Tear carefully along perforated lines?

Tug sharply like loose Elastoplasts?

Acknowledging the crowd’s roar

Will he hold my head aloft

As if it were the FA Cup

And pull the handles? Aagghhrr…

And then the box. Cardboard?

Old cigar-box possibly? Or a pair?

Separate coffins of polished pine.

L and R. ‘Gone to a better place.’

Impatient now, I want to get it

Over with. Roll on four o’clock.

When, hands over where-my-ears-used-to-be

I run the gauntlet of jeering kids.

At six, mother arrives home weary

After a hard day at the breadcrumb factory.

I give her the box. She opens it

And screams something. I say:

‘Pardon?’

Hard Times

(i)

Each year, in early December

Grandma would oblige

by falling over

and dislocating something

In hospital, on Christmas Day

all the family would visit

Sit round the bed

and gobble up her dinner.

(ii)

To eke out extra money

during the summer holidays

my schoolfriends and I

would go nit-picking

Conditions were terrible

and the pay was poor

But there were perks:

We were allowed to keep the eggs.

(iii)

If we could have afforded a bath

We would have had the best. A fine one.

Iron. Broad as a bed, deep as the ocean.

Standing on wingèd feet, proud as a lion.

And oh, what coal we would have stored in it.

Nuggets, big as babies’ heads, still blinking

In the daylight. Black as wedding-boots,

So polished you could see your face in them.

And oh, what stories we might have told.

Seated round the hearth on winter nights

The fire crackling, the flames leaping.

Amber liquor sparkling in crystal glasses.

Unfortunately, we were too poor to know stories.

Bath – Avon

I have a problem with Bath.

I use the short a, rhyming it with math,

Whereas southerners put in the r. Barth.

So my living there would be a kind of hell

(Although a lovely place by all accounts).

Never have an operation you cannot spell

Or live in a town you mispronounce.

2

The Darling Buds of Maybe

Get out as early as you can,

And don’t have any kids yourself.

‘Perfick,’ said Old Larkin

The last kid put to bed

He took the Missus in his arms

Gave her a kiss and said:

‘I’ll pop out for a quick one

If that’s all right with you?

I’ll not be long, I promise

’Cos I’ve got work to do.’

‘You mean the roof,’ said Ma,

‘You’re going to mend that leak.’

Philip stopped.

‘No, “This Be The Verse”,’

That final stanza’s too bleak.’

This be Another Verse

They don’t fuck you up, your mum and dad

(Despite what Larkin says)

It’s other grown-ups, other kids

Who, in their various ways

Die. And their dying casts a shadow

Numbering all our days

And we try to keep from going mad

In multifarious ways.

And most of us succeed, thank God,

So if, to coin a phrase