Strugnell’s entry for the Arvon/Observer Poetry Competition 1980. The competition was judged by Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney and Charles Causley.
God tried to teach Mouse how to sing.
‘Piss off! I’m not the sort.’
Mouse squelched away across the bog.
‘It’s jolly cold,’ he thought.
Stone-numb, Mouse watched the ice-bright stars,
Decided they were boring.
Cradled in roots and sodden turf,
Soon he was jolly snoring.
Mouse dreamed a Universe of Blood,
He dreamed a shabby room,
He dreamed a dank hole in the earth,
(Back to the jolly womb).
Mouse tried to vomit up his guts
Then got up for a pee.
A comet pulsed across the sky –
He didn’t jolly see.