UPON LEARNING

1

Hutchinson bespectacled gossip thug
befriended Marston well-off smug
who was quite certain he’d not fail
until he felt Hutchinson’s gang betrayal.
H was a very nasty bloke
he had a unique crooked cock.

Pritchard knuckle-jointed lopes
athletic Downs,
through cold bath fields
a solitary cell
the three mile run.

Henry’s boiling
face at tea, mormals
leaking yellow holes all over
noli me tangere grumbling
about the slogs we ate,
through the gullet soft and sweet.

Upon the Dog Lane air-raid shelter
duck’s-arsed Coates
virgate with Mary lies.
Henry yearns,
I wish thou had my cullions
in thy hand.
Her pity makes him
hunch over his plate,
red-knobbed he
chases Pritchard
the five mile run.

2

Awake my soul and with the sun,
St Peter’s frozen numb
hours intoning Magnificat Te Deum,
eternal father strong to save
all our weakness thou dost know
re-clothe us in our rightful mind
forgive our foolish ways,
in cold nave knives cut pews.                                                                                                     

Then pilliwinks
upon the Down’s soft
butterflied encampments.
Robson, North initiate
typewriter throwing off
the edge fat Preston
jealous poor enshrined
in dog’s turd.

One night the revenant Williams
sermon, ‘Leaving School’,
with his companions
down close darkening lanes
they sang their way.
In the turret classroom crammed,
cone of silver poured
on a wall, one hundred eyes
learn glamorous blessed by
defeat Tobruk.

3

Purver biked off into the night
and ended up in Lewes Court.
To be himself he went whole hog
snouting Lewes public bog.
Luker’s fat boyish purple face
describes cloaca vent of Plaice.

Scragg said arse not ass,
hunched ancient suggesting to
ten tremblers under hammer beams,
the ghost of Saint Cuthman
walks sometimes ..
                                                                                            
The nun an oak
fell on her room
impaling shaft,
Saint Cuthman cursed
when workers laughed
at him and barrowed Mum
where weeds still grew
and dreamers clung
the cold sweat melting
on their limbs.

Lights-out stories heat
our icy slits and captains at eighteen
come up switch on the light
administer the
split broomstick against
the laundry basket where
Matron piled our yellow
sticky linen.

Paunched by cancer
cure Coates saw her
shriven face.
She found Butter’s bed
all wet one night,
we’d done it they
came up, Butter’s
soggy prepuce.

4

Emery blonde wing
slant to the right
knock-kneed otherwise
cursive crashed
a Lancia in flames,
reported his
Persian cousin
languid tactile,
words loosen
her bodice
veils of
myth half-hidden
like a mermaid.

Slippery Irish
rivulet Kathleen,
from the kitchen
a delicacy
out of purdah,
in an old barn
sequestered
cow shit also
sole occupants in winter
of glass house and
iron chair
above the groynes.

Trees and flowers
filled the Castle moat
where we saw
a ferret grind
a crow’s head
walking back.