Childrens Games
Written by ?
And its always just like that.You have to swallow a piece of gum or a part of a clock
and not be seen to be sick or bothered -
or wallop a wild cat with a dead dogs leg and if it scratches you
and you get rabies you have to cross yourself six times
behind the priests back and then you’ll live for ever. Maybe.
And then you have to
nick half a coconut from the fair
AND spit on the shadow of the man who
does the waltzers whose wife has a beard and sits in the tent
telling fortunes where if you hear what she’s said, even one word –
you’ll grow an extra foot , or an extra arm, - or both
and you’ll be like old Crutchy Miller that lost his with the gangrene.
And its always just like that.
And then you have to
touch the mad nun’s skirt and run quick as hell
past Jimmy the Tramp who used to be a dartsplayer
until the slings and arrows of the world got to him -
just like mam says they got to Dad.
And its always, always , just like that.
Then.
You have to run away from home and live rough in
a tent on the big skip where people say
there once was a murder, and then you have to breeze back
in at home and ask ”So - what’s for tea ? “- and not cry if
they didn’t even notice you was gone.
Then.
You have to walk real calm and lay your head down
like a Sunday offering on the railway-lines –
and leave it there, and leave it there, and leave it there – until
someone with ginger hair and muddy trousers goes past
( and its got to be BOTH , just one doesn’t count) –
and they shout “Hey Mad Nellie One Eye - get yourself home
your tea’s on’t table fresh from’t chippie. And – is it true they’ve
taken back your telly ?”
And then you’ve got to run all’t way home and unless – and only IF -
your mam’s dead, not tell anyone that you’ve locked your cousin
in her dad’s alottment shed.
BUT - if you’re mam’s dead -
you can let on after tea.
And its always, always, just like that.
And IF they ask,
and even if you’re not scared like Jimmy Cagney wasn’t in that film
where his friend the priest begs him and all –
and he dies pretending to squirm and be a rat -
don’t let on about none of it.
Except if absolutely EVERYONE in the world is dead.
And then you can only own up to the coconut.