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Part
'2' INNOCENCE
Mother
struggled with
our birth while
Christie [1]
was killing
in Rilling
ton
Place...
First memories
slippery as slugs
tiptoeing like vague
silhouettes of shadows
a tortoiseshell cat as big as me
under the woollen table cloth's
shade
lino... cold and worn
and coloured blocks
on a tin truck
the box above the
open hearth that sang
and
somehow
a depth of
sadness
came from it
too
and
everyone sat silent
as the word
Hiroshima
seeped into
my [2]
undeveloped brain
Riotous Saturdays;
pubs closed
an' singin'
-in-the-lane
on Jack Crick's shoulders
as he wades through
knee - deep
moon
- stained
snow
then... everyone stops talkin'
about
aliens [3]
and begin dancin':-
feet
flyin'
hokey
cokeying
past the V of that
woollen table-
cloth
{with me beneath... laffin...
*...and yer left leg's in Auntie
Scag... an' i can see yer
pale pink knickers...*}
Crates piled high by
the pantry door and
either side
of the hearth close by.
Reaching out to purloin
a Mackeson
(cos
it's 'good for u')
and laughing at
'Brother Sylvest'
[#~who has a punch
that could sink a battleship~
big ship !~#] [4]
which booms bass as tin-legged
war-hero
Uncle
Archie
swings mum high by
the gas
mantle's
gentle
hissssssss
sssss sss s
slate grey slabs
and cobbles mingle
either
side
of a gutter where
RugMat
the whippet
drinks
and the sun
struggles to creep
down into
the narrowness
touches briefly
a brass tap...
the curled wrought
iron mangle with
its yellowed
and splintered
wood
rollers
at the
wall's
dead ||
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and where
a boy of five ~~~ bare-foot
[red-hair
short
back-and-sides
ruffled]
sits on a
s*a*n*d -stone step
inhaling the scent
of poverty
reading the cartoon
strips in the Daily Sketch
sport's page reveals Russian Hero
Wins The
National [5]
(and Mum had 6d e.w. on it
tinned salmon for tea)
Shelley [mother of
a thousand kittens]
lies close by,
squints skywards
purrs like the coal-black
kettle on the leaded
grate and
rolls her rows
of soft pink nipples to the warmth
of his ab~sent
out~stretched hand
[~...and, on the flicks, at
The Plaza,
a fat-man on a ferris
wheel
is talkin' about
Cuckoo Clocks...~] [6]
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[1]The mass killer Reginald Christie began his series of murders in
1944
t his home in 10 Rillinton Place London.
[2]August 6, 1945. Atomic bomb dropped on the city of Hiroshima.
[3]In 1947, the most publicised
and best known of alleged 'alien' crashes
appened close to Roswell Air Force Base.
[4]Popular music-hall song in the1940's; 'I have a brother, Sylvest/ He's
ot a row of forty medals on his chest/ It takes all
the army and the navy/
o put the wind up Sylvest/ He's got an arm, like a
leg, a lady's leg/ And a
unch that could sink a battleship...etc.'
[5]Russian Hero won the Grand National at Aintree at 66/1 in 1949.
[6]Orson Welles' film; 'The Third Man'
released in 1949.
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