I’ve forgotten when I first read

books about John and Mary,

The Happy Train or Let’s Learn To Read

but I remember the comics

dad bought home each Saturday afternoon

from work. Bundled in his arms were

Beano, Dandy, Eagle, Hotspur, Look & Learn

and I’d devour them one at a time

and no one stopped me.

I loved the strips: Corporal Clott,

Desperate Dan, Dan...

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This is one of the things I wanted to write about:

back in March 1975 when I was randy and 22

I had to go into hospital to be circumcised because

my foreskin bled when my penis grew and blew.

As to the operation I can’t remember anything.

When I blearily came too I looked at my bird,

my disco stick, my ding-a-ling, my joystick,

my middle-leg, my rod, my willie, my wood.

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At nine Steve looks at me and says we may as well begin

and as I was the only one so far signed up to read that night

make my way to the gloomy stage between rows of empty

chairs and empty tables to a lone microphone that haunts

a threadbare carpet.

You start, I’ll round up a few more people. Steve disappears

downstairs to an indistinct moan of voices, clink of glasses,

s...

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