And write the poems that will win your heart.

I feel terrific now I’ve made a start –

I’ll have another book before I quit.

I’ll work, for there’s new purpose in my art,

And write the poems that will win your heart.

II

Mr Strugnell

‘This was Mr Strugnell’s room,’ she’ll say,

And look down at the lumpy, single bed.

‘He stayed here up until he went away

And kept his bicycle out in that shed.

‘He had a job at Norwood library –

He was a quiet sort who liked to read –

Dick Francis mostly, and some poetry –

He liked John Betjeman very much indeed

‘But not Pam Ayres or even Patience Strong –

He’d change the subject if I mentioned them,

Or say “It’s time for me to run along –

Your taste’s too highbrow for me, Mrs M.”

‘And up he’d go and listen to that jazz.

I don’t mind telling you it was a bore –

Few things in this house have been tiresome as

The sound of his foot tapping on the floor.

‘He didn’t seem the sort for being free

With girls or going out and having fun.

He had a funny turn in ’sixty-three

And ran round shouting “Yippee! It’s begun.”

‘I don’t know what he meant but after that

He had a different look, much more relaxed.

Some nights he’d come in late, too tired to chat,

As if he had been somewhat overtaxed.

‘And now he’s gone. He said he found Tulse Hill

Too stimulating – wanted somewhere dull.

At last he’s found a place that fits the bill –

Enjoying perfect boredom up in Hull.’

Budgie Finds His Voice

From The Life and Songs of the Budgie by Jake Strugnell

God decided he was tired

Of his spinning toys.

They wobbled and grew still.

When the sun was lifted away

Like an orange lifted from a fruit-bowl

And darkness, blacker

Than an oil-slick,

Covered everything forever

And the last ear left on earth

Lay on the beach

Deaf as a shell

And the land froze

And the seas froze

‘Who’s a pretty boy then?’ Budgie cried.

Usquebaugh

Deft, practised, eager,

Your fingers twist the metal cap.

Late into the moth-infested night

We listen to soft scrapings

Of bottle-top on ridged glass,

The plash and glug of amber liquid

Streaming into tumblers, inches deep.

Life-water. Fire-tanged

Hard-stuff. Gallons of it,

Sipped and swigged and swallowed.

Whiskey: its terse vowels belie

The slow fuddling and mellowing,

Our guttural speech slurring

Unto warm, thick blather,

The pie-eyed, slug-witted slump

Into soused oblivion –

And the awakening. I long

For pure, cold water as the pump

Creaks in the yard. A bucket

Clatters to the ground. Is agony.

The Lavatory Attendant

I counted two and seventy stenches

All well defined and several stinks!

Coleridge

Slumped on a chair, his body is an S

That wants to be a minus sign.

His face is overripe Wensleydale

Going blue at the edges.

In overalls of sacerdotal white