It’s the song you used to sing about potatoes, Brother.
It’s the wall up which you drove me when you did.
It’s the little car you got me for my birthday.
It’s a shame I came to find it
in the drawer before my birthday
on account of it was rather poorly hid.
Brother, we stood at the top of the town
and surveying your trousers of brown,
I said I had never before had the joy
of seeing you trousered in corduroy.
You said, ‘You have now!’
Thinking backwards, when you were a boy,
didn’t you have a windcheater made of the same?
In those days when you showed me the way to take aim
with a pea and a peashooter?
Those days of the bedroom we shared,
when your socks filled my nostrils
and I would object ‘Will you stick them outside of the door
and not stinking near me on the floor?’
And then one day you acted the swine
and while I was sleeping, you placed your socks under my pillow
to give me a shock when I woke on the morrow.
Those days of the comics we eagerly spread
the comics that crossed the ravine
that was in-between your bed and mine
and dad would come in
and draw open the curtains
and in came the flame of the sunshine.
The colours which patterned those curtains of boyhood
are colours I cannot recall,
but what was depicted on that bedroom wallpaper’s clear in my knowing:
A rowing boat, over and over repeated
tied up in long grass by the shore
with an island a way off,
I wished to go out and explore.
I am rowing there now
cutting through waves like I’m driving a plough.
I arrive at the land
and I stand in the sand
and then Mum helps me tie up my boat
and Dad is about
he is dressed as a Scout
And he says to me, ‘Here is a groat.’
Joan of Arc joins us
and so does the bark of the dog she calls Johann Sebastian.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she says – ‘Nowhere to park.’
I tell her, ‘Your armour is covered in rust.’
Joan says, ‘Quite honestly, I should be dust.’
How she’s learned English it isn’t discussed.
She’s holding the dog-lead and also a pebble,
the pebble she throws at the flood
and the dog paddles out through the watery spread
and comes back from the wet with a spud.
There’s some kind of kiosk,
there’s Dad at the counter,
he says he is ready for trade.
The briny it couldn’t be calmer.
Mum says, ‘An old suit of armour, I dreamed of,
to have there, upgrading the hall,
but a shiny barometer’s all that we had
that and the hat that went over the face
of your daddy who went out to work in the world
with his arm curled around his attaché case.’
I cannot hear Mummy so well,
because I’ve got my ear to a shell.
A Roman comes by,
he is ancient and I
say, ‘Do sit in this chair if you wish.’
The Roman relaxes, forgets about taxes,
one more of Joan’s pebbles goes splish.
The Roman is dressed in unusual gear,
on his head is some bread just a crust.
‘Time is the ogre’ he says in his toga,
his knowledge of English, it isn’t discussed.
And Mum says, ‘You should wear a hat or a hanky
or maybe a spotty cravat.’
The Roman nods off in the deckchair
and I think, ‘So what sort of gratitude’s that?’
The wind’s in the palms of the trees.
I ask Dad for a bread roll with cheese,
if possible, sliced and not grated.
Dad said, ‘You didn’t say please.
Though, in fairness, you dropped to your knees.’
He hands me a bread roll with cheese,
grated, not sliced
but it’s ever so reasonably priced.
All that it costs is a groat
and Mum says to check on my boat.
I’m unable to hear her too well,
because I’ve got my ear to a shell.
Mum says, ‘You don’t need a shell
when you’re standing right next to the swell of the ocean.’
And Dad says, ‘Your mother is right.’
And they sing and their harmony’s tight.
And it’s out on the ocean
together they tread
and they head for the distance
dancing, elated,
distributing bread
to the birds of the ocean with words of delight.
with a pair of false ears,
I think it is time I was going.
I get in my boat and start rowing.
I go over the watery spread,
back to our bedroom and back into bed.
Back from the sand and the rocks.
Back from the world beyond distance and clocks
and back to the stink of your horrible socks.
Brother, without both our mother and father
I just don’t know where I would be.
It’s just as well I’m in possession of parents
and both of them live
in my poetry.
