sky,
Only on to the turning earth
Before the blink of an eye.
What else could it do from up there,
But fall in the usual way?
It was only weather, really.
What else could you say?
The teacher sat at her desk
Putting ticks in a little row,
While the children stared through steamy glass
At the only snow
5
The Vampire and the Hound
The Secrets of the Staffroom
The Grey Boys
Dream football
The Mad Professor’s Daughter
Cemetery Road
The Vampire and the Hound
The Secrets of the Staffroom
You may well think y’knows it all,
You cheeky kids today,
But I ’ave got a tale to tell
To blow y’minds away;
About your teachers, cruel and kind,
Quick-witted, vil
e and slow,
And the secrets of the staffroom if…
Y’really want to know.
Y’may suppose they sits in there
Just drinking pots of tea,
With nice triangular sandwiches
Politely as can be.
Well, that was maybe how it was
Back then, but not today.
More like it’s now a crate of beer
And a Chinese take-away
Y’might have guessed the place was full
Of markin’, books and chalk;
Educational supplements
And intellectual talk.
The plays of William Shakespeare,
The exports of Brazil,
But never a pile of bettin’ slips
From that well-known William ’ill.
Perhaps y’thought they spend their time
With felt pens, paint and glue,
COLLECTED POEMS Page 5