John Hegley performs live in venues all over Britain. He has appeared on television and radio and his poems have been featured regularly in the Guardian. He has published twelve volumes of poetry, including the popular My Dog is a Carrot, and Uncut Confetti.
with drawings largely by the author
A complete catalogue record for this book can be obtained
from the British Library on request
The right of John Hegley to be identified as the author of
this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Copyright © 2012 John Hegley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
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or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
First published in 2012 by Serpent’s Tail,
an imprint of Profile Books Ltd
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
London EC1R 0JH
website: www.serpentstail.com
ISBN 978 1 84668 898 0
eISBN 978 1 84765 873 9
Designed and typeset by sue@lambledesign.demon.co.uk
Printed by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Acknowledgements
An alien address
Defoe and de friendly Finnish
Bob a job
Many happy returns
At a reading in Rotherham library
An ending of the re-offending
Dear Earwig
Art appreciation
Pablo and Georges squaring up
Paris 1904
Let us play
I have at home…
Paris 1922
Being is believing
Steam shipped
Rothko
1930 on the tram, New York
Seaside fun, 1931
Down to work
Sister
Verse inspired by Dad’s painting of La Rue de la Providence
Mike’s Muse, Luton versus Preston
Whipps Cross Hospital, 3rd January ’45
Donor poem
An anatomy of injury
Dear Sis
XXX
Quackers
The last Skimpot Flyer
Extravagance
Taking out the ‘in it’ and putting ‘innit’ in it
On the 9.30 to Newcastle
A show for my sister
Postage stamps
My dear grandchild
More Angie Boo
French Grandma visits English bungalow
Mental
My dearest grandchild
Sooty, or the bird that reminded me of my French Grandma
My dear grandchild
At the pictures
Sent
Osmosis – no
Another one for Eve to mark out of 10 on a Post-it note
A. J. Curtis and the fish
Dear Glad
Borrowing the brother-in-law’s wheelbarrow
Straightening a record
Keeping Mummy
Dear grandchild
Dear Grandma
Aurangzeb and his dad
Alternatives to losing your temper
Delighting the Daleks
Out on the buses
Dad bus chat 1973
Dear Dad
The bus is more us with a crew
Medusa the loser
Woolly snake
The woollen horse of Halifax
Morris
At a public reading by an English hero
The steps of the British Library
A chat not far from Stamford Hill
Keep your receipts, Mister Keats
To Mr John Keats
Dear John Keats
Kilburn, April 2012
Tupuna
Worries and beauties
Art in Melbourne
10 December 2007
A letter from Giacometti to the subject of his narrow sculpture
Mister Giacometti’s…
Dear Mum and Dad
A plane-speaking man, my brother
Riddles
Keeping Mum and Dad
Peace, love and potatoes
Beach of promise
‘An Alien Address’ was originally written as an exposition to aliens about human modes of transport for Mel Brimfield’s show at The Collective, Edinburgh. ‘An Anatomy of Injury’ was for a collection of performances with anatomical connections, curated by Clod Ensemble. ‘Morris’ and ‘Mike’s Muse’ were originally published on Guardian Online. ‘An ending of the reoffending’, ‘The Last Skimpot Flyer’, and ‘Art in Melbourne’ appeared in The Iron Book of New Humorous Verse, and an earlier version of ‘Another Poem for Eve to Mark Out of Ten’ appeared in The Ropes.
‘Blood Donor’ was composed in the nineties for a campaign encouraging the giving of blood. ‘Alternatives to losing your temper’ was written and performed at a forum on domestic violence at the Quad in Derby. ‘Let Us Play’ was a Valentine’s card commission for The Engine House Museum in Rotherhithe.
The Dickens poem was a response to a call for writings about the great author for the collection A Mutual Friend. Jake Arnott, it was, who told me of audiences asking Mr Dickens not to tell his tale of Nancy. ‘Keeping Mummy’ first appeared in the magazine Magma, the poetry hotbed. The John Keats pieces came out of a residency at Keats House in Hampstead.
My gratitude to editors Lisa Owens and Ruthie Petrie, to Sam Humphreys who originally commissioned the volume, and to Robert Kirby, my literary agent, who found the book this home at Serpent’s Tail.
The volume’s title acknowledges the fine, sane song by Nick Lowe, ‘(What’s so funny about) peace, love and understanding?’. And thank you to Andy Ching, Vicky Hueber, Pat Pickles, Anne Edyvean, Eleanor Moreton and Pam Brabants on the Kiwi side. And I’ll think of more… Keith Moore, for one.
Do you have bendy buses
or are you jet-propelled?
Do you have those things on tube trains,
to be held onto when it’s crowded,
I don’t know what they’re called?
How much is there in your world, that you haven’t got a name for?
Is it the stars you aim for?
Do you ever get appalled,
when your brand new central heating has been shoddily installed
by a bunch of cowboys?
Are you green, are you translucent,
do you have any pets?
Do you have mental illness
or menthol cigarettes?
Do you ever feel you don’t fit in with all the rest?
Do you feel like an outsider,
like a money spider in a nest
of penniless termites?
Do you ever say ‘To be honest’?
Do you ever say ‘For my sins’?
Or are truthfulness and repentance where another world begins?
Do your bins get emptied on a Tuesday?
Do you have three-legged races
you can compete in on your own?
Do you have stripy deck chairs that get wind blown
when they’re vacant?
Is there anybody out there?
Have you got ears for this?
Have you got liver tablets,
or the equivalent of Bristol?
Do you wear a pair of glasses, for maybe you have eyes?
Do you start off as a baby and then increase in size,
but lose your sense of wonderment in the process?
Do you ever get on a crowded train
and have to put your luggage in the vestibule
and do you ever sit in the seat nearest the door
so you can keep an eye on it
and then more people get on
and you have to stand up and say
‘Excuse me, but could you move out of the way, please,
I cannot see my luggage’?
My dad read me Robinson Crusoe.
The book cost a couple of bob,
and Bob was the name of my father,
in the home and the clerical job.
Crusoe – adventure’s main crony,
the impression that alien made
making the most of the island
in his customised stockade.
Those nights of that bedroom retelling
Robinson Crusoe, the bold
with me and my dad, glad to know him
enthralled as we hauled up our gold
from the chest that my father would open:
the book he would look at and hold.
The Moomins, I share with my daughter.
We’ve room for their busy and joke.
They live in a world that is distant,
even the grumpier ‘Groke’
has its endearing features.
The creatures are all co-existent.
They get on with separate lives.
And even when there is a conflict,
the pen of the author contrives
a reasonable resolution,
at least in the stories we’ve read:
a peaceable stand-off of some sort, a remembering
that the world is never short of incredible.
If the Moomins met Robinson Crusoe,
perhaps they could help him to see
that not every threat to your world picture
is an enemy.
My dad he was Bob in the office, René is the way he began,
but René didn’t stay, he got hidden away and England knew a different man.
His French would have been so much busier,
if he’d spent his life in Tunisia.
It’s not that my father was living a lie,
‘Bob’ made it easier for him getting by.
His mum being a dancer with the Folies Bergère
it was something he didn’t disclose,
the only thing we had that was French in our pad, apart from our dad,
was the windows.
Bob, he was so undercover he didn’t even let himself know.
My dad had a secret identity in the manner of a Superhero.
Bob in the office and Bob in the tie.
It just made it easier for him getting by.
Bob said goodbye to the onions and brie,
the tongue of his mother, it wasn’t to be.
He was fluent, but truant, eventually,
but I remember way back when he sang ‘Frère Jacques’ to me.
My dad he was Bob in the office
but, earlier on in his life,
René is the name that he dug into the bench
in Paris, with his penknife.
And not Bob.
On fifty years of Luton Central Library
Friday afternoon.
School holiday in the summer.
In town.
Mum in the shops,
my sister Angela and I
under the shelf-life spell of the spines.
Each of us, hunting down our permitted quartet of titles.
Angie-Boo is a Doctor Doolittle fan
and we both want Billy Bunter.
Alongside the vitals, we’ll take a punt on an unknown
to bolster our under-arm holdings.
I strike gold, as I add to my hoard
Marianne Dreams and Ian Serrailier’s Silver Sword.
As we delve shelve-wise
we’ll chance upon each other in an aisle
and then resume our searching.
in amongst the upright-tightly-lined-along-and-clearly-indexed
perching.
And with our gathered-up pilings
we get sat at a Readers’ table
and in amongst the low-slung voices,
we dive into our choices