GEORGE’S CLEAR-UP
had a good pile of comics
(now they’d be collector’s items worth
pounds on eBay).
there were Westerns,
some Superman and the Flash.
quite a pile.
George chucked them out.
(I should have known:
he'd been threatening for some time
to have a bloody good clear-up here.)
there was a pile of old notebooks
left over from lectures,
remarks scribbled down at college,
interlarded with my own comments
and drawings of the backs of the heads
of other students
along with doodles better
than any other drawings I
actually consciously drew.
George chucked 'em out.
he had a toy steam roller
that stood on a shelf and
ran on paraffin--a masterpiece of
engineering, a real educational tool in
fact that occasionally
he'd get working
and it would stand on the table
valorously pumping away
and shooting out steam.
even that he chucked out,
so what chance
did Western comics have
or even the Flash or Superman?
BLUE COLLAR DYNASTIES
we got out, but
that Angora cat of a girl
still lives on Clapgate Terraces
amongst the cockroach-studded wallpaper.
it wasn’t that bad, when
you think back:
at least we all had possibilities and
now and again felt ten feet tall
and wide in proportion.
when you lived there, days
could come up as fresh as any
documented on fantasy soaps.
great days, when it seemed
as if your mates must have
connections lined up
in the brass-bound timetables
of
the constellations.
surely they were going
to turn into gunslingers
or pirate captains.
they seemed to wield
the authority of centurions.
they must all have had
the cunning of Adolf
the muscles of Atlas
the looks of Adonis
and backsides
burnished with gold.
Copyright
@ KM Dersley, 2006
